DentalBuzz – a jolt of current…

Are the computers in your practice ready for Windows 7?  You are most likely still running Windows XP because  your practice management and digital radiography software/hardware was not compatible with Vista.

Now is a good time to look at some computer upgrades and prepare yourself for Windows 7. A good way to start this process is to look at refurbished equipment. While many of the top manufactures offer refurbished equipment none do it better than Dell. To help you get started we are including a few links and couple of newly minted coupon codes, but you better hurry the deals and codes won’t last forever.

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Dental practices that have made the leap to Apple hardware and are running a copy of Windows XP in a virtual machine, things are going to get a little brighter. VMware the maker of Fusion for Mac announced today the availability of version 3.0 with Snow Leopard Support.

Highlights include:

• Optimized for Snow Leopard. Built from the ground up for the Mac, VMware Fusion 3 leverages Mac OS X Snow Leopard’s advanced architecture with a new 64-bit core engine and native support for the 64-bit kernel, delivering even better Windows on Mac performance.
  Ultimate Windows 7 Experience.  VMware Fusion 3 will be the first to enable the full Windows 7 experience, side-by-side with your Mac, complete with Windows Aero and Flip 3D.
• Switching Made Easy. VMware Fusion 3 will make it easy for users to bring their entire PC to their Mac in a few easy steps – wirelessly or with a simple Ethernet cable – allowing customers to protect investments in existing Windows software, and to keep using the programs they still need.
• Best-in-Class 3D Graphics. Support for OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9.0c Shader Model 3 will enable users to run their favorite 3D Windows games and applications – all without rebooting.

VMware Fusion 3 is now available for pre-order at at vmware.com/fusion at a suggested price of $79.99, with upgrade pricing of $39.99 available to current VMware Fusion users.

You’ve watched way too many movies.

If you’ve got images of Star Trek’s Geordi LaForge, nerdy sidekicks in 80′s new-wave glasses a la John Hughes’ teen films, or the horrors of Total Recall memory augmentation burned into your retinas, then please, let those prejudiced views slide gently outside of your peripheral vision and consider that Virtual Reality glasses may actually be good and cheap enough these days to make them part of your patient comfort collection.

We want to heavily discourage dentists from spending thousands of dollars in wall or ceiling-mounted screens just so that patients can have something to look at besides your ugly mug while you’re fixing their teeth.

We’re not kidding.

The problem with screens like that, during dentistry, is that your head keeps getting in the way while your patient is trying to remain distracted.

There’s lots of other details that can end up complicating the whole thing, so instead of making this a gripe session about overbloated dental amenities, we’ve created a few tracks that will make it inexpensive and easy for you to start using VR glasses in your practice.

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Our resident gadget expert,The Computeritized Dentist, just wants his network to run properly and leaves the technical specs to the geeks. We asked him to read an important message that we got from Microsoft today.

The Computeritized Dentist will now translate this June 24, 2008 letter from Microsoft Senior Vice President Bill Veghte detailing the fate of Windows XP, among other things:

“Today, almost every dental office in the world that is computerized uses a PC with our software platform. And unless you want to ditch everything you’re already using, you’re stuck with us – and all the peripherals that try to get along with us.

“Windows XP is a dinosaur, and you may have heard that it is scheduled to be installed in the Museum of Planned Obsolescence on June 30, 2008.  Ha, ha, there’s really no such museum; that was just a clever metaphor that I thought of myself. 

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Unbiased reporting about the consumers themselves.

It may be hard to believe, but patients all over the country are complaining that dentists aren’t asking them to pay their bills anymore.

For many years, consumers have taken advantage of dental practices’ good will by just “paying when they could” for their dental care. Unfortunately for many offices, this resulted in the expenses of staff time, mailing repeated statements, and simply writing off debts that were never paid.

Now that healthcare financing has come to the market, Consumer Reports (July 2008 issue) is pointing fingers at CareCredit, the Citi Health Card, Chase HealthAdvance, CapitalOne Healthcare Finance, and the dental providers themselves for allegedly taking advantage of the doctor-patient relationship.

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