Glidewell: Partnering With Dentists for Comprehensive Patient Care
Behind every successful implant restoration is a great team, and a key part of that team is a consistent and dependable laboratory with affordable and predictable pricing. Glidewell Laboratories is that facility.
“Glidewell has one of the largest and most technologically advanced implant laboratories in the world,” says Neil I. Park, DMD, Director of Clinical Affairs.
Glidewell Laboratories, based in Newport Beach, California, is an industry-leading provider of high-quality dental laboratory products and services to dental professionals nationwide. Established in January 1970 by Jim Glidewell, CDT, the laboratory provides all phases of fixed and removable prosthetics, as well as manufacturing BruxZir Solid Zirconia and Obsidian ceramic products, dental implants, and prosthetic components.
“Our team here at Glidewell Laboratories has a great deal of experience in the implant industry, with many of us coming from the major implant manufacturers,” Park said.
Glidewell’s industry-leading Research and Development department includes a team of scientists, chemists, engineers, clinicians, certified dental technicians, and master dental technicians.
Park explains that Glidewell has also had a long-term relationship with Dr. Jack Hahn, the original designer of the first tapered implant, the Replace implant from Nobel Biocare. “When we had the opportunity to work with Dr. Hahn to design a new implant system, we were excited to do it because of his extensive experience. Dr. Hahn was clear about a number of things he wanted in an implant. He wanted it to be very successful in immediate placement situations—an area he pioneered as the ‘emergency implant.’ In order to have a stable and predictable result in a situation like that, you need an implant with an aggressive thread design that would be stable, because sometimes the path that the implant needs to take is different from where the root of the tooth was.”
The Hahn Tapered Implant System combines clinically proven features with contemporary innovation. Designed for general dentists to be simple, safe, and predictable, this advanced system is precisely engineered to meet the demands of modern implant dentistry.
“Anytime you change implant systems and bring a new system into your practice, there are a couple of challenges, such as the surgical kits and the restorative implementation,” Park says. “There is a barrier to entry, so we put together some packages that make it extremely easy for a doctor to realize the advantages of this new implant system without making a big investment.”
Glidewell’s Hahn Implant is a “very well-thought-out and simple implant system. It has a minimum number of instruments and minimum number of components, yet can treat all indications,” Park says.
Park notes that Glidewell, which doesn’t employ an outside sales team, prices the system affordably for doctors. “We do our sales through support of important educational institutes around the country, through our website, and through our telephone support team. Because that layer of costs has been eliminated, it allows us to pass those savings along to our dentist-customers.”
Glidewell’s long history in dentistry gives the company an advantage in understanding how to price its offerings. “We have successful relationships with so many doctors, so we have taken all the information that we have learned in implant cases,” says Park, “and set up a number of options. We package them as bundles that make it very, very easy for the doctor to predictably know what the individual case will cost them.”
In addition to working with Dr. Hahn, Glidewell has partnered with the Misch International Implant Institute, “which, by anyone’s reckoning, is the premier postgraduate implant institute in the world,” Park asserts. The institute, founded by Carl E. Misch, DDS, MDS, PhD(hc), chose the Hahn system as its official implant system.
“We are in a unique situation. We’re an implant manufacturer, and we are a dental laboratory. We are able to do something that I don’t think the industry has seen before. For example, for $475 you get a Hahn Tapered Implant, impression coping or scanning abutment, and the final custom abutment and BruxZir crown or a BruxZir screw-retained crown. Park says the firm price point makes it easier for the doctor to predict costs from implant surgery to final restoration, making the package essentially a turnkey operation.
Digital workflow is another way that Glidewell is extensively involved to help their dentist-clients.
“When a doctor adds a digital impression system to the practice, it can present challenges in incorporating the new workflow. What is needed is a partner that knows how to do this and gets it done for you in the most efficient and seamless way, and we have a great program at Glidewell Laboratories that does just that.”
Glidewell Laboratories
4141 MacArthur Blvd.
Newport Beach, CA 92660
800-854-7256
glidewelldental.com
