Do you have a jar of old crowns and bridges collecting dust in the corner of your dental office? Maybe you forgot about them or you’re just not sure how to sell your dental scrap. Refining dental crowns and bridges is easier than you think. With a little homework upfront, you can find a reputable dental scrap refinery and receive high payments for your dental scrap.
The amount you receive from a dental refinery for your scrap depends on the quality and integrity of the refiner. The difference in the returns from one dental refiner to another are significant enough to warrant spending some time researching.
How Your Dental Refinery Can Make a Difference
Recently, one of our clients told us that he used to work with a dental refinery that would send a representative to his office and, upon visual inspection, would pay the doctor cash on the spot for his dental scrap. He said that he would get enough money to buy his staff a nice lunch. This was an arrangement that he was happy with; until one day when he tried a new dental refiner. This time, his lot was tested and he received a payment that allowed him to not only buy lunch for his staff but also take his family on a vacation.
“The difference between the returns can be significant – as one of our clients told us, he received a payment that allowed him to not only buy lunch for his staff but also take his family on a vacation.”
Following are the five steps to finding a quality dental refinery to sell your dental crowns and bridges to:
1 – Call and ask dental scrap refiners a lot of questions
So, how do you find the best dental scrap refiner? Start with referrals by friends, but also include other refiners you know of and haven’t tried yet. Call them and ask the following questions:
- How long have you been in business?
- What is your turnaround time?
- What is your refining process?
- What are the charges per metal and are there extra fees? (Watch out for minimum fees and assay fees.)
- Do you provide free, insured shipping?
- Do you have a money-back guarantee?
Also, ensure that your dental scrap will be tested for its metal content. As mentioned earlier in this post, many dental refineries send sales representatives into busy dental offices and offer to pay cash for an estimate given on the spot. While this method is easy and convenient, you won’t receive a fair payment for your scrap. Dental refining representatives need to ensure that they are not paying you more than the actual value of the scrap (or else they lose money on the transaction). Their estimate will always be on the low side.
Finally, make sure that the customer service representatives who you’ll be working with are easy to reach, and take the time to answer your questions. You don’t want to be in a situation where you send valuable dental scrap in for refining, and then can’t reach anyone at the company to answer your questions or concerns. Or worse, go around in circles in an interactive voice response system.
2 – Narrow down your list of dental refiners to two
After doing your research, you should now have two quality refiners that you are comfortable with. At this point, you’re ready to do a test.
Think of this as an A/B test for dental refineries. Split your lot into two equal parts. Send one half to the first refiner on your list and the second half to the other refiner. For this test to work, it’s important to refrain from telling the dental scrap refinery that you’re testing them against one another. If a refiner knows you are testing them, they may artificially boost your return to capture future business from you (which, admittedly, is nice in the short term but will likely lead to lower settlements in the future).
3 – Request a shipping container
If you’re not sure what size you need, your customer service representative should be able to guide you based on the items that you’re sending and the weight of the shipment. Check that your dental refiner uses a reputable shipping company and that sending your scrap in for refining is easy.
4 – Prepare your scrap
This is an easy step. A good dental refinery won’t ask you to separate precious metal fused to teeth (PFMs) – it’s perfectly acceptable to send them as they are. We do recommend, however, that if you have both dental grindings and dental solids (crowns, bridges, inlays, etc.), don’t combine them. Grindings and solids are processed separately. If your dental solids and grindings are already mixed, we can separate them for you. If they are separate and you’re filling your canister for shipping, keep your solids in a bag or jar to prevent them from getting mixed in with the grindings.
5 – Send in your scrap
Once you receive the shipping containers from the dental refinery, you are ready to send in your scrap. We suggest that you list the shipment contents and the total weight, along with your contact information on the receipt provided. Keep a copy of your tracking number, so you can monitor the progress of your shipment while in transit.
When the lot is received at the dental refinery, the receiver will go through the lot to ensure that everything listed on the receipt is in the package. A high-quality dental refiner will contact you if there are any discrepancies.
When your assay results are ready, you should get a call from your refinery to give you the amount and verify who the check should be made out to and where to mail it.
What happens if I’m not happy with my return?
Happily, at Cora Refining we don’t experience this problem often, but sometimes it does come up. We have a 100% satisfaction guaranteed policy. If you’re not happy with your return, we will return all your dental scrap metal at no cost. But be aware that dental refining is a destructive process — your items will likely be returned in the form of a metal bar. In the refining process, we melt the dental scrap at high temperatures to create a homogenous metal bar to take a sample from. This is how we accurately determine the metal content of your dental scrap.
“We have a 100% satisfaction guaranteed policy. If you’re not happy with your return, we will return all your dental scrap metal to you at no cost.”
As you can see from the steps above, sending your dental crowns and bridges for refining is a simple process. Remember to do your homework and ask questions upfront. When you’ve narrowed your list of the best dental refineries, select two and run a comparative test. Based on the results of that test, you should be able to find a quality dental refiner for your future refining needs. If you follow the steps outlined in this post, you’ll enjoy peace of mind and a positive refining experience.
Are you ready to turn your dental scrap into usable cash? Request a free shipping container for your scrap, today.