When your general dentist takes an impression of your teeth for a crown, bridge, or flipper (be it a digital impression or using impression paste), this impression is sent to a dental laboratory. The dental lab fulfills the dentist’s prescription, and viola – you have a new tooth. In short, laboratories operate under the prescription of a licensed dentist
And in the United States, you pay the dentist for his work; the dentist pays the lab bill. The bill from the dental lab is then usually filed away in the patient’s chart. Most patients never see what the materials cost was.
Contrast this to medicine – my fellow physicians draw blood, send it to the lab, and it’s you (or your medical insurance policy) that foots the bill.
Why the difference? Well, follow the money.
Dental insurance companies base reimbursement on CDT codes – or “Code on Dental Procedures and Nomenclature”. The American Dental Association regulates, maintains, and revises this code. Every dental insurance claim uses a code based on the procedure.
And simply put, there are no ADA codes for dental lab bills. Which means, for the foreseeable future, your dentist will foot the bill.