Working with Mission dental practices.
Every stage a case spends outside the practice is a scheduling dependency. For a practice at distance, sequencing multi-visit work deliberately is what keeps treatment moving.
Count the handovers before you book
A straightforward case travels twice: the record out, the restoration back. A case with a framework try-in travels four times. One with a try-in and a bite verification travels six.
Each handover is a point at which the case is out of your control and the next appointment depends on its return. Booking those appointments as though they were independent is the most common cause of a treatment plan that keeps slipping.
Map the whole sequence before the first appointment, and book against it rather than a stage at a time.
Decide which stages are worth their cost
Some intermediate stages earn their place and some do not. A verification step on a full-arch implant case is worth the additional movement, because the alternative is a prosthesis that does not seat passively. A framework try-in on a straightforward three-unit bridge usually is not.
A biscuit-stage try-in on a demanding single anterior unit converts one high-risk delivery into two lower-risk appointments, which is frequently worth it. The same stage on a posterior molar is not.
Make the judgement case by case rather than adopting a blanket policy in either direction.
Tell patients the timeline honestly
Patients tolerate a long treatment they understood in advance. They do not tolerate one that keeps extending, and the difference is entirely in what they were told at the start.
Give a realistic number of visits and a realistic period, including the stages where the case is at the laboratory. If a case involves a provisional phase lasting weeks, say so, and explain what the provisional is doing rather than presenting it as a delay.
A patient who understands that the provisional phase is testing the plan will wear it carefully. One who believes it is a placeholder will not.
Have a mechanism for acting on notice
Early warning from a laboratory that a date is at risk is only useful if somebody at the practice acts on it.
That means a named person who checks case status against the appointment book, and who contacts the patient early rather than hoping the case arrives in time. A delay explained before the patient sets out is a minor inconvenience; the same delay discovered at reception is a complaint.
Ask the laboratory to tell you as soon as a date is at risk rather than only once it has passed.
Provisionals have to last the whole sequence
A case with several stages is out for longer in total, and the provisional has to hold position, contact, occlusion and tissue form throughout.
A provisional adequate for a fortnight becomes a liability over months: it debonds, wears through, allows adjacent teeth to drift, or irritates the tissue enough that the margin cannot be assessed cleanly at delivery.
Where a case is staged, plan the provisional to the actual timescale — usually a laboratory-made provisional in a tougher material rather than a chairside restoration asked to do more than it was built for.
Records that arrive complete keep the sequence intact
In a staged case, an incomplete record does not simply delay one step — it displaces every appointment after it.
The prescription should carry material, shade with the guide named, margin type, antagonist, the date you need it, and anything unusual about the case. For implant work, add the system, platform, connection and intended retention.
A case carrying all of that proceeds without interruption. A case missing one line may stop, and at distance a stopped case costs more than the missing information would have taken to write down.
Case movement
Cases travel by UPS and Purolator, and Fairmont works with practices throughout British Columbia and across Canada from the laboratory in Burnaby.
Plan around statutory holidays and closures at either end. Sending a week earlier costs nothing; discovering the compression afterwards does not.
A practice in Mission
We are well outside the Lower Mainland and it has never been a limitation. Cases arrive when we expect them and the communication is no different than if we were down the road. After many years working together, that consistency is what we value most.