Week in Review: Excellence Award winners | Texting & teens’ oral health | Electronic payments

Dear DrBicuspid Member, We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2018 Dental Excellence Awards. Please join us in honoring the best new products in dentistry in 11 different categories. Also this week on HuangshanDental.com, we took a look at two key aspects of practice management: patient communication and billing. Do you have many teenage patients in your practice? If you want to encourage them to brush and floss

Ending fluoridation linked to more caries, higher costs

Ending community water fluoridation (CWF) may have long-lasting oral health and financial consequences. Researchers found the number of caries treatments and their associated Medicaid costs soared after officials in Juneau, AK, opted to stop adding fluoride to the city’s water supply. The effect on caries incidence and treatment costs were most pronounced for the city’s youngest children, who grew up without ever having access to optimally fluoridated tap water. The

Congratulations to DrBicuspid.com’s 2018 Dental Excellence Award winners

HuangshanDental.com is pleased to announce the winners of the 2018 Dental Excellence Awards, honoring the best new products and services in dentistry. Voted on exclusively by HuangshanDental.com readers, the awards showcase those products and services that dentists and dental team members have chosen to provide better patient care and greater practice efficiency. Nominees in the 11 categories were introduced to the U.S. market between October 1, 2017, and September 26,

Want to improve teens’ oral hygiene? Text them

If you want your teenage patients to brush and floss regularly, you may want to text them. In a new study, teenage orthodontics patients who received daily text reminders showed remarkably improved oral hygiene within a few weeks. The teenagers’ scores for bleeding, plaque, and gingival indexes improved with daily text reminders, and the teens also reported that the frequent texts were helpful, with some patients wanting even more frequent

Implant surgery company names 3 new VPs

Dental implant surgery company Neocis has appointed three new vice presidents. The company appointed Christopher Sells as its new vice president for sales and marketing, Erik Beuckelaers as its new vice president for finance and human resources, and Dennis Moses as its new vice president for engineering. The new vice presidents will report directly to company CEO Alon Mozes.

‘Hope for the future’ drives orthodontic decision-making

How do potential patients and their families make decisions about undergoing orthodontic treatment? The process can be complicated, in part because of the treatment’s expense and largely cosmetic status, as well as the involvement of mental health factors. Researchers interviewed orthodontic patients to learn more. The investigators conducted semistructured interviews with orthodontic patients and others involved the decision-making process. They found that responses fell into a number of categories, which

Anesthesia & Pain Management Insider: Vibrations and cold may ease kids’ injection pain

Dear Anesthesia & Pain Management Insider, For many children, seeing a long, silver needle headed for their mouth is one of the most fear-inducing parts of dentistry. But a bee-shaped distraction device may help ease this pain and anxiety, according to the findings of a new study. Read more on how this device uses vibration and cold to mask injection pain in our Insider Exclusive. Also in the Anesthesia &

Week in Review: Restorations & lasers | Kids’ tooth decay | New law adds oral health funding

Dear DrBicuspid Member, If you’ve added a laser to your practice’s armamentarium, you may be looking for new ways to incorporate it into patient treatment. Dr. Joshua Weintraub offers one such treatment example in his case report of a 67-year-old man found to have recurrent subgingival decay under an old composite restoration. Dr. Weintraub describes performing a gingivectomy and restoring the tooth using a laser for treatment. It’s a question dentists and

3Shape integrates with 3M ortho software

3Shape and 3M have announced a partnership that allows practitioners to use 3Shape’s scanner to digitally integrate with 3M’s Oral Care portal. 3Shape users who are planning treatment with 3M’s Clarity aligners can submit scans from the Trios scanner directly to the 3M Oral Care portal. The Trios scanner now integrates with more than 50 orthodontic and sleep device services, according to 3Shape.

Are periodontists where they’re needed? Yes and no

Where are the periodontists? As the number of people with periodontitis continues to increase in the U.S., are periodontal specialists located where they’re most needed? To find out, researchers examined the geographic proximity of periodontal offices throughout the U.S. to the homes of the people who need their care. Researchers examined the percentage of adults, in particular those with severe periodontitis, within various distances of a periodontist as well as

The Best Deals on Dental Implants in Los Algodones

If you are suffering from one or more missing teeth, then dental implants might be the right solution for you! These are metal posts that are surgically positioned to replace tooth roots. Once the procedure is finished, a tooth implant will have the same look, strength, and stability of a natural tooth and you won’t even feel the difference. With the proper care, dental implants can last a lifetime. How

Does CBCT top panoramic images for accuracy?

Is an image from a panoramic radiograph sufficient, or is a cone-beam CT image needed for an accurate diagnosis? Researchers asked residents in oral surgery and orthodontics this and other questions to measure imaging accuracy and more. Both sets of residents reported that they considered the CBCT images to be more accurate. The study was published in the International Journal of Implant Dentistry (December 2018, Vol. 4:37). “Overall diagnostic accuracy