Putting patients' interests first

I was very interested to read your editorial in the October issue of Dental Update, as I have been an associate dentist with a dental corporate for a number of years. In early 2012, the corporate set up its own laboratory and encouraged its dentists to use this lab. This idea was promoted to us by highlighting their competitive prices and giving an initial extra 10% off lab fees. Having tried the lab for a few simple cases, I was not satisfied with the standard of the work or service, and so reverted to my usual trusted technicians. By all accounts, the laboratory had been set up in too much of a hurry, with too few qualified technicians, and was unable to cope with the volume of work suddenly coming its way. Over the following months, the corporate persistently tried to persuade us to use the laboratory, with personal visits from head office staff, promises that standards had improved, and assurances that my cases would be personally overseen by the lab director, so I continued to send a minority of cases, but with no discernible increase in quality or service. We were informed that the corporate for whom I worked planned to make it a contractual requirement to use its own laboratory for all laboratory work in 2013. I strongly raised concerns and protested against this, for the reasons highlighted in your article, with various members of the head office team, but was met with a complete unwillingness to negotiate. The company's managing director (a non-dentist) told me, in an open meeting, that I obviously had no idea what I was talking about when I raised concerns about the quality of the work, as he has ‘an experienced’ dentist in another practice who does lots of private work and has been pleased with the quality.