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The compliance problem you are not solving

Published about 4 hours ago • 4 min read

There is a moment that happens in almost every aligner case.

The patient leaves your office motivated. They have their trays. They know the rules. Twenty-two hours a day. Remove to eat. Clean before reinserting.

And then real life happens.

They grab lunch at their desk. They do not have a toothbrush. So they rinse with water, put the tray back in, and keep going. Happens at dinner. Happens at happy hour. Happens every single day for the length of their treatment.

You already know what that does to their oral health and to the case outcome.

The compliance conversation in aligners is almost always about wear time. How many hours a day. Are they actually keeping them in. And that is a real issue. But there is a second compliance problem that nobody talks about.

What is the patient doing between meals when they are not in your office and do not have access to a full oral care routine?

Most of them are doing nothing. Not because they do not care. Because nothing convenient exists for that moment.

I recently sat down with Gulshan Kumar, the founder of Swishables, to talk through exactly this. It is a pre-filled mouthwash sachet. No bottle. No measuring. No bathroom required. It fits in a pocket, a purse, a gym bag. You tear it, you swish, you go.

For a general patient it is a nice amenity. For an aligner patient it fills a real gap in their daily protocol.

What I found interesting was the other side of it. When you hand a patient something that useful at checkout, something they are going to pull out at a restaurant or in their car, it becomes a talking point. Their friend asks what it is. They say their dentist gave it to them. That is not marketing. That is a referral that costs you almost nothing.

The practices that retain aligner patients long term are not just the ones with the best clinical outcomes. They are the ones that make the patient feel like they are being taken care of between appointments too.

That is a small thing that compounds.

Full conversation with Gulshan is up now. Worth the listen if you are thinking about how to elevate the patient experience in your aligner program.

If you want to check out the Swishables directly, go to the link here and use my promo code: AVISWISH.

Talk soon,

Dr. Avi

Video of the Week

video preview​

What happens when a serial CPG entrepreneur meets a disrupting dentist — and they start building together? In this episode, Dr. Avi sits down with Gulshan Kumar, CEO and co-founder of Swishables, the portable mouthwash brand disrupting oral care. From his roots building Pathwater to identifying a massive white space in dental wellness, Gulshan breaks down how curiosity, strategy, and imagination drive real innovation.

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by Dr. Avi Patel

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