smile solutions straightsmilesolutions.com and today we're going to talk about invisalign
informed consent and other paperwork that you need for an invisalign case and i'm hoping
if you are a new invisalign provider that this is something that they're covering in your intro
class obviously it's been a really long time since i've taken an invisalign intro class and i
have no reason to take it so i'm not sure what they're telling you
within your portal there is the inform consent document they keep moving it around and last i
checked i couldn't even find the pdf version but it's super easy to find if you just go to google
just look up invisalign inform consent pdf um and a bazillion will come up and just use that
you're allowed to use it on any invisalign case remember you should use it on any invisalign case
matter of fact it's critical that you use that on every invisalign case if you've already done
cases and if you're not sure that every single case has invisalign informed consent signed and
scanned in this is a great homework assignment that must be done by someone on your team
go and audit every single invisalign case in your invisalign portal and make sure all of
them have informed consents if they were not signed and or filed you have a little bit of
back peddling to do it must be done trust me if you do not do it you will regret it
remember these patients have up to seven years to complain after treatment is done you have to
hold the records as well as seven years after they turn 18. so if anything wants to go wrong
now or later you know down the road and you didn't have that informed cassette you're
gonna be in some big trouble so it's okay to backpedal um you just go to the patient say hey
sorry you know looks like we misplaced this or we may not have had an opportunity to have you sign
this um really important that in order for us to proceed continue proceeding with your invisalign
case that we get this paperwork completed you can say it a little bit nicer than that especially if
it's your fault but you got to get it signed so make sure you get it signed no matter what
personally i will not treat a patient in any way shape or form that does not have it signed
if you've already started the case this is a little bit of your mess to deal with 99.9
of the time patients are very nice when you're nice about it about signing it now the point
of informed consent and hopefully they went over this in dental school is that you give the patient
an opportunity to read it um and then you give an opportunity to ask questions and normally
in my offices in the past it was something that was handled by an office manager or tc
but i never ever accepted a treatment finish the clinch check anything like that unless i
knew it was signed if it was not signed i can't approve that clint check i'm not starting the case
so that was something that i as the doctor took the extra step to confirm it was signed and
scanned in um we do the same thing in ortho for braces cases you have a separate informed consent
and if you want to see what that looks like i have copies of those that can be purchased um
in my document store on my website straight smile solutions go to store go to documents it's there
twenty dollars if you're not one of our members um if you are one of our members they are free
so um invisalign consent free just get it what else do you need for to start an invisalign case
well i mean that's really up to you that's the only thing that i would say is required it's
kind of a good idea to have some type of contract i have standard basic ortho contracts
available again in my store if you want to grab a copy of them you can but this is also things
that you can ask your invisalign territory manager and they should have assigned you to
somebody and it's going to be listed in your portal if you're not sure you can give their
customer service a call and find out who it is i find that when you're kind of low level you
probably won't hear much from them they tend to buzz around when they want you to do more volume
um when they're trying to make quotas and stuff or if you start to do a lot of volume they
mysteriously come out of the woodwork um so in the olden days they were much more helpful now they're
just over committed they have way too many doctors and there's usually separate ones for gps and
orthos two separate ones which i think is good i agree with that because they have different needs
so talk to your tm and see what other paperwork they might have for you supplemental insurance um
informed consent forms i use those because i'm an orthodontist and i take really hard cases right so
you know if i'm worried about lower jaw growth or open bites or lots of things root resorption you
know um i have a lot of stuff on stock that i've created over the years again available in my store
if you're not taking super hard cases you probably don't need those um but if you are you definitely
probably need them again a supplemental layer of protection these are things that the ao recommends
and the aao ic the a american association of orthodontist insurance company so i've taken
a lot of webinars with them and i've learned what to do and what not to do so i tend to over inform
consent just to cover myself um you know things don't always go as planned weird things happen
and if i know there's a higher chance that a weird thing is going to happen i'm going to have you
sign an additional form if you don't want to sign it i don't do your treatment it's that simple blah
blah blah we move on with treatment we finish treatment once you finish treatment you need
to have a debond paperwork signed there i do have one um i have a few i have one for braces one for
aligners so again available in my store or you can ask your tm they might give it to you for free a
lot of times they have these things in stock but they're not going to give it to you unless you ask
so always always always have your patient sign off on the treatment saying that they
are happy they are satisfied and they realize that rehearsals need to be worn on a certain schedule
it's a great opportunity to put that schedule in and to explain at that point in that paperwork
how your retainer program is going to work you're like whoa what i didn't know anything about that
yes you cannot just give your patient a set of retainers and say bye it doesn't work like that
you need to figure out how your program is going to work everyone does it differently
are you including a full set of four viveras with your treatment yes or no not everyone does very
few people do but it's a it's a nice added bonus if you are i mean certainly i would let patients
