A doctor on our call kept sharpening her script. She explains wear. She explains recession. She shows old scans next to new ones. She asks what the patient wants for their teeth in ten years. Patients nod. Then they defer. She thought her communication was the problem. Then she told me how her office collects. Cases are about four thousand dollars. Half up front. The rest inside two or three months. No monthly option. That is not a communication problem. I asked her a question. Someone offers...
10 days ago • 3 min read
A doctor on our call said something I think about a lot. She told us her consult is good. Her financing is good. Patients say yes. Then the ClinCheck lands in her inbox and she freezes. She scrolls through the movements. She tries to remember what to look for. It looks fine, so she approves it. And then she feels sick. Because she has no idea what she just approved. Her words: "I feel like I don't know what I don't know." That is the real bottleneck for most doctors. Not the pitch. The plan....
17 days ago • 4 min read
An orthodontist on our team shared a case that went sideways. A 24-year-old walked in with one complaint. Her top front teeth stuck out and she hated how it looked when she smiled. That was it. That was the whole list. Her back teeth were a Class II. But the bite was stable and had been for years. The ortho went after the Class II anyway. Distalization. TADs. Elastics. Attachments. Two years of treatment. The patient hated the elastics. She hated the attachments. She stayed compliant the...
24 days ago • 4 min read
A doctor on our coaching call told me he feels like a broken record. He joined his practice a year ago. The practice already sells a lot of Invisalign. Every recall patient has heard the pitch from three other dentists. So he says it again. And they look at him like they have heard it all before. Because they have. He asked me how to break through. Here is what I told him. I had a patient who cracked a molar. I showed him the wear. I told him his bite was doing it. I told him we could fix the...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Every practice has patients who show interest in clear aligners. The real question is: What happens next? Many doctors assume that once a patient expresses interest, they’ll naturally move forward with treatment. In reality, that’s where many opportunities are lost—not because patients said “no,” but because the practice didn’t have a consistent process to guide them toward saying “yes.” Over the years, I’ve found that successful clear aligner practices don’t rely on luck. They rely on...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Your fourth quadrant has your weakest bond. Here's why. Most docs bond attachments with one micro brush. Same brush for all four quadrants. It feels efficient. But something invisible happens along the way. With every quadrant that brush picks up a little more contamination. You can't see it. It's microscopic saliva. It builds anyway. By quadrant four the bond is compromised. That's the attachment that pops off in three weeks. That's the extra appointment. That's the patient losing a little...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Early in my career a patient started crying in my chair. We sat down to do her first round of IPR. I could have sworn we talked about it before. She didn't remember any of it. So there she was. Scared. Crying. And there I was. Nervous as hell to do the IPR anyway. It was a traumatic appointment for everybody. I still think about it. Here's what I wish someone told me back then. You don't have to do everything in one visit. Attachments. IPR. Trays. All of it stacked on a nervous patient in one...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Last year my family moved from Texas to New York. I wasn't worried. I've moved my whole life. Florida to NYU. NYU to Connecticut. Connecticut to Texas. Moving is my thing. Plus my wife is a machine at planning. I figured we had this. Then reality showed up. The movers arrived at our new house. One problem. We hadn't closed on it yet. The timing we planned for fell apart. So our entire life went into my sister-in-law's garage. Then we hired a second set of movers to get it from her garage into...
2 months ago • 4 min read
I had a case that still bugs me when I look at the photos. We fixed the crowding. We got great intrusion on the lower front teeth. The before and after was a huge win. But one tooth was off. The lower central incisor. It bothered me. Three or four trays and it would be perfect. I could see it. I wanted it. So I brought it up with the patient. He looked at me and said "Doc, I really don't want to wear more trays. Are we good?" Here's where most of us mess up. We push. We say "trust me, it's...
2 months ago • 3 min read
