As a dental professional, you have thousands of product choices from hundreds of brands available, and it takes a high level of skill to keep the supplies you need on hand without overbuying.
At Dental City our customers tell us one particularly challenging area is composite materials. There is an almost endless number of choices—which at face value is helpful for ensuring your patients get the product type best suited for their individual restorative needs. But in practice, can lead to excess inventory, wasted product, and overspending among other supply management and procedural challenges.
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This is where Universal Composites Come Into the Discussion
Unlike traditional composite materials that feature many individual shades that attempt to match the VITA shade guide, universal composites have only one or a limited number of shades to choose from for a restoration.
Single shade universal composites such as Omnichroma or Clearfil Majesty™ ES-2 Universal, match all VITA shades with one shade. Limited shade universal composites such as SimpliShade™ or 3M™ Filtek™ Universal, match the entire VITA range with a few shades. These are just some of the options available from Dental City.
By reducing the number of shades needed to match a patient case, universal composites can save your practice time, space, and money.
Universal composites can be used for both anterior and posterior restorations. In cases where darker substructure such as staining or discoloration of the preparation is present, the use of an opaque blocker or pink shade composite may be necessary to achieve desired results.
4 Major Benefits of Universal Composites
As noted above, universal composites are a fantastic option for practices that perform a high number of restorations but want to keep their supply inventory as streamlined as possible.
They can benefit your dental practice by:
- Reducing the number of composites needed on hand:
- Instead of keeping multiple shades of multiple composite brands on hand, you only need to one or two options available to match most patient needs. This eliminates the headache & hassle of managing many different composites and shades.
- Increasing efficiency and time savings:
- It’ll be faster to select the composite needed ahead of an appointment when there are limited choices (& single shade composites eliminate time spent shade matching altogether) —saving you time. Plus, it’ll be quicker to organize and inventory the reduced selection of composites you use.
- Reducing wasted material:
- With less material on hand, there will be less chance of needing to toss unused material that went past the expiration date—gone will be the days of purchasing a one-off shade that’s needed for only a few patients.
- Simplifying shade matching:
- a. No composite materials perfectly match the VITA shades—this can lead to a mismatched restoration once it is completed and cured. Universal composites utilize increased translucency to better match surrounding tooth structure, even over time and in varying types of light. Better matched restorations will lead to happier patients!
If you’ve yet to try universal composites, now is a great time to see how they can level up your practice’s restorative workflows via reduced inventory and time and money savings.
Shop Dental City’s current selection of Universal Composites today.
