How much?
- You take the impression, and there is a small bubble on the margin. If you retake it, your hour rate goes down, and your material costs go up.
- You are cutting an endo access. If you do a smaller access and preserve more tooth structure, it takes more time than if you cut a giant one. Your hourly rate decreases.
- You place rubber dam and it's not sealed properly due to incorrect sizing. If you replace it with a better one, your hourly rate decreases.
The sad fact is, that in every part of dentistry, taking time to do things right, reduces your income. It's like every day, a little man sits on our shoulder and tries to bribe us to cut corners.
When we graduate, we are not even half way to being competent. We are not really competent in dentistry for ten to fifteen years after we graduate. And all this training or experience is gained with almost no oversight. No one is looking over our shoulder to make sure we do a good job.
Yet every day of our career, that little man is there, telling us if we will just cut a little corner here, or there, he will increase our hourly rate, get us to lunch earlier, make us more popular, help us fit in with the insurance payments that we signed up to. The patient will be pleased with how quick the procedure was.
So how much will he need to bribe you today, to not retake that impression? Or not redo that matrix so it's properly sealed? Or to not use a little more anesthetic so the patient doesn't feel anything?
What's your price?
Have you ever felt pressure from management, patients, or others to cut corners?
