A bit of an update on the periscope. So far everything is good. The training took about two months with the hygenists doing 2 -3 patients a week. If they could have done more per week , I believe the learning curve would have been less. That would have been tough for us to do. Since I have 3 hygenist we were doing 9 perioscope patients a week. I gave them 2 hours per patient. That is 18 hrs of production gone! We did charge the patients during this training phase but not enough to cover cost. I also went against the trainer advise. She advised to only start on single rooted teeth. I started them on molars. I told them to think of it as just single roots stuck together. The hard part in the training was not the use of the perioscope or working with both hands while viewing a monitor. The hard part was getting the root surface clean. There is a reason this stuff is still there! The pexio with diamond tips works the best. It is just a different skill to learn.
There are problems. The hygenist can really only do a few sites at a time. By sites I mean like the mesial distal line angle. One tooth one site. At first it would take 4 appts for one tooth. Now they can do 3 or 4 sites depending on how tough they are. This makes it hard to determine the # of apptments needed with the perioscope. You really do not know until you get in there. Patients want to know the cost up front. What we are doing is buliding in a set # of scope appts on a new patient that would need full mouth RPCs. Sort of working. With patient that have isolated sites ,it is pretty easy to judge the # of appts. Another problem is using the laser with these patients. First what a PIA Fl is. If the hygienst could use the laser , life would be easier. At times the granulation tissue makes it tough to see. USing the laser removes this and makes the job easier. I can do this for them sometimes but not often. I come in and use the laser after they are done. Another rub is sequencing. That is we do the RPC in four quads. At that time I use the Diode laser to start the every 7 day deal to remove the epithelial cells. Now we go back anywhere from 1 to 4 weeks and reenter the site with the perioscope. To me that is undoing what we have done to regain attchment. After the perioscope we restart the 7 day cycle again. It seems that it would be better to do the RPC and then do the perioscope. Then start the 7 day cycle. The problem is TIME ! That is too much for a patient to sit through and too hard for the hygienist.
Over all it has made the hygients better at what they do! That and they enjoy it. Sick group.
As far as results. It is working. The patients see what we are doing as they view the work on the screen. They buy into the home care easier. Does it do totaly away with SX? NO! I have done surgical cases with the scope. You will do better sx with it!
As far as ROI. To soon to say. It has only been two months that we have started charging. It is &#36375 per appt. The first month we did 11 and last month was 17. The patients have not balked at the fee.
I still cannot pull good images to show you what is going on. Working on that.
David
PS. Bob. I already thought about it. If I ask my wife for another laser, I am dead. She already knows I plan to get another hardtissue laser and a scope. The couch is just no fun!

In the last month I have been getting several private e-mails warning me that DentalView was going under. In some cases the e-mails had said DV had closed up thier doors.
None of this is true. What has happened is a new CEO has taken over. They have reorganize and are concentrating on taking care of the present user base.
This is good news as we us the Perioscope as an active part of our perio. program.

David