How to Report a Restoration Problem (and Get the Remake Done Fast)
Every lab relationship is tested by its first remake. Handled well, a problem report is ten minutes of photos and one email, and the replacement is already in the queue before your patient leaves. Here is the protocol that makes that happen.
Short answer: a fast remake starts with a report that contains four things - the case number, the problem described in one specific sentence, the photo or photo set that shows it, and what outcome you need (adjust, remake, or credit). Reports with all four get triaged the day they arrive. Reports that say "the crown doesn't fit, please advise" start a conversation instead of a queue.
This post is written from the remake desk. We triage problem reports every week, and the difference between a report that resolves in two emails and one that grinds for two weeks is almost never the severity of the problem - it is the evidence attached. So this is the evidence, by problem type, and then the process questions that should be settled long before any problem exists.
The four-part report
| Part | What it looks like | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Case reference | Case 4712, three-unit bridge, dispatched 12 March | Puts the prescription, records and QC history on one screen |
| One-sentence problem | Distal contact on 46 is open by about 0.3mm at the gingival third | Specific problems route to the right technician immediately |
| Evidence | Photos per the table below; articulating paper shot in some cases | Turns a claim into a diagnosis |
| Requested outcome | Remake the unit; need it seated by the 20th | The queue and the shipping lane get chosen at once |
The one-sentence problem deserves care, because "doesn't fit" contains at least six different failures: marginal openness, tight contact, high occlusion, wrong contour, wrong shade, wrong margin location. Each has a different evidence set and a different root cause. Writing which one it is - even imperfectly - collapses a triage email chain.
Evidence by problem type
| Problem | Photos / evidence that actually helps | Optional but useful |
|---|---|---|
| Open or tight contact | Floss through the contact, photographed; or articulating paper marking the tight spot | Which unit and which surface |
| Marginal discrepancy | Close-up of the margin with an explorer tip in frame for scale | Which margin, which surface |
| High in occlusion | Blue articulating paper mark on the crown in the mouth | The opposing marking film colour |
| Shade mismatch | Crown next to adjacent teeth, tab in frame, daylight photo | Black-and-white shot for value |
| Chip or fracture | The fragment photographed on white background; the fracture surface | Whether the fragment was recovered |
| Rocking / poor seating | Video or photo sequence showing where it binds | Whether it seats with pressure |
Note the recurring theme: scale and context in the frame. An explorer tip, a floss strand, a tab, a piece of articulating paper - each converts an opinion into a measurement. Technicians work to measurements.
How a remake actually gets triaged
When a complete report arrives, a good remake desk does three things in one pass: verify against the case records (was the contact designed where you are reporting it? does the QC history show anything?), diagnose (origin matters - design error, milling fault, transit damage, clinical change), and queue (replacement started, or adjust-and-return, or a conversation first). You should expect a substantive reply within one working day: what we found, what happens next, and when. If the diagnosis is ambiguous, the reply says what it needs from you rather than guessing - which is exactly why the evidence quality in your first email decides the timeline.
One thing worth knowing from the inside: the diagnosis is not about assigning blame defensively. It is about preventing the repeat. A margin that failed from an under-scan needs a different answer than one that failed from sintering distortion, and a lab that cannot tell you which happened is guessing at your case twice.
Who pays for what - settled before, not during
Remake economics are where relationships either hold or snap, and the entire subject compresses into a policy that should exist in writing before your first case: if the failure is the lab's, the remake is free and the lab owns the shipping; if the failure is clinical (preparation changed, different tooth prepared), the case is priced as new; if it is ambiguous, the conversation happens with the evidence on the table, and the policy's ambiguity clause - ours exists for exactly this - decides the shape of the resolution. Transit losses and damage have their own line: ours assigns them to the lab, because the courier is our choice. Ask your current lab these questions and compare answers; the answers are a better quality signal than any gallery.
Where remake causes actually sit
Two thirds of that chart lives in the hand-off - information that crossed between your office and the lab incompletely. Which is the quiet argument for the checklists in our earlier posts: every intake gap closed upstream is a remake that never happens. The remake desk is where the cost of missing information finally gets billed.
The prevention loop
The best accounts we run share one habit: when a remake happens, the learning goes back into the account. The preference profile gets a new line - "contacts on 46 run tight, design slightly light" - and the remake never repeats. That loop is not automatic; it requires a lab that maintains real preference records and a client who mentions the lesson once. Together they compound: year two of a relationship should show fewer remakes than year one, and if it does not, either the profile or the loop is missing.
What "fast" means on the remake clock
Set expectations with the same arithmetic as any first case: the remake carries the original production time (the queue does not disappear), plus whatever the diagnosis conversation took, plus the shipping lane. A remake reported with complete evidence on Monday and diagnosed same-day runs roughly the calendar of the original case; one that opened with "doesn't fit, advise" spends three days becoming specific before the clock even starts. The three habits that compress the timeline are all on the reporting side: same-day reporting while the case details are fresh, evidence per the table above, and a named deadline when one exists ("patient seated on the 20th" plans better than "urgent").
Shipping, again, is the variable with an owner. When the fault is the lab's, the remake shipping should be the lab's cost too - and express lane where the deadline says so. When the remake is clinical or charged, you still choose the lane, and the honest advice is to pay for the lane the calendar needs rather than blame the lab for a slow courier on a case the lab did not cause. The invoice and the courier receipt should never be confused with each other.
Building the habit on your side
Practices with smooth remake experiences tend to have institutionalised the report itself: a short template in their practice software - case number, problem sentence, photos, requested outcome - that any team member can complete in three minutes. The template removes the hesitation that delays reporting ("let me first try to adjust it") and standardises the evidence so the lab's triage never varies. It also creates the record that feeds the preference profile: every remake with a written diagnosis is a design rule that prevents its own repetition. Three minutes of template, multiplied across a year of cases, is the cheapest quality system in dentistry.