The American Dental Association (ADA) is expressing its pleasure that dental practices are “largely exempt” from new OSHA emergency temporary standard (ETS). In a video put out by the ADA president, Dr. Daniel J Klemmendson says the reason for this is “because of dentistry’s proven ability to practice safely through this pandemic.”

In a National News Release published on June 10^th, 2021, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced it will issue an ETS “to protect healthcare workers from contracting coronavirus.” A week later they filed it with the Office of the Federal Register and  the ETS became effective when it was published on June 21^st. Please go and read all of the components of the COVID-19 Healthcare ETS for yourself to determine the best course of action for you and your client’s business.

According to the ADA President, this new standard “requires substantial added infection controls in settings like hospitals and nursing homes.” However, since dentists and dental hygienists “took [the ADA’s interim guidance] to heart,” their infection rates were “far lower than other health care professionals.” Dr. Kelmmedson says that this data was provided to OSHA and White House officials, and they listened. That’s why dental practices “can go on providing excellent care to your patients without worrying that additional federal regulations will be burdensome to your practice.”

While communicating the great news that dentistry is largely exempt from OSHA’s new ETS, the ADA President did note that there are “provisions of the new regulation that [do] affect dental practices,” like continuing to screen patients before appointments. He also claims that, “in order to be exempt” you should be able to demonstrate that “you are doing your best to screen out known or suspected COVID positive patients.”

What do you think? Are you worried that any of these new federal regulations will be burdensome to your lab or its dentists? Please leave a comment below and let us know. We love hearing your feedback.

If you are searching for the best dental lab management software, Evolution may be a good fit for you. Please contact ABS for more information, or to schedule a live demo at a time of your convenience.

There is almost no aspect of managing a dental laboratory that is more important than speedy and reliable communications with their dentists. This practice is required to provide patients with the ultimate satisfaction in the products you provide, making it paramount for continued growth in your business.

Recently, The Journal of Dental Technology interviewed two dental lab industry experts who shared their experiences on setting “achievable expectations and build[ing] successful relationships through confident communication.” NADL members can read more about it in JDT’s May 2021 article, Communicate with Confidence.

Within the article, the subjects mention many of the well-known independent communication options, such as the, exploding-in-popularity, Zoom meeting and “email, phone, FaceTime, text, IM, live chat, etc.” While all of these options are great (not to mention, irreplaceable), there are even more options.

Some of those other communication options have the ability to be integrated within Atlanta Based Systems’ Evolution dental lab management software. Take our EvoDOCTOR Portal, for example. Your doctors can login to send notes and attach files to cases. They can also request pickups by local drivers and even live-chat with an online employee in your lab.

With ABS and Evolution, internal notifications and automated emails can be set up so that lab employees can be notified when dentists communicate through their portal. These automatic email templates for your dentists can also be triggered to let them know when the lab receives, reschedules or ships a case. The EvoDOCTOR Portal, integrated with your Evolution dental lab management software, could be used as an indispensable communication tool for your laboratory.

Also, with the new Digital Rx integration, your doctors can upload completed digital prescriptions directly to your lab. All they would need to do is login to their EvoDOCTOR Portal account and click on the link to fill out the prescription online. Once they’ve completed the form and added any notes or images, they would just upload that file to the case.

But wait, there’s more. Effective communications don’t stop with clients and lab administrators. Let’s not forget that there are other positions within the dental lab industry that need to be able to effectively communicate with members of your and your dentists’ teams. Take for instance your local drivers. They would certainly need to be notified if there has been a note added to a pickup request or any changes in deliveries or pickups on their routes. ABS has developed a fully-integrated mobile app solution for that, called EvoDRIVER.

What about your sales and customer service staff? In addition to the CRM within the ABS EvoDATA desktop application, we have also created a mobile CRM app called EvoSALES. This application gives your sales people (or customer service staff) the ability to add notes to accounts. There is even the ability to assign messages to specific lab members so they can receive instant notifications with the notes your EvoSALES users put into the system.

We, at Atlanta Based Systems, agree that effective communications are essential to the success of dental laboratories. What’s more? Evolution is capable of automated communications between the lab, its customers and employees. Even better, these automated communications can integrate directly with your dental lab management software. With Evolution, all of your communication needs are covered.

Please contact us if you are interested in learning more.