know at the beginning because that's a nice value add if you are are you including retainers at
all most orthodontists include at least one set but you're going to need way more
than one set in a lifetime do you have a retainer aftercare program do you have a retainer warranty
what's that going to look like how long are the retainers going to be warrantied for what's the
cost later if they need a new one et cetera et cetera you need to think all of that out remember
patients will need way more than one retainer in a lifetime and if you don't explain that to them
and explain how that's going to work and what the cost is and what's going to happen if things shift
you're going to have trouble you know because it's it's it is probably the number one complaint
that i as an orthodontist i always got from patients who maybe left a gp and came to an ortho
because they just didn't handle their attention program correctly i know you're not thinking it
could be oh a big revenue generator but it can be a big practice killer if you don't do it and it
actually could be a revenue generator if you stage things correctly i love the idea of having a menu
saying at the front when i start case what's included we're going to include
one set of standard retainers you're going to need bare minimum four if not more sets in a lifetime
we recommend that you purchase bayer up front i like the idea of selling the vivere at my cost no
additional fee if they get it at dbond if you get it after debond i'm going to assess an additional
fee because i'm going to have to rescan it's going to take me time to scan and deliver so cost right
now gosh what is it 38 285 295 310 i don't know it's something like that plus shipping so my cost
is gonna be that that's for eight retainers four uppers four lowers that should be enough
to last you for a very long time if not possibly a lifetime i can't predict how long it's going to
last you it depends on your diet the acidity of your saliva if you have gastrointestinal reflux
um the strength of your muscles if you grind or rucks i don't know you you know they might stretch
out they might snap they might break you might wear them down not sure i recommend bare minimum
four uppers and four lowers to get you started you might need more if you get those at the time of
d-bond i'm happy to sell them to you at my cost no profit to me that's exactly what i pay is what you
get just stick them in a drawer you know someplace cool some place not hot certainly not in the car
maybe up in a closet some people put them in their safety deposit boxes that's a brilliant idea
especially if you've got kids going off to camp um college you definitely want to get that
because there's nothing worse than having them lose or break the retainers and now it's a big
problem because they're going to start shifting immediately and now you're going to probably have
to pay for more alignment so let's talk about you know other types of retainers there's lots
of different retainers you don't only have to get vivera and vivera is not always the best for the
case so i've got literally oh my goodness i've got an entire retainer playlist i made content
on everything all different types of retainers and there may be patients that come in that ask for a
specific type of retainer maybe they want that holly i personally prefer a holly for me i've
tried all different ones i hate bonded retainers on me i hate essex retainers just don't like them
doesn't feel right you know i love my hollies so i've had hollies for 20 something years maybe more
25 i don't know long time same pair last really really nice really really great well made you
know high quality holly retainers i'm happy with those but not all patients will be happy with that
some patients are going to ask about bond retainers again for me unless i feel it's
clinically indicated a bonded retainer is enough charge it's going to be i would say bare minimum
for a single arch maybe 500 for a double arch maybe a thousand because i gotta make the essex
to go over it because any time i place a bonding retainer i'm now married to that patient when
things break it's an actual emergency and i need to fix it so and i'm gonna include a warranty up
to six months usually and after that there's going to be a fee of x y and z to replace the
bonded retainer or remake it and i'm going to list it all out so they know how it works
also if they're going to have a bonded retainer there's diet restrictions can't bite into certain
things can't bite into pizza crust for the rest of your life as long as you have it on
bagels i mean to me it's like why would you want to have that i know some people get away
with eating whatever but most people don't so there is a diet restriction
i'm going to warranty it you know for 30 days or something like that or maybe more or 90 days
but after that there's going to be a fee to fix it and if things move there's going to be a fee to
retreat that so you know people want that bond retainer happy to do it at an additional fee
occasionally i'm going to include it with treatment but i'm going to let the patients
know on the front end what type of patients would that be probably perio patients like severe perio
patients where i need basically splinting you might be able to bill a perio splint depending on
what it is but an orthodontist probably can't do that so i might send them to their gp to get that
revenue opportunity for the gp or a periodontist um what else definitely on phrenectomy patients
i'm going to or a lower incisor extraction patient i'm going to do a bonding retainer
at no additional charge and then in that case i chose it so that there's not going to be an
upcharge for that because i feel that's the best clinically indicated retainer for you
so phew that's pretty much how the paperwork works hopefully that was helpful again check
out i have a playlist on paperwork that's in my youtube channel as well as a playlist on retention
so everything you need to know is probably there and if you want to meet with us we're happy to
meet with you as well so to access those go to my youtube channel go to youtube put
in the search bar straight smile solutions it'll take you to my youtube channel which has a green
background from there scroll down in the homepage and you're going to see the variety of playlists
i have over 200 videos just for invisalign a couple dozen videos just for retainers
and paperwork this could take you months to go through because i have over 4 000 free pieces
of content educational resources hopefully it's helpful alright thanks so much have a good day