What do you do with the old crowns?

Patients frequently have curious questions that they feel uncomfortable asking, but a few brave souls will ask.

Here is one of those questions.

What do you do with old crowns you cut off?

I have a great answer. When we cut off a crown at McFarlane Dental, patients have two options.

Option 1: They can leave it with us. We save those crown fragments until we have collected several pieces. I then send those crown pieces off to a refiner. I take the staff out to a nice dinner. I always thank patients in advance when they decide to leave old crown fragments behind, letting them know that they are taking the staff out to dinner. We recently went to Kona Grill in the domain celebrating my wonderful and caring staff. We even had dessert. ;)

Option 2: They can keep the piece. I will give them a kit that they can use to send the piece in and refine it for themselves.

Thanks to all the patients who have made it possible for me to take the staff out to a nice dinner. We had a great time, building relationships. Strong staff relationships make for smooth appointments and good office communication.

The follow-up question many patients ask is:

They have gold in them. Isn't that worth a lot?

Truth be told, the majority of the cost of the crown is the labor of preparing the tooth, making the impression, and seating the crown. The lab fee for the crown includes: i. the cost of the metal, and ii. the labor our lab puts into the work of making the crown. We use a local Austin Dental Laboratory (http://www.serettidentallab.com/) and use only the highest quality materials. Each crown that we cut off has ~$10 of precious metal in it. The most common crowns that we cut off and replace due to decay or fracture are porecelain-fused-to-high-noble-metal crowns. This type of crown has less refining value because most of their mass is from the porcelain stacked on the outside of the metal shell. A full-cast-high-noble gold crown might have somewhere between $25-$45 of precious metal in it, depending on the thickness of the actual crown. To take my entire staff to dinner at a nice restaurant to reward them for their hard work, we save approximately 30 old crowns, which have usually been sectioned into two pieces.

Many of our patients enjoy knowing that they are doing something nice for the staff by leaving that crown fragment behind. This strategy for the use of the old crowns, generally pleases all parties. My staff looks forward to going out because they know we will go somewhere exquisite. I get to enjoy time with my staff that does not have the normal rigidity of work. My patients get the pleasure of knowing that they are doing something nice for our staff with a crown fragment, which had they kept it, likely would have ended up in the trash.