The new practice has six open-bay operatories and two private operatories in 3,090 square feet of useable space. The initial exam is done in a private room and the flow between open-bay and private rooms has improved. “In our old office, the private rooms were across the other side of the office,” he said. “It was a little less convenient.”

The open-bay operatories are a key design aspect of Costanzo Orthodontics. “I think the main difference between an ortho office and a general office is our main open treatment area,” Costanzo said. “An open treatment area facilitates going from chair to chair. With orthodontics, we tend to spend less time at each chair, but see more patients per day. We needed to have something that flows so we can get from chair to chair easily and be able to communicate easily without having a bunch of separate treatment rooms.”

Other improvements include all new A-dec 300 chairs. “I had considered bringing some of that old equipment over, and that’s something that I’m glad Charmen talked me out of. I think it would have been a big mistake to bring that old equipment into this nice new office,” he said with a chuckle.

The game-changing piece of equipment is without a doubt the new Sirona Orthophos XG5. “I had an old analog pano machine at the old office, so we had the darkroom, [and] we had to develop everything,” Costanzo said. “Going to digital X-ray has been huge. Just being able to have a patient go in there, take a 10-second pano, and be able to see it immediately on the screen speeded things immensely. The quality of that Sirona machine – I’ve compared it to X-rays that I get emailed from other offices that are using different machines – is amazing. The pictures that I get are extremely clear, and I’m able to see so much more that I wasn’t able to see with my old machine.”

One of the biggest challenges Costanzo Orthodontics faced was moving from a paper based to paperless practice, which included going to digital X-rays. The paperless systems have allowed workflow to move more smoothly and using digital charting and X-ray has allowed the practice to run more efficiently, even with an increased patient load, Dr. Costanzo says.