hey it's dr amanda with straight smile solutions street smile solutions.com and
today we're going to be talking about this question which i get several times a week
about this is consumer facing for the most part um but i mean doctors should know how to answer it
too you know um even if you're a general dentist or a pediatric dentist you're patient even if you
don't do ortho your patients might ask you this question and you should know how to answer it um
so and it should help you pick the right partner orthodontist as well
but i just want to kind of give you my tips and tricks for picking whether braces or a liners
is better for you and like i like to say it's a really personal question personal question um it's
about the experience it's about what you're doing one of the biggest lies that you might be told and
i hate to say the word lie but it really is a lie it's more like ignorance is when a doctor tells
you well we can't do this case with invisalign or we can't do this case with aligners what he or she
is telling you is i as a doctor don't know what i'm doing enough to do this case with aligners
now when we go through orthodontic residency at least when i went through i learned nothing about
aligners not one did not do one case didn't learn one thing a matter of fact we were told if we went
in my residency if we went and got trained to become an invisalign provider granted this was
in the early 2000s but we would be kicked out of residency it was only about prices so i knew
really well how to do everything with braces but when i graduated patients started asking for
invisalign and clearcorrect and stuff and i was like i don't know how to do that you know i don't
think we can do that you know i just i knew in my hands i could get a better outcome with braces and
quicker than i could with invisalign but back then that was kind of the case now you know i i
was like i gotta learn how to use this plastic patients want it and maybe it's not as is easy
and maybe it's not as as predictable sometimes but patients want it so i need to learn how to
make it work so sometimes i use components that i use with braces and add them to my invisalign
treatment plan to make the invisalign treatment plan better so i've become really adept at
being able to do everything with aligners i'm not saying it's always the fastest but
it is healthier for the patient because they can take it out they can eat and brush it's a better
experience patients love it very rarely does a patient say i want to switch back to braces
that's because they don't have the discipline to keep the aligners in yes they only work if you
keep them in if you're gonna take them out and eat every five minutes it's not for you so you need to
have the discipline to realize yes they need to stay in all day and no you can't snack every five
minutes you're gonna need to time your meals take them out eat quickly brush floss put them back in
and you know for someone who likes to sip hot coffee all day long or drink red
wine all day long it's not for you so you need to think about whether your lifestyle
will fit into the aligners now personally i think for teens it's a way better product because teens
are active they play a lot of sports they play a lot of instruments and aligners require a lot less
adjustments office visits you just have to put them in that's all you have to do sometimes you
have to maybe attach some rubber bands and do some other little stuff but for the most part there's
really nothing to break there's really very low to no discomfort it's a much more pleasurable
experience for the parents having dealt with a lot of braces patients and now having dealt with
kids that had aligners oh my goodness it's so much easier there's so much less drama and it works but
again this really depends on the skill set of your doctor so let's go over a few facts and if you
want to see this written out in fact form you can go to my blog at straightsmilesolutions.com click
on about us click on blog um so we'll go over a few facts and again these facts are the facts of
their opinions of myself and straight smile solutions they are not necessarily the opinion
of invisalign or strawmen or align technology or anything else so here's a few facts um most
orthodontists are indeed very very good at doing braces i have seen some junkie work but mostly
because they are very rushed and they are not putting the effort out for the most part i think
most orthodontists do amazing work many for and most braces that you get are done by orthodontist
right occasionally you find some general that is doing braces but in general they do an awesome job
um aligners are a different story there's a lot of junk going on out there and there's a lot of
people who don't know what they're doing it is possible for a general or a pediatric dentist or
any type of licensed dentist to take a 45 minute course and be able to provide a line of therapy
you will not know and just because your doctor is highly ranked on some doctor locator means
absolutely nothing because very often these doctors are not the ones doing the treatment plan
and they're not the ones actually touching you in the office they just pool their resources to
boost up higher so they get a volume discount so that means absolutely nothing to me there's
a lot of questions you need to ask of the actual doctor starting with are you the doctor
that's going to do my treatment plan you that i'm talking to are you going to do my treatment plan
or is somebody else going to do it are you the doctor that i'm going to see
every single visit or am i only going to see an assistant or am i going to see you it's okay to
see assistance assistants are trained by the doctor but how much supervision is really
going on and do you get to connect with the doctor every visit that's a big thing to me
when i see patients i still see them every single time the system might assist and
help but i still am doing all the brain work behind it right so these are questions to ask
in addition but sometimes you know if you have a general then it's with braces it's
great because they often don't do a lot of braces and they often are very involved in
it and they see everything and they do everything so sometimes it's good it's
less much less of like of like a factory you don't want that
