Choosing your dental lab: the 7 questions that make them squirm

By Hadrien Mauve, co-founder of Opal Dental Lab · Clinical review: Dr Irina Visan, dental surgeon · 2026-08-16

Changing laboratories engages your patients, your schedule and a fair share of your peace of mind at the chair. It is not a decision you make from a sales brochure. Here are the seven questions we suggest you put to any laboratory — including ours. For each: why it really matters in your daily practice, and what we answer.

1. Where are my pieces actually made?

Why it matters. Your liability is engaged at seating, and you are the one who will answer the patient — or an inspection — the day the question is asked. A laboratory that stays vague on this point leaves you carrying, alone, a risk it knows perfectly well.

Our answer. With us: the Déols laboratory for aesthetics and complex cases, an audited international partner for simple pieces and capped procedures. The route is displayed on every order before you confirm, and the declaration of conformity that travels with each piece includes its origin.

2. Who checks the piece before it reaches my practice?

Why it matters. “The manufacturer” is not an answer: whoever produces a piece is not best placed to judge their own work, especially at a distance. Without independent control on arrival, your chair becomes the quality-control station.

Our answer. 100% of our pieces, whatever their route, pass quality control in Déols before shipping. A piece that fails does not ship.

3. Can I see the work before seating?

Why it matters. The seating appointment is the worst moment to discover a problem: patient installed, anaesthesia done, schedule stacked behind. Every defect found at that stage costs an adjustment session and a patient to rebook.

Our answer. You approve the 3D design upstream, then photos of the finished work before shipping. Whatever bothers you gets fixed while the piece is still with us — not at the chair.

4. What is the real turnaround, not the quoted one?

Why it matters. A lead time only has value if it is dated and tracked. “About a week, usually” forces you to book the patient blind, and it is your front desk that manages the rescheduling when the piece is not there.

Our answer. The delivery date is displayed the moment you order, and every step can be followed in real time. Our standard on the French route: one week door to door, urgent cases in 2-3 days.

5. How do I talk to the technician when there is a doubt?

Why it matters. A shade to re-take with the patient at the chair, an ambiguous margin, a framework choice: these conversations need the context of the case, not a switchboard that takes a message for a sales rep.

Our answer. Every order has its own direct messaging thread, photos included, on web and mobile. The person answering has your case in front of them.

6. Does the laboratory keep up with my scanner?

Why it matters. If your assistant has to export, compress and re-send every digital impression by email or file transfer, your scanner is costing you time instead of saving it — and every re-typed order form is a source of error.

Our answer. Practitioner accounts with Medit scanners receive their scans automatically: the case arrives pre-filled (prosthesis type, material, shade, teeth), with a 3D preview of the impression in the browser.

7. What happens when something goes wrong?

Why it matters. Every laboratory has non-conformities — the difference lies in how they are handled. This is precisely where lab-practice relationships break: remakes invoiced as a matter of course, dialogue refused about where the error came from. And whoever is responsible, you are always the one absorbing it in chair time.

Our answer. Every remake is analysed: at which step the problem was born — impression, design, production, control — and how to avoid it next time. The per-order declaration of conformity, the photos before shipping and the systematic control exist precisely so that these situations stay rare, and documented when they happen.

A serious laboratory answers these seven questions without stiffening — they are part of the job. If the conversation gets uncomfortable from the very first one, you have learned something important before entrusting your first case.