hey it's dr amanda with straightsmilesolutionstraightsmilesolutions.com
and today we're going to be talking about the new press release that i got today in the email and
this is six months smiles everyone invisible aligners financing for all
and wow this hit my e-box my inbox today and i didn't quite see this coming um
interesting so i'm gonna break it down so first of all i do not work with six month smiles nor am i
promoting them in any way i'm also not promoting them negatively this is just a news blast this
is my opinion this is my interpretation of their program based on what limited information i saw i
got in my email and i saw on their website and in their portal so for those of you who might be from
direct to consumer companies who like to follow my social media i am not passing judgment here it's
nearly my opinion i'm not saying it's good i'm not saying it's bad i'm just saying so please don't
send me nasty letters from your legal team for those of you who work for a liner companies that i
may or may not have worked with same thing going i do not want to get any emails or letters or things
sent to me certified if i do i will out you and i will out you big time so i'm warning you this is
just a warning six month smiles if you don't like that i made this i can take it down you're very
friendly i like perry perry shoot me an email if you don't like this and i will take it down
but i think it's just news and news is news so um okay so this is what i read so it seems like six
month smiles is dipping their toe into the direct consumer world with a twist they are um they are
letting their certified doctors do the treatment plans i like that so i'm just gonna say i like
that i like that whoever's doing the treatment plan is the one that's actually seeing the
patient now have i seen their baa no i have not i have not gotten that far into it i am
not an attorney nor am i going to be doing this so not really interested in their baa ultimately
if you're interested in this program as a doctor you should request to see the baa the baa explains
or business agreement um it explains exactly how you as a doctor fit into this threesome basically
you know you've got six months miles you've got the patient and you've got you as the doctor
normally when you do a liners it's just a twosome you and the patient right so obviously we've got
smile direct club was just dr uh consumer doctor and they had their virtual doctors
right but now that they're scaling they're doing um they're doing something similar to this and i'm
not gonna go into that either um candid's doing something similar to this we've got fx we've got
straight teeth solutions we've got uh ortho lee's not doing anymore there's a few other ones
but this is kind of these hybrid threesomes where you have a company the doctor and the
patient you guys get it right the way each of these work and how it works
is all a little bit different and i really really hesitate to dive into it too much because i'm not
promoting this at all i'm just explaining because a lot of you are asking doctors are asking should
they get into this ultimately totally your choice read the baa decide if it's something for you
okay so i'm gonna be talking about this from the doctor's perspective what's in it for you right
how will this help your practice will it help your practice will it hurt your practice that i don't
know again i highly recommend before you get into any of these threesomes that you have an actual
attorney not legalzoom a real attorney that you pay look over this because you could get yourself
in hot water if you don't do things correctly also it depends on your own dental practice act um one
of the things i liked about six month smiles is they did not say you have to have the appointments
virtually they did not say you didn't have to have the appointments virtually they just didn't say
and i kind of like that when they don't control how you see the patient when you see the patient
and if you see the patient so that was a plus for me because that gives me more control i feel like
you get you can have better clinical outcomes i also like that you at the doctor get to decide if
this is a patient for you if you feel comfortable seeing this patient so they're going to be
marketing for patients if you are a certified doctor and if you've opted into the program
um they said that there was no cost to be in this program besides just being a certified doctor and
you have to take one of their two courses one is in-person aligner course the other one is a
virtual aligner course it looks like they have no impersonal line of courses last i checked
probably because of covid so the virtual one was a three hour session for 599 u.s so that's
relatively reasonable three hour course yeah um do i think you know everything you need to know
no in three hours no way you don't so um no way um also these cases are that they are they
didn't mention on the patient's side if they're screening the patients for the doctors if they're
just pitching you all the patients if you're gonna get photos that i don't know um or if it's
just going to be a referral that you're going to schedule that they didn't go into i have no idea
i really don't even care that's really between you and six months smiles how that works not sure
um the one part that seemed really attractive was the the money money money money so um
the patient pays basically this takes it down to candid smile direct club price prices the
patient pays about nineteen hundred dollars if they pay up front they get a discount um
if they finance it they're going to pay 3 200 with the 399 down payment i don't know how six
months miles is making money off this because i'm assuming they're going to be doing marketing and
that's going to cost money i mean the customer acquisition cost is usually quite expensive for
direct to consumer liner companies so if they're only making a 400 profit on the patients that
pay up front and that's probably barely covering their lab fee because you're not paying a lab fee
you are getting a check it says for fifteen hundred dollars on every patient as soon as
the patient pays so i guess it's on collections um they didn't quite explain if the patient is
financing over time it says you don't get monthly checks it says you get the money all up front at
the beginning personally i think that's a dumb move on six months miles apart to do it that
way but i'm not gonna go into that so um great for the doctor dumb move for them but i mean
okay um i you know i'm always thinking of it from both ends you know what's in it for them but
um all right i mean i guess they're making money after you guys taking their course which is 600 so
they're probably gonna get more doctor certified and their thought is probably you'll be doing it
on your own patients as well and they're going to be making more profit off that just saying
so um cases have to be less than 18 aligners upper and lower that's the magical number 18.
about the same as drink to consumer you get one refinement and you get one set of retainers so
just remember you're going to need more than one set of retainers for our lifetime so it's time for
you to set up your retainer and your orthodontic after care program because that's not going to fly
they didn't mention if you're using their contracts their paperwork's not sure about
that again i didn't see the baa but supposedly you get a fat check for fifteen hundred dollars
as soon as the patient closes on the contract they manage the patient they deal with all that
then they pump the patient to you you decide if it's your patient or you wanna see it or not if
you don't think it can be done in 18 aligners you can upscale it to doing other types of
treatment they didn't mention if you can this is where it'll be interesting what if you look at it
and you're like i don't think this can be done in 18 and what if six-month smile says yeah it can be
okay that i wouldn't want someone butting in like that because ultimately that's my decision i tend
to run my aligners a lot slower than a lot of people but also the cases that i work on have much
lower revision refinements and higher customer satisfaction so i'm just saying um what if you
have to keep them in the six month smiles brand or can you switch them to invisalign don't know
that will be interesting messy to see how they get involved how they butt in if they butt in
um you know what if you want to do traditional mini twin brackets and not use the six months
miles brackets can you you know so not sure how that works so you know if you're fully
super into six month smiles this might be great for you if you just do it as a side piece and you
do other types of aligners other types of braces and not their brand of braces i'm not sure how
this is going to work out ultimately so again the real truth is in the baa i'm electing not to even
look at it because i don't want to get into the weeds with the baa and have all kind of people
getting mad at me so anyways sounds interesting is where i left it sounds relatively promising
similar to what a lot of other people are doing but interesting that six months miles
already has their brand established they already have their lab all their systems worked out so
and they actually have a course which is a little bit different that's definitely interesting so
all right hopefully this is helpful this may or may not be the right thing for you thanks