A Day at the Mobile Dental Clinic: Appointment Length, Turnaround, and the Schedule That Treats the Most Patients Without Rushing Treatment

A mobile dental clinic's scarce asset is chair time in a community it may not revisit for months. This study builds the clinic day from stated values: 420 minutes of chair time, treatment times of 20, 30, and 25 minutes for examination with cleaning, filling, and extraction, a case mix of 50, 30, and 20 percent giving a weighted treatment time of 24.0 minutes, and turnaround of 5 minutes with parallel instrument processing against 12 minutes serial. Parallel turnaround treats 14 patients in the day against 11 serial, a gain of 3 patients. At a stated 15 percent no-show rate, booking two appointments beyond capacity raises the expected number treated from 11.9 to 13.6. This study is simulated, not measured. SIMULATED, NOT MEASURED.