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Clinician Spotlight: Donn Mettens
Donn Mettens, DMD, MAGD, owns a private practice in Highland Heights, Kentucky that emphasizes comprehensive general dentistry, including implant placement and restorations. Our very own Tekscan account manager, Don Delgado, had a chance to talk to Dr. Mettens about his experience with T-Scan™ at the Midwest Implant Institute Symposium in August.
Q: What kind of results are you getting with T-Scan™?
A: "It didn’t take me too long to realize that it was something that I could use a lot in my practice and I went ahead and got a unit and hit the ground running with it. I’ve been busy with it ever since. That was in October of 2014. With symptomatic patients, our results have been extremely good. I would estimate that 95% of our patients who come in, who are symptomatic, get a significant or total relief after we do the adjustments using the T-Scan. It’s been better than I hoped it could be.
We had a gentleman with some typical TMD type muscle tenderness and he told me that his neck was sore in the mornings. We adjusted him, and the next time I saw him, he said, "Everything’s great. My headaches are gone. My jaw muscles feel good. My neck doesn’t hurt and that pain that I had shooting down my arm is gone."
I didn't know about the arm pain until after the fact, and would have never told him, "I’m going to fix the pain in your arm." But I have seen other things like that, and it continues to surprise me. We’ve had very few patients that have not gotten at least some relief. I’ve probably done at least 150 adjustments since I started using T-Scan."
Q: You were using traditional occlusal methods up until you got the T-Scan. What changed for you?
A: "T-Scan helped me see how inaccurate articulating paper is, even with my best efforts. I’ve gone back to patients that I had restored earlier, did a T-Scan on them, and found quite a few things that I could improve upon.
It has allowed me to open up a whole new area of my practice, as far as taking care of patients who were symptomatic and coming in with headaches, muscle pain, and neck aches. Patients are reporting excellent results. Some patients who were doing well with night guards elected to have an occlusal adjustment done with the T-Scan, and they have told me that it’s even better than the relief that they got wearing a night guard."
Q: In what ways are you using T-Scan clinically?
A: "If I’m doing a moderate to large restorative case, or even someone with two or three crowns, we will suggest to them that we do a T-Scan pre-treatment and get their occlusion where it should be, so that we’re putting the final restorations into a good situation. That goes for implant crowns, too. I can use the T-Scan and know that I’m being accurate and quantitative in the occlusion that’s being put on those implants. We also use T-Scan now for all of my denture patients. Their dentures are more retentive and it’s been received extremely well from patients with existing dentures that I’ve adjusted. They leave telling me that their occlusion and comfort of their dentures feels the best it has ever been.
I’ve got several classes of patients that I will use the T-Scan on – the biggest class would be the TMD, or patients with symptoms of pain and discomfort. I will also use it for patients who are destroying their bite. They have abfractions. They have recession where they shouldn’t. They’re breaking teeth. They’re flattening teeth out. They might not be symptomatic, (most of these patients aren’t), but we would at least present the T-Scan and the possibility of adjusting the occlusion just to decrease the occlusal induced destruction that they’re doing to their mouths."
Q: What would you say about investing in T-Scan and the return on your investment?
A: "First and foremost I'd say that it helps you practice better dentistry. When I looked at buying T-Scan, of course I wanted it to pay for itself, but I wasn't necessarily looking at something that was going to have a spectacular return on investment. I believe in my first six months with the T-Scan, we did almost a hundred scans and I probably did over 80 adjustments. We charge a minimal amount for a scan: $45.00. We explain to patients that there is no insurance coverage for this, that it's going to be out-of-pocket. Hardly anyone has turned us down if I tell them they're a candidate to have a T-Scan. We charge $550.00 for occlusal adjustments and I have gotten to the point now where I can get an adjustment finished in 30 to 40 minutes.
Again, as far as the return on investment, it's been a definite "icing on the cake." I bought it to increase the level of care that I could provide for my patients. It's opened up so much opportunity. At first, I was having trouble fitting in all the patients that we needed to scan and do occlusal adjustments on! I now use T-Scan 5-10 times per week routinely. I have so many grateful, appreciative patients, I just could never give up the T-Scan."
Dr. Mettens is a 1983 graduate of University of Kentucky College of Dentistry and after that, completed a one-year General Practice Residency, followed by a one-year fellowship in Advanced General Dentistry at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. He is a Master in the Academy of General Dentistry and did a lengthy internship in implant dentistry at Midwest Implant Institute in Columbus, Ohio. Dr. Mettens has been in private practice for 30 years. When he's not working, he's volunteering his time with the Sharing American Resources Abroad (SARA) at a small Hungarian orphanage in the Ukraine. www.SARAgroup.org
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