Orthotown March 2018 - 41

680
19.9
vs
434 vs 12.8

the status quo, either because they view
orthodontics as a commodity or because
they find themselves unable to square the
circle of faster treatment and reasonable
financing.
This outdated thinking has left traditional orthodontics out of step with the
public perception of orthodontic treatment,
which now expects treatment to be completed
in less than 12 months and with fewer
appointments. No studies are required to
remind every orthodontist worldwide that
the most frequently asked question by
patients is, "How much longer do I have?"
As a result of our failure to adapt, this
void has been fi lled with the likes of Six
Month Smiles, Fastbraces and direct-toconsumer treatment models that promote
faster treatment and fewer visits (or no visits
at all). The treatment times shown here, with
modern PSL appliances, demonstrate that
these expectations are certainly achievable
without cutting corners.
We have also found little need to stretch
treatment times to facilitate payment plans, as
some continue to recommend. In our opinion,
which is supported by numerous practice
management consultants, finding an affordable payment plan is far more important.
Whether those plans are designed in-house
in the manner that McGill recommends,
or through the use of an outside finance
company such as OrthoFi, eliminating
excessively high monthly payments is the
desired goal. It becomes obvious that the
meaningful contemporary solution is to
completely disconnect the treatment time
from the payment plan.
Given the current economic pressures
causing overhead in orthodontic practices
to continually creep higher and higher, it is
incumbent on all of us to have a thorough
understanding of how our appliance choices
affect both the quality of outcome and the
cost of achieving it.

Each of our practices has found that
by examining metrics on our completed
patients we can make corrections to our
treatment approaches both through the
appliances we choose to incorporate as
well as our scheduling protocols that keep
us both socially relevant and economically
viable in an ever-changing marketplace. ■

4.
5.
6.

References
1. Stephen Richmond, The Need for Cost-effectiveness, JO
September 2000, 267-269
2. Padhraig S. Fleming , Kevin O'Brien, Do Self-ligating
brackets increase the efficiency of orthodontic treatment?
An evidence-based review. J Dentofacial Anom Orthod
2013;16:402
3. OSL,

10.

11.

12.
13.

SLX, Henry Schein Orthodontics, Carlsbad, California
Payne, M., HSO internal engineering measurements, 2015
Cash AC, Good SA, Curtis RV, McDonald F, , An evaluation
of slot size in orthodontic brackets--are standards as expected?,
Angle Orthod. 2004 Aug;74(4):450-3
Thomas W. Major, Jason P. Carey, David S. Nobes, and
Paul W. Major, Orthodontic Bracket Manufacturing
Tolerances and Dimensional Differences between Select
Self-Ligating Brackets, Journal of Dental Biomechanics
2010(1):781321 · June 2010
Uribe,F., et al., Parents', patients', and orthodontists' perceptions of the need for costs of additional procedures to reduce
treatment time., Am J Orthod Dentofacial Orthop., 2014
Six Month Smiles, LLC, 6270 Morning Star Drive, Suite 120,
The Colony, TX 75056
Fastbraces, Orthoworld, LLC, 2711 North Haskell Avenue,
Suite 650, Dallas, TX 75204
Paul Zuelke, Good Case Acceptance or Short Treatment Times.
What's Your Choice? Dental Practice Management, June 5,
2015
McGill, J; Four Trends To Boost Orthodontic Profitability,
McGill Advisory, October 2016
OrthoFi, Inc., Denver, CO 80203

orthotown.com \\ MARCH 2018

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Orthotown March 2018