“Remakes are just part of the business. I’m afraid to really look at the number. It feels like 4–5%.”
Sound familiar?
That’s the voice of almost every lab owner I know — including the old me.
We all carry that quiet fear: that if we look too closely at our remake rate, we’ll find something ugly. Something that says we’re failing. So, we call it a cost of doing business and move on.
But here’s the truth:
Your True Remake Rate (TRR) isn’t a cost of business.
It’s the cost of fear — the price you pay for avoiding hard, data-driven conversations with your clients.
The Psychologist’s Truth
If you think your remake rate is 5%, it’s probably closer to 8%. And that extra 3% isn’t just eating your profit — it’s poisoning your culture.
I’ve been there. I’ve stared at a $20,000 monthly loss from remakes. But the financial hit was nothing compared to the emotional one.
Remakes create a cycle of blame and burnout:
Over time, that cycle breeds resentment and anxiety. It slowly kills your lab from the inside out.
The Emotional Side
You can’t have a calm, confident, and profitable lab if your team works under constant fear of the next “redo.” TRR is not just a number — it’s a mirror showing how your team handles imperfection, communication, and accountability.
The Financial Side
The data doesn’t lie: 82% of remakes are caused by dentist error.
Bad scans. Incomplete Rxs. Unclear margins.
Which means 82% of your biggest anxiety is preventable.
Every day, labs accept poor-quality data to avoid upsetting clients — and then ask technicians to perform miracles with it.
When the case comes back, the blame ricochets through the lab.
This isn’t “the cost of doing business.”
It’s the cost of fear-based leadership — and it’s keeping your lab from reaching that elusive 29% EBITDA you dream of.
Here’s how to start changing everything — in less than a month.
1. Face the Number (Without Judgment)
This is the hardest part: look at the data.
Track every remake — and, more importantly, the reason behind it.
Use an LMS or internal tracker that logs objective causes: margin error, missing Rx data, or scan distortion.
This is not about blame.
It’s about freedom — freeing your team from vague anxiety and freeing you from assumptions.
Data becomes your shield, not your weapon.
2. Build a System, Not a Villain
Stop being the “bad guy” who has to call dentists about bad scans.
You don’t need confrontation — you need a system that handles it for you.
A system doesn’t get emotional. It doesn’t have a tone.
It just presents the facts. Calmly. Professionally. Consistently.
3. The EviSmart Play: Turn Fear into Flow
EviSmart Comm and EviSmart QC were built for this exact problem.
Instead of confrontation, it helps:
“Dr. Jones, the AI flagged a potential issue on #14. Could you please review?”
Not:
“Your scan is bad.”
That small shift changes everything.
The Result: Calm, Control, and Cash Flow
Once you put the system in place, your True Remake Rate plummets.
You’ve replaced anxiety with automation — fear with flow.
About the Author
Paolo Kalaw is the founder of EviSmart – Where Dental Work Flows.
A lifelong dental lab veteran, Paolo has owned and operated dozens of labs worldwide. He’s lived the “10 Anxieties” of lab ownership firsthand — from production bottlenecks to remake nightmares.
He created EviSmart to solve the problem no one else could: to give lab owners the operating system for the modern, product-led lab.
EviSmart empowers labs to:
Paolo and the EviSmart team believe there’s a better way to run a dental lab — one that’s profitable, scalable, and stress-free.
