Bob Conte Dan Butterman did a great job this week presenting a webinar on restoring implants with the Atlantis system. I've done several cases to date working with DSG Clearwater Dental Lab. These cases can also be done with Atlantis directly now that Connect 4.5 has been released.
The workflow is very simple. Remove the healing cap and insert the Atlantis IOS scan body. These are implant system specific like our Sirona scan posts. Take the scan in Connect and digitally ship the file to DSG in this case or Atlantis directly through their portal. Now we just lt the lab do all the work. A very CEREC friendly abutment with excellent emergence is milled after verifying the design the lab sends for review. I've been using titanium exclusively, but there are gold coated and zirconia abutments available. The fit of the crowns to the abutment is outstanding. When the patient returns the abutment is simply torqued in and seating is verified by radiograph. The crown is cemented via traditional methods.
For the past many years I have been stubbornly fabricating all of my own abutments as I just refused to work with a lab. With the ease of this this workflow I am happy to have another option. The price point is going to be in around $300-$350 for abutment and crown. Another option is to have the lab mill your abutment and then email the Core File of the abutment design. The Core File is uploaded into the chairside software and we are able to design and mill our own crowns before the abutment even arrives in the office. The abutment alone is going to be in the $150-$200 range. This is slightly more expensive than using a tibase system, but for the many users not taking advantage of this feature, the scan and send may be appealing.
