Implant case checklist.
Implant cases stall more often than any other category, and almost always for the same handful of reasons. This is the short list that prevents them.
Before the appointment
Confirm you have the implant details: manufacturer, product line, platform diameter, connection type. If the implant was placed elsewhere, obtain the placement record before the restorative appointment rather than after.
Confirm you have the correct scan body or impression coping for that system, and inspect it for wear or damage.
Decide, provisionally at least, whether you intend screw or cement retention and whether you expect a stock or custom abutment. Both affect what is ordered.
At the appointment
Photograph the healing abutment in place before removing it. That single image records the tissue contour that has developed and takes seconds.
Remove the healing abutment and capture the emergence promptly, before the sulcus collapses. Then seat the scan body or coping fully, confirm it cannot rock, and radiograph if seating is at all uncertain.
Capture the adjacent teeth completely, the opposing arch, and an accurate bite record.
Records to include
The implant record itself — scan or impression. The emergence record. The opposing arch. The bite. Photographs of the healing abutment and of the component packaging.
Where a provisional has shaped the tissue, a record of the provisional and a clear instruction that the definitive restoration should reproduce it.
Where the case involves multiple implants, note whether verification is planned and at what stage.
Information to write down
Manufacturer, product line, platform diameter, connection type. Intended retention. Stock or custom abutment. Superstructure material. The antagonist. Interocclusal space if it is limited.
Which scan body was used, if it is not the original manufacturer's component. Whether the patient shows evidence of parafunction. Whether hygiene or smile line should push the emergence toward access or aesthetics.
Any uncertainty. A note saying the scan body seating felt slightly uncertain on the distal is far more useful than discovering it when the restoration will not seat.
Before you dismiss the patient
Review the scan on screen — rotate it, check the scan body captured cleanly, look for holes, confirm the bite alignment produces sensible contacts.
For a conventional impression, inspect it under good light: coping fully seated and stable in the material, adjacent teeth and opposing arch complete, no drags or voids.
Almost every implant record problem that reaches a laboratory was detectable at this moment.
Where cases stall most often
In order of frequency: component detail missing or incomplete; emergence not captured before the scan body was placed; retention not specified; scan body seating uncertain and unverified; and interocclusal space discovered to be inadequate after components were ordered.
Every one of those is preventable at the appointment and expensive to resolve afterwards, because the patient has usually gone home.
A practice that works through this list consistently sends implant cases that proceed without a call, which shortens them more than any other single change.
A note for shared cases
Where the implant was placed by another clinician, agree who owns the laboratory relationship for the restorative phase before the appointment.
Request the placement record — system, product line, platform, connection, and any note about angulation or bone quality — and confirm you have it in hand rather than assuming it will arrive.
The commonest delay in shared implant work is neither clinician taking responsibility for transmitting the component detail, so each assumes the other has.
At delivery
Have the correct driver on hand — particularly for an angulated screw channel, which needs a system-specific one. Confirm the restoration seats fully before assessing occlusion.
Torque to the manufacturer's specification with a calibrated driver, and plan to retorque after a short interval. Seal the access channel so it can be reopened.
Check occlusion light in intercuspation and free of excursive guidance where natural teeth can provide it.
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Send a case
Digital scans and conventional impressions are both accepted. Cases move by UPS and Purolator, and Fairmont works with practices throughout British Columbia and across Canada.