A Readers' Choice Award winner for 2026, the Glidewell fastmill.io In-Office Mill has earned its reputation one same-day crown at a time—as Dr. Christina Do's track record makes clear
With same-day dentistry, success ultimately comes down to one thing: predictability. For Dr. Christina Do of Costa Mesa, CA, Glidewell's fastmill.io In-Office Mill has delivered exactly that, along with significant practice efficiencies. Since 2018, her team has completed approximately 5,800 single-appointment crowns—and she does not recall a single broken crown.
That reliability made embracing chairside CAD/CAM an easy decision. Dr. Do said the biggest adjustment was rethinking her team's scheduling philosophy. Instead of an hour for prep and a seating appointment 2 weeks later, the patient would now stay through the entire visit.
The dentists and assistants then learned to design, but Glidewell's customer support made the transition easy. "You needed to know how to scan and send to the mill," Dr. Do explained, "but if you needed help with the design, it was like having a lab technician at your service."
From Scan to Seat
Today, a typical full-coverage crown appointment runs about 2 hours. While the patient is getting numb, the assistant takes a periapical radiograph, scans the opposing arch and bite, and captures a pretreatment scan when necessary. After prep, Dr. Do scans the tooth before giving the patient a break, at which point they are welcome to stay in the operatory or run an errand.
Dr. Do designs the crown using Glidewell's CrownAI software and begins milling, a 40minute process that allows her to continue other treatment, see another patient, or perform hygiene checks before try-in and cementation. "The AI system they have is phenomenal," she said. "That's why I can design crowns faster and better these days."
Dr. Do skips the furnace entirely by using presintered BruxZir NOW milling blocks and, for more esthetic cases, BruxZir Esthetic NOW. "They are so pretty—you'll get a more translucent type of look to the crown," she said.
The financial impact has been significant, saving thousands monthly on lab costs—but for Dr. Do, the greater benefit is clinical. Eliminating temporaries has reduced postoperative sensitivity and emergency visits while making dentistry more enjoyable for her team and patients. "It makes your life so much easier. It makes your patients' lives so much easier," she said. "Dentistry is much more fun and less aggravating because of same-appointment crowns with this mill."
