The Problem with Online Orthodontics

I was using smile direct club to get my Invisalign, but they’ve gone out of business. I don’t have all my aligners and have been wearing the same pair since December when they closed down. I’ve been trying to either get the rest of my aligners or at least part of my money back, but I’ve had no luck with either. I can’t keep wearing these forever, plus, my teeth still aren’t straight. Do you know of another company like this one that will let me continue where I left off?

Cara

Dear Cara,

I want to qualify a couple of things for the benefit of others who may be reading this. Smile Direct Club was not a part of Invisalign. Instead, they used their own type of invisible aligners to distribute through their company. This was a mail-order company that allowed patients to get a type of Invisalign product without going through a dentist or an orthodontist. They said this would save them lots of money.

As to your question, are you sure you really want a company like Smile Direct? They haven’t really done a good job for you. One of the reasons they went out of business was because many of their patients had horrible problems with the treatment.

Not many people knew about this because they used to suppress bad reviews by only allowing patients to get a refund if they signed a non-disclosure agreement about the problems they faced with their treatment. It wasn’t until June of last year that a court case said they were no longer allowed to do that. This released even previous customers from their agreements and all the bad reviews started rolling out. By September, they were bankrupt. When they could not find a buyer for their company, they closed their doors.

The problem with using an online company to do your orthodontics is they are going to have the same weaknesses as Smile Direct did. You won’t be under the care of an orthodontist who knows what they are doing. Plus, our bodies rarely follow the prescribed treatment without needing some adjustments. When you are not under the care of a orthodontist or a dentist there is no one to help you with those adjustments. People have actually lost their teeth when trying to do orthodontics on their own.

Your safest option is to do the real deal such as Invisalign or Spark Aligners. I am so sorry this happened to you.

This blog is brought to you by Bee Cave Orthodontist Dr. Tostado.