hi i'm dr amanda and i'm an orthodontist i'm also the ceo of straight smile solutions
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hey it's dr amanda with street smile solutions street smile solutions.com and today i want
to thank online technology for they're not letting me do this but i'm doing it anyways
because you are asking patients and consumers are asking and doctors are asking about the mystery of
the invisalign doctor locator so i'm here to give you some tricks and tips not only from a doctor's
perspective to make sure what your skills are your skill set is being highlighted properly
and from a patient's perspective to make sure you understand all the different variables that are
there and you're picking the right doctor for you and again as always these opinions are the
opinions of myself dr wilson with street smile solutions they are not at all the opinions of
aligned technology but i'm just giving my opinions as an independent doctor on how to
use this service i am showing some screenshots from their website from their doctor locator
thank you align technology for not making me take down this video i'm preemptively posting
this because i know it's going to get a lot of hints and it will benefit you align technology
to let me keep it up so thank you for not sending me any more nasty letters in the mail or email or
getting one of your moles to harass me um you know who i'm talking about anyways let's talk
about this so first thing actually i'm going to do this out of order um doctor locator so this is
more for the patient's perspective number three we're going to go over this um you need to make
sure you put your patient's age this is really important because if you have a teen or a kid
you want to make sure you are putting the default is going to be over age 20 but if you have a teen
or a child that you're interested in treating before you need to make sure you toggle that
under age 20 because not all doctors have a lot of experience working with kids and teens kids and
teens are 100 different from adults there's growth to be factored into there's growth and development
and a lot of doctors most orthodontists should know how to do this but there's a lot of
orthodontists who aren't great at it to be honest so make sure you mark under age 20. the only
difference is is that after you've done a couple of teen cases you get an icon or a badge for teens
so at least you're going to get matched with a more appropriate doctor if you put that here
under display you can mark default is orthodontist and general dentist you can untick one of them
why would you want to untick one of them well you know if you really really want an orthodontist
only then you should mark orthodontists only general dennis can do ortho just like general
dentists can do root canals they can pull out teeth you know just like medical doctors a family
practice physician can deliver a baby right but you might go to an ob gyn so the reason
why i would mark a general dentist is if you were looking to do some type of like if you think you
have kind of an easier case and you're looking to do some combined restorative treatment maybe
get an implant or crowns or veneers afterwards or a lot of fillings afterwards or partial denture
afterwards or if you had sleep issues then maybe i would mark general dennis just because i think
it's going to be a lot smoother um the transition if one doctor does it all because going back and
forth between specialists and specialists can get very confusing that's pretty much that um your zip
code that's important just put in your zip code right um this is important here the distance
the default is kind of far away and i don't remember what it is but you want to select your
distance obviously if you're in a you know a city where distances makes a big difference right you
might only want to do one two or three miles but if you're in the country you might want to have
a much wider you know gap 100 miles you can do um if you are maybe in a more suburban area maybe you
want to keep it a little bit tighter initially because if you do not you're going to get all
kind of random people that are further away who are maybe higher up the ranks so just things to
keep in mind i would not sort by tier level and here's what i have to say about tier level just
because i've seen it from the inside there's a lot of what i call i don't know what the word is
um collaboration quote unquote going on where one orthodontist or one dentist will work with many
different sub orthodontists or dentists that they're not directly working with but just to
boost their own tear and to get the volume discount but that doesn't mean that's the doctor
who's doing your case that doesn't mean that your doctor doing your case is any more skilled
than any other doctor so by sort searching for tier level in some ways it's i mean it might be
someone who's really experienced but it might not be right so i personally don't think you should go
with that and i'll give you other variables that i would search by um i see i have a patient facebook
group that again i don't work with consumers at all but i just have it just as a way to give back
um and a lot of people always brag in on their doctor oh my doctor's a diamond i'm like i looked
them up and i'm like ah they're not really so just because they are running they're funneling
all kinds of doctors through cases through their accounts they rise the rank it doesn't mean that
they're any more talented or skilled than any other doctor that's out there so just letting you
know who cares and you know sometimes they have the worst cases i see their outcomes i'm like oh
my goodness this person does not know what they're doing but anyways okay so there are certain icons
and badges that will pop up um when you search a doctor so i kind of want to go over what they are
so this one is like what i was talking about i was talking about diamond right diamond diamond plus
to me this means very little um because if you're an independent solo doctor it is very difficult
to rise the ranks so these tend to be more group practices dsos um and the higher you get where
multiple people own the company the less quality often the treatment plans are because one person
can possibly one really good orthodontist can't possibly do a thousand treatment plans in a year
well they can but they wouldn't be doing patient treatment they'd be too busy doing treatment plans
right so a lot of times they're outsourcing treatment plans and don't get me wrong i
support doctors with treatment plans so i mean i'm not against it because you can have really
great treatment plans but this is multiple people touching the case so just because they're high up
doesn't mean that your treatment is going to be any better a lot of times it's worse and i've seen
a lot of these treatment plans are just plain old bad and they might be vip or diamond plus
so that means nothing to me sometimes if they're lower down they're spending a lot more time
individually and the doctor who's actually treating you is the doctor who's working on
your treatment plan so that is a question you need to ask when you go in are you the
one that's going to be doing my clin check are you the one that's going to be preparing
my treatment plan are you the one i'm going to be seeing every visit you need to ask that question