another good question to ask is what percentage of your aligner cases do you submit as comprehensive
moderate or moderate or unlimited versus express assist go light or flex so we want to know is
the doctor submitting things as full cases or as improvement cases that is a good question to ask
them and all these are listed in my blog if you go there very very important we want to know that
the doctor is doing things comprehensively doing things fully not just quote unquote improving and
this is even more critical if you have a teen or a child i personally believe personal opinion again
personal opinion of dr wilson aka straight smile solutions and many other orthodontists out there
that it is below standard of care to do anterior treatment only on a child someone that's 18 and
up can choose the improvement option as long as they are given the risk benefits and alternatives
to have an improvement and not perfect that's okay if you're over 18. i don't think it's okay this
is my opinion i'm just saying so you want a doctor that's doing things completely not half and that's
really important okay so another good question to ask is what percentage of your aligner cases
need attachments elastics bite ramps or ipr these are all auxiliaries buttons and stuff like that
if they telling you that 99 or all of their cases need one of those
that's a good sign if they're telling you oh i don't really use those that much that's a bad sign
okay that means they're just improving they're not perfecting which again i said is totally fine for
adults but i don't think that's okay for teens um but if all their cases are just improving that's
not perfecting that's telling me they don't really know what they're doing um another one okay
what percentage of your aligner cases need revisions refinements or mid-course corrections
so to explain what that is as you go through an aligner case usually when i do a case i go from
a to z i knock it out i know what i'm doing i make a good treatment plan as long as my patient
does what they're supposed to do they actually just wear them 22 hours a day we should sail
from a to z without any issues so we don't need a mid-course correction a revision or a refinement
it's more of a one-off for me than the doctors i work with than the norm
if your doctor is saying the majority of their cases or a large percentage of their
cases need mid-course corrections refinements revisions and for you to always expect them
that's a bit of a red flag for me that they don't know what they're doing
another great question is can i see my clin check set up or my clear pilot setup aka my animated
treatment plan before signing on the dotted line or committing financially to the treatment
now on our end as a doctor we can get that set up without having to put any money down okay yeah
maybe it takes a little bit of our time but most doctors i know will do that let you see it let you
check it out you'll know how many aligners it is you kind of see what happens you make sure you're
happy with how everything goes then you sign of course doctors want you to go ahead and commit
you know like because they they would love that you know but can you if they say no you can't and
they won't let you see it then i wouldn't see that doctor that's a sign that again the patient the
doctor doesn't want to show you what they're doing so um our doctor's always going to show their
plans no not unless you ask it's another step why would we so i mean it's just a question that you
wanna to ask it's a good sign so and then here's the real truth okay keep in mind that us doctors
are charged an upfront la hefty lab fee from the corporate companies align technology our strawman
um all these other companies through immunotech um ormco we're charged this on the front end of the
case that means as soon as we submit your case and say okay on our end you maybe haven't paid
us anything or if even if you have insurance 1500 for insurance we don't get that up front
we get that in drips and drops over a year year and a half two years okay so we're actually
negative cash flow which is a business term saying we're losing money when we're starting your case
whereas if i do braces your braces are only overheads only costing me like a hundred bucks
as opposed to fifteen hundred to almost two thousand dollars u.s it's a
big difference between a hundred and two thousand dollars i don't wanna be negative
i i want to have positive cash flow and yes eventually i'll probably get my money as long
as you pay the money and the insurance pays money and everybody does what they need to do
but initially that doesn't incentivize me to want to do aligners it makes me want to not do a liners
right now if you plop down 5 dollars in cash oh yeah let's do a liners let's go for it because
i'm not negative cash flow so often if you're saying you only have two thousand dollars put down
most orthodontists are going to say you know i don't think your case can be done with the liners
i just don't think so well that's i call bs on that because like i said in the right hands
everything could be done with the liners it's not always the fastest way sometimes it is but it's
definitely doable but if you're not offering to put down a nice down to payment they're probably
going to conveniently tell you that aligners are not for you now again this is bs but you're going
to get that okay so this all really comes down to the corporate mentality of these companies
that are charging us doctors taking advantage of us and charging us on the front end we have no
other choice actually we do have other choices and if you're a doctor listening to this there's many
other choices so feel free to come talk to me but if you want to use one of these branded companies
they have a few programs where they'll let you pay over time and stuff like that but it's a real
one-off and you have to be very special so um for the most part you're going to be negative doctors
aren't going to want to do your case and that's why you're probably hearing from these doctors
that your case can't be done with a liar so that's the honest truth so anyways hopefully this was
helpful again these opinions are the opinions of straight to male solutions and dr amanda wilson
and not the opinions of anyone or anyone else i mentioned in this speech alright thanks so much