Pearls for Your Practice: Visalys CemCore, Hoopla Retractor, and Call Intelligence

Visalys CemCore by Kettenbach

There are many multitalented people in our world. Ben Affleck, for example, is a great actor and director, his hit film Argo winning an Oscar for Best Picture in 2013. Or what about Dr. Dre? In addition to being one of the most influential hip-hop artists over the past 50 years, he also sold his company, Beats, for roughly three billion dollars. And we can't forget about this generation's poet laureate, Taylor Swift.

That said, dental products that can do more than one thing well are rare. One exceptional multifaceted tool is Visalys CemCore by Kettenbach Dental.

Visalys CemCore is a resin cement that doubles as a core buildup material. It is a dual-cure composite that flows well enough to work as a cement but also has enough body to work as a buildup. This perfect combination makes it a valuable product for a restorative dentist.

As a cement, it can be used for basic restorations like single crowns made from any material (gold, PFM, zirconia, glass ceramics) or more complicated restorations like veneers and resin bonded bridges. It comes in five different shades (bleach, universal, translucent, dark, and opaque), so using it in the anterior for esthetic restorations is no problem. It also has a matching paste for each shade, which can be used for veneers and anterior crowns.

Be sure to apply Visalys Restorative Primer to the intaglio of the restoration and apply Visalys Tooth Primer to the preparation when using this product in its cement form. This will yield a ceramic restoration that is well bonded with great retention.

If you use it as a core buildup, apply the Visalys Tooth Primer on the tooth structure you are bonding to. You can cure the material with your high-powered curing light, but if you are placing a deep core, let it fully dual-cure before proceeding with the next step. That should take around five minutes. Once the product is fully dual-cured, you can finish your preparation. Visalys CemCore preps well and does not promote bur gouging.

Overall, this is a great material to have around for difficult situations. How many times have you had a patient come in with an old crown that has come off along with the buildup? Even if the tooth has no caries, you'd need to cement the old crown and replace the core buildup at the same time. Visalys CemCore is the perfect material for these situations. Double to right center field for Kettenbach Dental!

Hoopla Retractor by Zyris

Isolation is always a hot button issue for dentists; we know what we were taught to use (and should be using), but we try to find alternatives because we don't like it.

Isolation is like dieting: we know we should be eating grilled chicken and broccoli every day, but we'd prefer to eat a cheeseburger. Rubber dams are like the grilled chicken and broccoli-especially for anterior teeth restorations.

Some rubber dams warrant floss ties and multiple modified clamps. While this looks great on Instagram, it is seldom practical in real private practices. We need easy, simple tools that can quickly and efficiently isolate anterior teeth. The Hoopla Retractor by Zyris is one of my go-to choices.

The Hoopla Retractor is a retractor that keeps the lips and cheeks out of the way for expediting anterior dentistry. They are single-use, disposable, and can be easily placed in the mouth. Unlike some other disposable retractors, these stay in place and pop in without a fight. As soon as one goes in, it immediately enhances the visibility of the anterior teeth and frees up my left hand.

The plastic used to make the Hoopla Retractor is firm enough to get good retraction, but flexible enough to be comfortable for patients. It is also biodegradable and BPA-free. By using this brand, we can be conscious of the environment and get great isolation for anterior teeth at the same time.Zyris is a company known for isolation; they have brought us revolutionary products like the Isolite and Isodry. While those products are life-changing for posterior procedures, they are much more difficult to use in the anterior. To me, the Hoopla Retractor rounds out Zyris's portfolio as THE isolation company. They now have a great solution for every tooth.You can purchase the Hoopla Retractor for an extremely reasonable price. A box of 10 is about $18, and when ordering in bulk, the per-use cost comes down. For example, an 80 pack runs roughly $1.65 per Hoopla. Inexpensive and effective? That's a winning combination! Triple to deep center field for Zyris!

Call Intelligence by Weave

What frustrates me as a dental practice owner is that I cannot be everywhere at once -I can't focus on dentistry or hygiene checks while staying updated on phone calls in my practice. It's an impossible push-pull.

Luckily, artificial intelligence can help with this dilemma by monitoring our phone calls so I can prep teeth. Thankfully, my phone service, Weave, has added this technology under the name Call Intelligence.I have been both a user and a fan of Weave for a long time. It is a VoIP phone system that allows your team to know who is calling-and when-while providing other vital information like when the caller's next recall is and other family members that might be on their account. Weave also helps with texting, appointment confirmation, birthday wishes, intraoffice chat, and more. Call Intelligence, their newest feature, tells you what's being said during phone calls coming to and from your office.

Call Intelligence also gives you written transcripts for every call. This can give you quick insights into how your patients are feeling so that the team can be better coached on handling the all-important phone calls.

When you log into Call Intelligence, it will give you a rundown of all the calls into your office by breaking them down into different categories based on patient sentiment, call type, and appointment type. This information is easy to digest and is categorized well. In fact, my office manager also looks at this data to better manage the other team members. Clicking on any area can provide more specific details for that category. If you want to hear all the calls with great patient sentiment, it's just a click away.

This system is great for a cursory check-in or taking a deeper dive into your front office phone calls.Call Intelligence is a premium add-on with Weave software and has helped me better understand what goes on in my practice. I love the idea of using AI to analyze massive amounts of information for quick, digestible data; even if you don't have the time to comb through every phone transcript in your practice, AI can. Solo home run down the left field line for Weave and Call Intelligence!