because these higher level practices that are bigger they tend to have a lot of like minions
that do the actual work i'm not saying a dental assistant is fine that's normal but is the same
doctor going to be checking you every time you come in if you're doing virtual check-ins is the
same doctor gonna be meeting with you or you're gonna have all different doctors good things to
know right good things to ask okay so this is a really important one the itero digital scanning
right now invisalign our line technology is only for the most part accepting itero scans in the us
canada is slightly different except a couple other ones itero is a brand that align technology
or invisalign owns okay so that's their brand of scanner so if you buy their brand of scanner which
by the way is about 35 000 it's very expensive then you get that badge just from the patient's
perspective though you're going to have a way better treatment if you have a scan versus an
impression it's just how it is it's going to track better it's going to get done quicker you're going
to have a better outcome it's going to be a better patient experience so this is a no-brainer for me
and even by the way doctors if you are let's say for example i know some doctors that are
using a radiology clinic to take their eyeterror impressions they may not yet be at the volume
where they want to invest 35 000 in a scanner but they'll send their patients down the street to a
radiology center that does use a nitero scanner you still get the badge on your doctor locator if
you do that because you're still using itero for your scan so you don't have to buy one
to get the scans or if you're using having a oral surgeon or another friend take the
scans for you same thing so from a patient perspective that's a no-brainer that's a 100
if you do not see an eye tarot badge on there do not go to that doctor i will tell you that
because the outcomes will not be as good and it'll be a poor patient experience so that's that's a
no-brainer for me and i know doctors are going to get mad and a lot of doctors own a scanner but if
they don't own that brand but if you're going to do invisalign you really need to find a way
to use the itero i just that's a no-brainer to me okay so we went over one two and three let's talk
about m a mandibular advancement this is not that important but if you do have a young kid
less than age 10 it may be something that you want to consider looking for a doctor that has the ma
badge because that's telling you that the page the doctor has experience with growing kids okay so i
would be looking for that if you have a younger kid um adult and teen doctors again same thing
if you have a teen look for a doctor that has the teen badge otherwise they're not used to working
with growing kids or teens and same thing with invisalign first same thing these all pretty much
all lumped together four five and six invisalign first teen and m.a so if you have a teen or a
child you need to look for a doctor that really has all three of these ma teen and invisalign
first if they do not have all three then they're probably not a very experienced doctor so you
can have a doctor who's silver or gold who has all this plus the eye tarot i would feel really really
good about a gold or gold plus doctor they're still doing tons of cases per year they might be
a small practice where you get a lot of attention where the actual doctor who's doing your treatment
plans will also be monitoring you and seeing you every month and they have experience with younger
kids stuff that would be the perfect doctor for me even platinum you know anywhere in there once
you start getting up here they start outsourcing a bunch of stuff and there's there's no way one
doctor can do all this so the question is i want to meet every doctor who's going to be involved in
my case you know and it gets a little more hairy so this i would be focusing on picking honestly a
gold gold plus or platinum or platinum plus doctor that is the perfect you know and then ask the
questions again are you the doctor who will see me every single visit when i come in or be doing
my virtual consults and can i contact you to ask questions and will you be doing my treatment plan
and then the last question of course you always want to ask and i can't hammer this home enough
is remember doctors or patients just so you know doctors do not need to pay anything in
order to do your setup or see your clin check your clint check is your virtual animation of how your
teeth will move it does take them time they got to take a scan that doesn't cost them anything
just their time but for me as a doctor i have zero problems showing a patient or exporting the clint
check whether they want to come in and look at it or there's a way you can export the patient
clinch check so that they can look at it home it's a little complicated and involves a lot of
downloading and other stuff from the patient's perspective so sometimes it's smoother just to
have them come in and i sometimes prefer to do it with them or i'll do a zoom session
where i'll play it for them and they can watch it you know and i could tell them about what we're
doing and what we're seeing but you shouldn't have to put down any money in order to do that because
it doesn't cost the doctor anything of course the doctor would love to have you locked in
so that if they're spending like an hour hour and a half doing this they're actually making
some money off of it you know they're not just doing it for fun but if you are on the fence
or if you are being selective it's a great idea to view the clint check first and feel
really confident the doctor can talk about the treatment plan and you can ask tons of questions
if the doctor is not able to answer the questions then that's probably not the right doctor for you
and that's why i recommend that you have a clinchex session with the doctor and you
don't put one penny down until you've viewed the clinch check and you feel confident in it
this is the most biggest mistake that i see patients make all the time and it's so
easily correctable you just have to ask and if you at the beginning when you're getting your consults
if they say no you can't do that then that's the wrong office for you that's a no walk out
immediately do not take that doctor because any quality talented doctor orthodontist or dentist
would let you do that anyone that was confident in their skills that is literally the easiest way to
pick a doctor look at the clinchack you know view it if it seems too good to be true it probably is
you want to look at the outcome you want to look at the bite you want to see the occlusion you want
to see the overjet you want to see the midlines if it seems like it's too fast invisalign should take
about the same time as braces maybe slightly less because you're changing trays every week or every
five days but if your braces are going to take one to one and a half years then guess what your
invisalign should be taking just as long maybe slightly less but if they're telling you you can
do if they're telling you in braces that it's a one to one and a half of your case and they're
telling you it's 12 a line or something's not matching up that's not a good clinch
check because it's not going to be predictable so anyways hopefully this was helpful thanks so much