Lab work orders — issued, tracked and delivered without a single phone call. metaDENT's dental lab module manages the full prosthetics and restorations workflow from the dentist's desk to the technician's bench and back — with shade diagrams, delivery calendars and direct billing integration.
Create and send lab orders with all clinical details directly from inside the patient record. No paper forms, no phone calls — the technician receives a complete, structured work order the moment it is issued by the dentist.
Click-to-mark tooth shade diagrams for precise shade prescription at the time of impression. Shade notes, stump colour and special instructions are all captured on the same form — eliminating transcription errors between clinic and lab.
Technicians navigate their due orders in daily, weekly and monthly calendar views, filtered by priority and delivery date. Overdue and due-today orders are immediately visible without sorting through lists or spreadsheets.
Four-stage status flags — Started, Completed, Implanted, Delivered — with colour coding for clinical priority. The dentist sees the current lab status from the patient chart without contacting the laboratory.
The expected lab delivery date automatically triggers a suggestion for the earliest valid patient appointment slot. No manual cross-referencing between the lab diary and the appointment book — the system handles the coordination.
Procedures served on the work order link directly to the patient bill. No separate charge entry for laboratory-related procedures — the billing is generated the moment the work order is marked delivered and the procedure is confirmed on the chart.
The lab work order is created directly from the dental chart — the affected teeth, the charted procedure and the patient's clinical context are all pre-populated. A shade diagram is drawn in the same screen and travels with the work order to the technician. When the prosthesis is ready and the status is updated to Completed, the appointment scheduler is automatically prompted with the earliest fitting slot.
Once the restoration is delivered and marked as such on the work order, the billing module generates the relevant charge against the patient's account without any manual entry. Lab costs are tracked separately, enabling the practice manager to compare laboratory fees against procedure revenue for each work type — a management reporting capability that requires no separate data extraction.
