Dental Lab Rush Cases: Decide What Moves Before You Say Yes

A practice calls: the patient is back Thursday, can you do it by Wednesday? The lab says yes, because it usually does. Nobody checks which other cases just slipped a day.

Rush cases are part of the job. The problem is accepting them all the same way, without deciding what moves to make room.

When the normal due date starts is covered in dental lab turnaround time. This article is about triaging the urgent requests that jump the queue.

Every yes moves another case

Capacity does not grow because a case is urgent. A rush job takes the design slot, the milling slot or the finishing time of something else. If that trade is not visible, the cost shows up later as a late case for a practice that did nothing wrong.

A rush case is not free. Someone else's due date pays for it.

Four questions before you say yes

• Is the case complete enough to start today?
• Which cases move if this one goes first?
• Does a design approval need to happen faster too?
• Who tells the practices whose dates change?

If the rush case is incomplete, the answer is not yes or no. It is yes once the missing piece arrives, said clearly to the practice.

Make the trade visible

When due dates, blockers and owners live on each case, a rush request shows what it will push back before anyone commits. Dentys keeps that information on the case both lab and practice see. It does not decide your priorities. It shows the consequences of each one.

Try it on the next five rush requests

For each one, write down which case moved and whether its practice was told. If the answer is often nobody, rush cases are not your problem. Invisible trades are.