I know all labs go through patches where basically everything falls apart for a time. People leave, equipment fails, 3rd party suppliers go out of business etc etc...I get it.

But when is enough enough?

One issue that seems to come up repeatedly with full service wholesale labs is lead time creep. Almost always when a new account is opened, jobs will routinely come back in a timely fashion. Anything from a couple days to maybe 7-10 if it's something more complex such as a mirror, high wrap, step bevel, PAL for example. But if you're seeing "normal" jobs taking 10-14 days (let's just throw the whole "business/working days excuse right out the window - patients don't care. Their clock starts running as soon as the card is swiped at checkout and we all know it.) Should mirror suns be taking three to four weeks? Two months? Should even "modern" digital PALs with common AR be taking 2-3 weeks?

Do you have any particular unacceptable patterns or scenarios from your labs that you just won't put up with in your practice? I know we're all human, and its surprising more errors don't creep into the system with more regularity than they do. But it seems that we're seeing a much more lax attitude from more and more wholesalers on everything from "you'll get it when you get it." to "It's within tolerance." etc.

How do you guys handle these situations? TIA