17-04-2025
Dental center celebrates opening of new lab in Abingdon
ABINGDON, Va. (WJHL) — A new dental lab that will create crowns, dentures and other oral dental prosthetics has opened to help provide care to Southwest Virginians.
The new 2,400-square-foot lab at the Appalachian Highlands Community Dental Center clinic in Abingdon opened on Thursday after a floss-cutting ceremony.
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Having the lab at the clinic will allow the center to streamline prosthetic manufacturing while providing other benefits, according to Dr. Scott Miller, the clinic site director.
'What that's going to be able to do is cut our lab costs, develop digital design workflow, and help us develop a workforce of digital lab technicians and help train the residents,' Miller said.
Miller told News Channel 11 that the lab's presence will greatly reduce the number of appointments needed before a patient can get prosthetics, such as dentures.
'We've got 2,300 people on a waiting list at our clinic, so we need more opportunity for them to be in the chair,' Miller said. 'So if we can cut down on the treatment times, that allows us to see more people. And what we're also hoping to do is start an initiative where we can get more providers to take Medicaid by helping them cut lab costs.'
The lab is outfitted with technology like 3D printers, design stations and a CAD/CAM milling area.
The Appalachian Highlands Community Dental Center also plans to immediately begin expanding its clinic from 14 chairs to 21.
'And next year, we're going to go from seven dental residents to eight dental residents,' Miller said. 'So things are growing, and people are getting taken care of, and that's our number one mission.'
Miller said the area has far fewer dentists per 100,000 people than the national average.
'In our area, there's only 29 dentists per 100,000 people, where that statistic is 61 per 100,000 for the nation. The greatest thing about what we've done with our clinic is out of 22 graduates that come through our program, we've been able to keep six of them here. So we're helping grow the dental workforce in our area.'
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