Near the end of 1997 Zugumba had some extra money in the till and looked for
things to buy to bring the ol' tax bill down.  I convinced myself an
intra{*filter*}camera would be useful.

It is.

But not for the reasons the salespeople told me.  In fact, I hardly ever use
it for those reasons.  After a year of using it I figured that I had wasted
good money.  But not so.   I have found one great reason to have it (I'll
mention it later), but, if you are considering getting one (or many)
consider these factors:

1.  It wows patients (this isn't a lasting effect and, after a while, you
find you really don't have the time to show patients how it works).

2.  It makes patients think you are "keeping up" because you have a video
camera that looks inside their mouth (not a bad reason).

3.  Many people do NOT want to see the inside of their mouth (the
salespeople do not tell you this).

4.  Most people don't even know what they are looking at anyway.  I once
cleverly tricked a friend by focusing the camera on a picture of the surface
of Mars.  His reaction?  "Is that what the inside of my mouth looks like?!"
(I've often wondered how useful the intra{*filter*}camera would be to a
dermatologist:  imagine all the treatment you could persuade a person to
have done by blowing up skin pores so that they look like moon craters).

5.  They get dusty and need to be dusted.

7.  They are useful for documenting the occasional {*filter*}lesion you find
worthy of documenting with a picture (granted, a cheaper still photo could
do the same thing).

8.  They did help me once in documenting an insurance case which
unquestionably showed that the porcelain had fractured off of an old crown
(actually, the patient complained to her company's "human resources"
department and I think they were more persuasive than my picture).

9.  Kids love to see themselves on TV and love a hard copy to take home and
put on the refrigerator.

Number 9 is the most useful and important use I have for this device.  I
absolutely never use it (or need it) to inform a patient of the need for a
crown, bridge, or implant.  And if you want good looking "before and after"
photos for that beautiful cosmetic treatment you've done, stick with a good
35mm camera.  The quality is so much better.

(The title above is from a Beatles' song from The White Album).

It did, for about 30 seconds then I realized . . .

Talk about a gross out, I felt the bile rising when viewing my cracked
molar, you could see right down into the pulp cavity.

And to think the technician had to change channels from a perfectly
interesting documentary on the history channel to do this - BTW: TV's in
the room are WELL worth the expense, makes a dreary wait tollerable.

Sent via Deja.com http://www.***.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.

Wow!  What took you so long?  I bought my FUGI Dentacam in 1991.

BTW, I am waiting for delivery of new memory chips for it--second service
since new.

I find it is a great demonstration tool.  I like to grab the camera and
demonstrate the thinness of cuspal walls or whatever.  It doesn't convince
people to accept my treatment plans any better than without it.  It does
make my presentation of their problem a lot shorter.

The best thing to do with it is insurance pre-authorizations.  I have never
had restorative work refused by an insurance adjuster if I included a color
photo with it.  When I first got the machine, I had an insurance claim
reviewer (read dentist working for the insurance co) call me and ask what he
was looking at.  Apparently, he had no idea this technology existed.

Now I enjoy interfacing the camera with my clinical software and saving the
images to hard drive for use later.  It is nice to be able to display the
photos again weeks later while discussing a point with the patient.  Also,
its less expensive to print the image from my HP DeskJet than from my Sony
Mavigraph.

All this new technology makes dentistry a lot more fun!!!

Dr. Steve

W

Pre-authorizations?  I never do them.  Never.  They are a waste of time and
are not guarentees.  You can obtain the same info in 5 minutes by either
looking at the patient's benefit manual or calling the insurance company.  I
think the last pre-auth I did was about ten years ago (maybe longer).

Usually, "You need a crown." suffices.   I've never shown a patient a thin
cuspal wall.  I think if they trust you they follow your recommendations.
No up-close pics needed to prove you aren't pulling their legs.

I tell you this:  this was my first and last intra-{*filter*}camera.  When it
doesn't take pictures of kids anymore then it won't be replaced.

I happened to like it a lot when I had a few "weird" spots I could
feel with my tongue, but couldn't describe to the hygenist.  It was a
great calm to me to find out that what felt like a botched filling or
crack was nothing more than a slight ridge of amalgam.

I would still be freaked out if it wasn't for the camera.  

It also helped when the hygenist took a few quick pics for the dentist
and I to talk about with her on a front tooth restoration I'm
considering.

Jon

On 02 Jun 1999 14:28:47 PDT, "Zugumba"

My office is 1 block from a school and two of the Kindergarden teachers are
patients. Every year we bring 4 classes (morning and afternoon) of kids
through and show them what a cleaning is and how I do fillings (on a
typodont). The highlight of the tour is when I use the full face attachment
and 16 picture mode to put all six{*filter*} of their smiles on a picture to take
back to the class...

I also rarely use it otherwise. It is very good addtional documentation for
cracked tooth syndrome cases when I do a crown but the pa only shows a
simple one or two surface restoration. I rarely get turned down by insurance
companies any more.

jim margarit