CATEGORY 26 AUSTRALASIAN DENTIST INNOVATIONS used the shade guide correctly for teeth whitening, they notice their teeth have darkened. at moment should trigger an empathetic conversation about whether it concerns them and what is possible. Only then can a diagnostic question follow, not a product selection. What type of staining is this? Surface or structural? Recent or longstanding? at single question changes everything that follows, including the protocol, the expected timeline, and the conversation with the patient about what to realistically expect. What dentistry was never given e consequences of skipping this step and other teeth whitening variables show up quietly. A patient who receives a daytime hydrogen peroxide protocol for deep intrinsic staining will not get the outcome they were hoping for. A patient who is not provided with a desensitising program gives up halfway through. ere is no end of treatment review booked to see if expectations were met, and no maintenance plan mapped out for them. e practice notices that teeth whitening results are variable, starts searching for the next ingredient. e clinical team loses con dence in the treatment. And so they stop talking about it. e treatment that should be driving consistent outcomes is back sitting half-used on a shelf. None of that is a failure of skill or e ort. It is the absence of a clinical system that dentistry was simply never given. What changes when identification comes first Most practices do not start here. Tooth colour is not charted at recall; the shade guide sits in a drawer, and the conversation never begins because nobody opened it. Identi cation, simply knowing where a patient’s tooth colour sits against a clinical spectrum, is the step that makes everything else possible, and it is the one step most practices skip entirely. When identi cation becomes consistent, the clinical team has the information it needs to ask the right question before anything is prescribed. at question leads to diagnosis. Diagnosis leads to the right protocol. e treatment plan becomes a prescription rather than a guess, and the patient understands why their programme looks the way it does, because it was designed for their speci c presentation, not the one before them. Australian published data indicate that approximately 25% of adults have a concern about their tooth colour. A practice seeing fty adult patients a week has around six hundred of them across its patient base, with that concern already present and unaddressed. At $450 per case (Australian average take-home), building identi cation into the recall work ow can realistically generate $70,000++ per year from patients already walking through the door, sustained over several years, with no new patients, no advertising, and minimal chair time. e only variable is the system. Predictable outcomes build clinical con dence, and clinical con dence sustains the teeth whitening conversation at every recall, across every clinician in the practice. at is what a clinical system does that a product selection alone never can. If any of this sounds familiar, I would like to ask you one question. When was the last time a whitening outcome in your practice surprised you, and do you know why it went the way it did? Call or email me directly. Twenty minutes is enough to know whether your current protocol is costing you outcomes. 0416 629 015 stephen@boutiquewhitening.com.au Clinical reference: Van B. Haywood DMD, “Tray Tooth Bleaching: e Right ing at the Right Time,” Dental Practice Success, Spring 2016. American Dental Association. $49 +POST / GST Apply to be a partner practice visit boutiquewhitening.com.au/contact-us or email info@boutiquewhitening.com.au Boutique Whitening By Night • Practice branding and personalisation • Luxury patient gift bag • 4 x 3ml syringes (up to 20 treatments) • Whitening tray video • Patient instructions $49 +POST / GST Apply to be a partner practice visit boutiquewhitening.com.au/contact-us or email info@boutiquewhitening.com.au Boutique Whitening By Day • Practice branding and personalisation • Luxury patient gift bag • 4 x 3ml syringes (up to 20 treatments) • Whitening tray video • Patient instructions
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