Setting up a squat practice can be an appealing opportunity, offering clinicians the freedom to build a business around their own values, special interests, choice of services and ideas about how they want the practice to operate. However, starting without an established patient base or inherited goodwill, combined with significant start-up costs, means income and expenditure do not align to begin with. This creates enormous pressure to establish cash flow, and makes it important for every surgery and treatment earn its keep.
Keeping treatment moving
Conventional treatment often involves impression-taking or scanning, followed by laboratory manufacture, a provisional restoration and a second appointment to fit the definitive restoration. Clinicians know that provisional restorations can sometimes fail, requiring an additional visit for re-cementation or remake while the laboratory completes the final prosthesis.
Choosing a laboratory also involves more than comparing fees. Practical considerations such as location, collection and delivery arrangements, turnaround times and ease of communication all matter, as does the working relationship between clinician and technician. A good laboratory needs to understand the clinician’s prescription in terms of fit, form, shade and characterisation. Where a laboratory is further away or work has to be posted rather than collected locally, turnaround times may be longer and communication less immediate. Impressions or models can also be lost or damaged in transit. These factors can create delays outside the practice’s control, disrupting schedules, postponing treatment completion and ultimately delaying payment.
Keeping treatment in-house
Advances in digital technology have made it possible to complete more stages of restorative treatment within the practice. Intra-oral scanning captures a detailed digital impression, removing the need for conventional impression materials and providing the data needed to design a restoration digitally. Computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacture (CAD/CAM) then allows that restoration to be designed on screen and produced on site using a milling or 3D-printing system.
This keeps far more of the restorative process under the clinician’s control. Rather than sending an impression or scan to a laboratory and waiting for manufacture and return, the practice can move directly from preparation and scanning to design and production, significantly reducing reliance on laboratory turnaround times and shortening the overall treatment process.[i]
Making every appointment count
Completing a restoration in a single visit rather than across two appointments reduces the number of clinical sessions that need to be scheduled and removes the time and cost associated with provisional restorations. Depending on the case, fabrication may involve waxing up the tooth, taking a physical impression, preparing the tooth, loading the impression with bis-acryl provisional material, trimming and polishing the restoration, cementing it and adjusting the occlusion. The impression matrix may then need to be disinfected and stored in case the patient returns with a fractured or lost provisional.
For a new practice, where chair time and cash flow are especially important, reducing the number of appointments helps treatment reach completion faster and allows payment to be received sooner.
The patient perspective
Patients generally do not enjoy repeated dental visits. Many are balancing work, childcare, travel and other commitments. Where treatment can be completed in a single visit, fewer appointments mean less disruption and a definitive restoration can be provided sooner.[ii] Digital impressions may also be more comfortable for patients than conventional impression materials.[iii] Efficient, comfortable dental treatment is immensely impressive to patients, and recommendations from satisfied patients can help a new practice grow quickly. A strong local reputation and word-of-mouth can also reduce reliance on costly advertising, helping a squat practice build its patient base without adding significantly to its early overheads.
Investing for growth
Equipment this sophisticated comes at a price and that cannot be overlooked. For a new practice, the question is whether the investment suits its treatment mix and projected demand. However, investing in technology that expands what can be delivered in-house can also increase capability as the patient base grows.
Chairside solutions
For squat practices considering chairside CAD/CAM, the Clark Dental team can advise on the equipment needed to support efficient restorative treatment from the outset. One option is CERECâ Primemill, a high-performance milling unit designed for the rapid chairside production of a wide range of restorations including inlays, onlays and crowns. In Super-Fast Milling mode, it can mill a zirconia crown in around five minutes, making it particularly well suited to single-visit dentistry.[iv] Clark Dental can help practices specify, install and integrate the system while also providing ongoing technical support as the practice develops, giving clinicians peace of mind and confidence in their investment.
Building a squat practice requires careful decisions about where to invest from day one. Where restorative dentistry forms an important part of the business, chairside CAD/CAM offers a way to keep more treatment in-house, make valuable clinical time work harder and support the practice through those crucial early stages.
For more information call Clark Dental on 01268 733 146, email info@clarkdental.co.uk or visit www.clarkdental.co.uk
Author: Stuart Clark, Chief Executive Officer at Clark Dental
[i] Mahato M, Hota S, Jain A, Dutta D, Bhushan P, Raut A, Bhusan P. Comparison of conventional and digital workflows in the fabrication of fixed prostheses: a systematic review. Cureus. 2024 Jun 5;16(6).
[ii] Abdulkarim LI, Alharamlah FS, Abubshait RM, Alotaibi DA, Abouonq AO, Alotaibi D, Abouonq A. Impact of digital workflow integration on fixed prosthodontics: a review of advances and clinical outcomes. Cureus. 2024 Oct 24;16(10).
[iii] Siqueira R, Galli M, Chen Z, Mendonça G, Meirelles L, Wang HL, Chan HL. Intraoral scanning reduces procedure time and improves patient comfort in fixed prosthodontics and implant dentistry: a systematic review. Clinical oral investigations. 2021 Dec;25(12):6517-31.
[iv] Clark Dental. CEREC Primemill. Available at: www.clarkdental.co.uk website. Accessed 19 August 2026.
