I recently received an email from Align Technology letting me know that they now have proficiency requirements for the use of their appliance. Align Technology are the makers of Invisalign. I am sure you have seen their commercials on television and how they are the clear alternative to braces. Wear their clear retainers; change them once every two weeks and soon you will have a wonderful looking smile without having to wear unsightly braces. As an orthodontist, I wish it was that simple and worked that well. I would imagine that Align wishes it worked that well too. If it did, they would be inundated with cases from orthodontists rather than having to peddle their product to general dentists with little or no training in orthodontics (oops, I forgot that they get certified in a special one day course! Heavy training, huh?) or run TV ads targeted to the uneducated public.
Sorry, I digress. Back to the initial “proficiency requirements” email. It seems that Align has created a monster in “certifying” more than “40,000 Invisalign-trained doctors in North America” and now they want to make sure that visitors to their web site are referred to doctors with enough product knowledge and experience to treat them correctly. I guess the one day certification course did not do that. Now they are requiring a doctor to complete at least 10 cases by the end of the year or their special Invisalign provider designation will be lost and they will not be able to use the product. (Darn, I’m not going to be able to use a product that I viewed as inferior when compared to traditional braces. AJO-DO Volume 127, Issue 2, Pages 268-269 (February 2005).
I have a problem with a company deciding if I am qualified enough to use their orthodontic product. That is a responsibility of a state or federal licensing bureau, dental board or state certification board or the ABO. This is not the responsibility of a company that has given “certifications” to under-qualified individuals in order to boost its bottom line.
On the surface, I would applaud the effort of a company to make sure that its users are competent and educated in the use of their appliance. But that cynical part of me keeps looking toward the bottom line part of the equation. It seems that by making it mandatory that doctors do at least ten cases by the end of the year, they are boosting their profits quite a bit in the wake of a very slow economy. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
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2 comments:
And so we see qualified orthodontists become less likely to (be able to) offer Invisalign, and it becoming even more the preserve of the general dentist. Also, what's the betting that a number of providers will end up agreeing on Invisliagn for borderline, or inappropriate cases, just to make their numbers ...
On reflection, I think this whole move by Align Tech is not so good as it might, at first blush, have appeared to be.
There's a huge problem with patients not getting successful treatment, largely from the majority of doctors who are less-experienced providers. This goes not only for results, but problems with bad impressions, mutliple impressions, attachments falling off, improper IPR, not doing IPR, not moving teeth properly, etc etc. This in turn tarnishes Invisalign's reputation, even though, when used in the appropriate way, aligners can produce excellent results. My view is that they are banking on experienced users providing good outcomes, and expecting an increase in numbers due to public acceptance. There is a lot of negative press about Invisalign on forums, Yahoo questions, Ask Google, etc.
While I agree that legislative bodies and dental boards should decide upon qualifications, unfortunately, Align is a public company and can offer their product to whomever they wish.
An interesting aside is that at the last Canadian Association meeting, educators decided to stop teaching Invisalign in their programs in response to the proficiency. Unfortunately, it is the ortho residents who will suffer by not being able to learn about this treatment modality.
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