Some days our Solea® All-Tissue Laser is scheduled in two columns at once, and my team has to figure out how to make it work. That's a good problem to have. My partner, board-certified pediatric dentist Dr. Mitchell Poole, and I both use it every day, and six months after bringing it into our practice, we had paid it off.
If you're looking into laser dentistry, here is what I've learned so far: why we invested, how each of us uses it, what it did for production, and what I'd tell any dentist before they start.
For the patients. Specifically, for our pediatric patients.
Dr. Poole was already working with an older hard tissue laser, and I wanted something current that both of us could build into our daily dentistry. A dental school friend of mine, Dr. Jason Ford (Toothologie, Union, KY), showed me how he was using Solea for cosmetic procedures and gingivectomies, and that started the conversation.
The main goal was a better filling process on the pediatric side. I wanted children to have a better experience, because patients who have a better experience refer other patients. Very few practices in our community offer this kind of care, and that makes it a real differentiator.
My view is simple: if you do dentistry well, the referrals will come, because people will talk about it. Solea is a part of how we give our patients the best dentistry out there.
Traditionally, treating multiple quadrants meant multiple injection sites or bringing a child back to finish a side. With Solea, many of his patients can have work done in several quadrants during a single appointment, with anesthetic in one area at most. That means fewer return visits.
It also changes how the appointment begins. Dr. Poole has always been deliberate with anesthetic delivery for children, as he should be. If that's the first thing you do, and if it goes wrong, the whole appointment is off track. Being able to just start working without waiting for the numbness to kick in is quicker and easier on everyone.
The net effect is more time for other patients, because we're completing more dentistry in the same visit than we did before.
My use is different from my partner's. I use Solea mostly for soft tissue procedures, gingival cases and biopsies, but also Class V restorations. I haven't added many new procedures because of the laser. I'm doing the procedures I already did, better.
Biopsies are the clearest example. Other lasers I'd used left the tissue looking cauterized, so I usually went back to a scalpel. With Solea, the margins are much cleaner, and I don't even need a stitch.
Solea also gives me cleaner, easier-to-see crown margins, which means a better digital scan and a better-fitting crown. In a practice where we design and mill crowns and bridges in a single day, that matters.
Dr. Poole and I are both early in our careers. I'm about 12 years out of school, and he's five years behind me. We're not looking to cut days from our schedule right now. We want to be more productive with the time we have.
To measure that fairly, we compared January through April of 2026 with the same four months of 2025. Seasonality matters in dentistry, so same months to same months is the most honest comparison:
Laser procedures are billed under the same codes as conventional ones, so we can't isolate laser-specific production in our software. But when we finish more treatment in one appointment, the return visit we no longer need opens the chair time for another patient. Those freed-up appointments add up, and we paid off the laser in six months.
When we get a five-star Google review that mentions Solea, we print it and put it on the review wall in our waiting room. Patients bring it up again at their follow-up visits.
It fits who we are. We have 3D printers and digital scanners, we deliver crowns and bridges in a single day, and we do guided implant surgery. Keeping up with technology is part of our vision statement. Yes, a laser is a big investment. So is everything in dentistry.
Be patient. With any new technology, implementation takes time. Early on, you won’t use it for everything. The clinical improvements start with a few procedures as you get comfortable, and those early wins make a big difference.
Be realistic about restorative work, too. Laser analgesia doesn’t take with every patient, and sometimes you’ll still need to numb. There will also be times you switch to the handpiece partway through a prep. When the laser analgesia has taken, patients stay comfortable through that, too. The training helps with that, especially on the patient communication side. Convergent Dental teaches you language to use when talking with patients about the laser, and that has been really valuable.
We're over six months in, and the laser is running every day. I'd call that a successful implementation.
Dr. Poole and I attended Solea Summit, where I completed my hands-on Solea Perioguide training. That’s part of what I like about this system: it’s an all-tissue laser, and I expect it to keep adding value to our practice for years to come.
The reason we chose it hasn't changed, though. It's all about the patient. If we can take away the fear of the needle and help people get through an appointment nobody likes in a much easier way, why wouldn't we?
Brian J. Caesar, DMD, is a board-certified general dentist at Dentistry @ University Pointe in West Chester, Ohio where he practices alongside board-certified pediatric dentist Dr. Mitchell Poole. He earned his undergraduate degree from Miami University and his DMD from the University of Kentucky College of Dentistry, then completed a General Practice Residency at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton. He is a member of the Academy of General Dentistry, American Dental Association, Ohio Dental Association, and Cincinnati Dental Society.