Bicon
Unaccustomed as I am to air travel (“Oh my god I’m flying! I’m in a chair in the sky!”), much less business travel, it was a mostly new experience to go out to Boston this past Sunday and come back a little over 24 hours later. The purpose of my trip was to learn more about the Bicon implant system, and I was actually comfortable accepting a trip, hotel stay, and continuing education credits from a company for whom I do not work. Why? Isn’t that some type of conflict of interest? It could be, but I had already, during my last year of school, done the research and decided that this system offered the best dental implants for most situations.
Leaning heavily on the experience of professors I trusted, I made the Bicon choice, and I’ve decided to relentlessly pursue this thing—not to stop until I get to a job where I can work with these implants regularly. I’m happy doing dentistry, but sometimes I get, frankly, pissed off and kind of offended with the profession; I keep seeing teeth break off, get fillings, break off further, need root canals, get covered with crowns, break off again, need another root canal and a post and a crown, with each time period between major dental interventions shortening. It is, in my opinion, absolute insanity that insurance will pay for some of the bat-shit crazy treatments people get to save their “natural” teeth, when an implant will serve their needs (chewing, not hurting) for far longer, and cheaper over that time period.
So, the implant treatments I want to see patients get, the ones that last, the ones that are a good investment and represent the best our profession has to offer, are not covered by insurance. I don’t know how to fix that problem, and this isn’t the time, but I do know it’s time for me to learn everything I can about implants.