Cerec faces new competition; IADR news; staff raises this year? Yes!

Dear DrBicuspid Member,

After nearly 20 years of dominating the intraoral scanner market, the Cerec system is beginning to face some competition. And it's taking the CAD/CAM market in a new direction.

Sirona has historically promoted Cerec as a combined intraoral scanner and mill that could expand a dental practice by allowing dentists to do what labs usually do. But several new players in this market are betting that most dentists don't want to go into the milling business and would rather send their digital impressions to a lab. Will the new approach prevail? Read more.

In clinical news, while bone regeneration -- in the form of grafting and guided tissue regeneration -- is not new to oral surgery, using a patient's stem cells to "seed" new dental tissue is. Now tissue engineers and craniofacial biologists around the world are working to sprout teeth from scratch too -- and they say success is only five to 10 years away. Read more.

In our Practice Management Community, a recent Journal of the American Dental Association study found that reimbursement rates are lower in areas where few insurance carriers are servicing a large population, resulting in less income for participating dentists. But at least one dental carrier is taking exception to the study's findings. Read more.

And Sheri Doniger, D.D.S., former editor of Woman Dentist Journal and Woman Dentist eJournal, argues that, despite the current economy and the impact it may be having on your practice, you should most definitely give your staff raises this year. Find out why here.

The economy was certainly on peoples' minds last week during the International Dental Show in Cologne, Germany -- and for the most part, the news was surprisingly good. Read more.

And speaking of meetings, be sure to check out our home page this week for daily coverage of the International Association for Dental Research conference taking place in Miami. Today's coverage includes a look at the challenges some dentists face when they participate in practice-based research networks and the many variables that can affect the outcomes of these studies.