Optima Dental Spa is a dental group with 20+ locations across Washington and Oregon. The group was looking for a lab that could consistently support their case volume and accommodate a wide variety of cases, including clear aligners. They ultimately chose to partner with Dandy because of the high quality restorations, consistency, and impressive turnaround times.
Dr. Chantal Botros is a general dentist at Optima Dental Spa in Kirkland / Bellevue who specializes in restorative dentistry, cosmetic dentistry, and Botox and dermal fillers.
Prior to Dandy, Dr. Botros was using physical impressions for restorative work and working with a different clear aligner provider for ortho cases. She was hesitant to go 100% digital because she didn’t have experience with intraoral scanning for restorative work. However, with Dandy’s high-touch training, support, and the Aligner Mentorship Program, Dr. Botros completed nearly 100 fully digital cases, including crown & bridge, clear aligners, and partial dentures, within eight months since she got started in early 2022.
Going 100% digital forces you to get the hang of good digital scanning and then you start to reap the benefits of faster turnaround times, faster outcomes, and happier patients,” said Dr. Botros.
“The outcome with Dandy’s restorative work is very good compared to the previous lab that we had. The provided TRIOS scanners are excellent and are the best scanners I’ve ever used. They have very accurate imaging,” said Dr. Botros.
“Personally, I am loving Dandy’s Clear Aligners. I feel like there is a huge difference in comfort and predictability compared to other clear aligner providers.”
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Challenges
Before Dandy, Dr. Botros’s primary challenges were:
- Time-consuming physical impressions
- Unpredictable lab deliveries impacting patient scheduling
- Slow traditional lab turnaround times
- Low patient satisfaction related to painful aligners and poorly-fitted crowns
- Complex, tedious workflows
How Dandy helped
With Dandy, Dr. Botros has experienced:
- Faster turnaround times
- More efficient and simplified workflows
- Higher treatment acceptance
- Better patient outcomes
Before switching over to Dandy, Dr. Botros was creating physical impressions for her crown and bridge cases. The manual process often took upwards of 15-20 minutes and required two people. “Now, if there’s a bubble, you have to spend another 15 minutes to do the impression again,” said Botros. The cost of the additional chairtime, additional staff, and then needing to mail in the alginate impression to the lab creates inefficiencies. When time is money, these inefficiencies are expensive and impact your production.
Now that our assistants are trained to scan, we can overlap our appointments, because we can leave our assistants to scan while getting started on a new patient. Versus taking an impression where the doctor has to be present” said Dr. Botros.
Unpredictable turnaround times and delivery dates were also creating inefficiencies. Without predictable deliveries, scheduling became challenging and cases took longer to complete. “We would just submit the order and hope that it got back in time. Sometimes it didn’t, and then the patient got upset,” said Dr. Botros. “With Dandy, I get an exact estimated delivery date, the turnaround is super fast, and whatever date is stated in the portal…Dandy sticks with it.”
Botros has noticed that quicker turnaround times have increased case acceptance. “Patients are more willing to do the work because they can come back as soon as next week. A slam dunk delivery is a blessing because the patient is happy to be done and things are moving quickly.”
Botros has also seen more consistent restoration quality, fit, and design with digital workflows through Dandy. “Previously, we had a lot of issues with crowns – the way the margins were seated, the general design, and the shade. With Dandy, the scanner, and tools like the live scan reviews we get the best outcome. It’s a really handy tool,” said Botros.
Dandy has also improved Dr. Botros’s clear aligner workflow. With her previous provider workflows were very complex. After scanning her patient, she needed to (1) save the model, (2) upload the model, (3) take photographs, (4) email those photographs to herself, (5) and then upload the photographs.
“All of those steps were very annoying,” according to Dr. Botros “With Dandy, I can scan the patient right there and send it. I can get a QR code to scan with my phone and it automatically uploads the pictures in real time, goes over everything, and gives me an estimated delivery date.”
