The Brisbane, Australia-based oral appliance marketer has made agreements with VirtuOx, Carestream Dental, and Lyon Dental to roll out a new business model in the United States.

Brisbane, Australia-based oral appliance marketer Oventus Medical wants to bridge the gaps that obstructive sleep apnea patients sometimes fall into when their care isn’t optimally coordinated between dental sleep medicine practitioners and sleep physicians. To that end, Oventus, the makers of the O2 Vent line of oral appliances, are launching a new business model in the United States—which it has dubbed the “lab in lab” model.

The model seeks to ensure that no matter what channel—dental or medical—the sleep apnea patient enters to begin their diagnosis and treatment journey, all care will be handled in one location. In the dental channel, that means equipping dental patients with telemedicine access to sleep physicians; in the medical channel, that means having dentists available to do on-site digital impression scans for the O2Vent. Oventus has partnered with several other sleep medicine companies to implement this rollout and expects to executive a number of other agreements in the coming months.

Partnerships in Brief

Oventus has partnered with Carestream Dental to supply scanning technology for sleep facilities and to open up its installed customer base of over 15,000 sites in North America to the sleep channel and potential patients with sleep apnea.

In combination with Carestream Dental’s network of scanners in North America, Oventus will partner with VirtuOx, a respiratory testing provider with diagnostics, monitoring services, and telemedicine, who will enable end-to-end management of the patients’ sleep apnea under the clinical management of sleep physicians.

Oventus has also entered into an agreement with Lyon Dental, a provider of practice management and reimbursement solutions, to ensure patients can access reimbursement for Oventus Technology, whether they are in the sleep channel or the dental channel.

Chris Hart, M.Phil, BSc, BDSc, CEO of Oventus, says in a release, “This is a major announcement for Oventus. By bringing together the backbone of VirtuOx, Carestream Dental, and Lyon Dental, we have created a solution whereby dentists and sleep networks can provide patients with end-to-end support for their obstructive sleep apnea. As a dentist, I’m particularly proud of what we have achieved with this model. It is good for patients and also good for American dentists and sleep groups, who have been trying to treat patients for years without all the tools that are needed to do so. Now they can.”

Additional Details on Partnerships

VirtuOx Agreement. Oventus has signed a license agreement with VirtuOx Inc that will enabling sleep networks or dental physicians to treat patients VirtuOx works with all major insurance payers to provide services in all 50 states, performing 40,000+ diagnostic studies per month. VirtuOx has a vertically integrated platform that offers patients a continuum of care from the point of consultation through to diagnosis, treatment, and follow up. Consultations are offered
through VirtuOx’s sister company, DocViaWeb, a telemedicine service offering. DocViaWeb has a network of credentialed sleep physicians that offer consultation, diagnoses, prescriptions, and follow up across all 50 states.

If a sleep test is recommended, then a home sleep test can be dispatched from VirtuOx directly to the patient. The DocViaWeb physicians forward all results to the referring doctors (either sleep or dental). Patients also have access to their medical reports.

The progress of the patient through the continuum of care can be tracked on DocViaWeb, which serves as an online ordering conduit for the services and provides dashboard access to the referral source, enabling tracking of patient progress and results in real time. Test results and prescriptions are immediately accessible.

VirtuOx CEO Kyle Miko says, “Bringing VirtuOx and Oventus Medical together represents the growing field of dental sleep medicine, dentists are more engaged with the treatment of OSA than ever before. VirtuOx’s services bring dental providers into the sleep channel and underscore the disruptive technology that both VirtuOx and Oventus bring as an alternative care pathway, lessening the burden of the patient’s diagnostic and treatment journey.”

Carestream Dental Agreement. Oventus has signed a marketing agency and distribution agreement with Carestream Dental LLC to co-market Oventus Airway Technology to their customers. Additionally, Oventus has partnered with Carestream Dental for the provision of scanning technology for the “lab in lab” model being rolled out in sleep medicine facilities across North America.

Carestream Dental provides digital imaging, software, and practice management solutions for dental and oral health professionals in the United States and internationally. Its dental technology captures 2 billion images annually across an installed base of in excess of 15,000 sites in North America.

Oventus’ O2Vent therapeutic devices for the treatment of OSA have traditionally been custom made, based on dental impressions. Under Oventus’ new digital workflow, the process can now be entirely digital, with physical dental impressions able to be replaced by digital scans of patients’ teeth. This digital approach means Oventus can manufacture devices and ship them to patients more quickly and cost effectively than with the original process.

Under the agreement, Carestream Dental and Oventus will jointly market the Oventus O2Vent technology to Carestream Dental’s existing customer sites in over 15,000 dental clinics across North America and potential customers. The marketing and distribution activity with Carestream Dental will occur in parallel with Oventus’ own efforts to sell and market O2Vent devices in Australia, the United States and Canada.

Lyon Dental Agreement. Lyon Dental provides cloud-based practice management tools for dental sleep medicine. Lyon Dental’s cloud-based HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accounting Act of 1996) compliant platform provides advanced billing and claims clearinghouse features. Lyon Dental provides scheduling and billing solutions and support.