by ChyAnne Blouin, office manager at Coal City Dental Center
Challenge: X-rays don’t always provide the visual evidence to convince patients or insurance companies on the need for treatment.
Solution: CS 1500 intraoral camera
Benefits
Enhanced patient education
Increased case acceptance
Improved insurance company communications
Seamless integration
Higher priced products generate higher quality results, right? Not necessarily, and that’s what Coal City Dental Center discovered when it passed up the CS 1500 intraoral camera to buy a cordless version—with a higher price tag—from another company.
“We wanted to produce images that would help patients better understand their clinical situation,” said ChyAnne Blouin, office manager at Coal City Dental Center in Coal City, Illinois. “And insurance companies have begun to ask for images more frequently than X-rays now. Those were the main reasons for adding an intraoral camera to our practice.
What staff members ended up with, however, was a solution that didn’t satisfy either of those goals. Frequently, the cordless camera’s signal wouldn’t connect. When it did, the images were grainy and dark. “The quality we were looking for just wasn’t there,” said Blouin.
Practice owner Dr. Robin Trevison saw a positive review of the CS 1500 in a trade journal. Since her office was already a user of Carestream Dental technology with CS SoftDent practice management software, she decided the CS 1500 was worth a look. The camera met their expectations—and exceeded them by far.
“The CS 1500 has really boosted case acceptance,” said Blouin. “The ability to actually see decay or the inside of a tooth after prepping it is quite persuasive. A photo is so much more meaningful to a patient than an X-ray.”
It is for insurance companies, too, because Blouin says the images satisfy their inquiries. “If they question a procedure that they believe isn’t indicated from the X-ray, images from the CS 1500 provide the justification they need,” Blouin said.
Coal City Dental wanted to post before-and-after photos on its website and purchased a high-end photographer-style digital camera to capture the images. “The photos it generated were okay. But honestly the interior shots we had taken with the CS 1500 looked professionally done,” said Blouin. “So we began to use it instead.”
Another benefit was how easily the CS 1500 integrated with the current workflow. Coal City Dental was already using the
RVG 6100 and RVG 6200 intraoral sensors as well as a panoramic imaging system from Carestream Dental. “Everything integrates so nicely,” said Blouin. “You plug in your Carestream Dental product, and it just works. The images populate the chart in SoftDent without importing them. You can easily pull up the images and number the teeth.”
Since Coal City Dental’s experience with Carestream Dental has been such a positive one, it begs the question: why didn’t they purchase the CS 1500 in the first place? Blouin said, “The price is actually what held us back. We assumed the camera’s lower cost would translate into lower quality. But, in reality, we got the crystal-clear images we were looking for—just at an amazing value.”
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