I used to see advertisements for SmileDirectClub all the time, especially on Facebook. Now I can’t find them anywhere. Someone told me they closed up shop. What happened?
Dean
Dear Dean,
Yes, the SmileDirectClub went under. For the longest time, they were preventing patients with bad experiences from giving negative reviews by making them sign non-disclosure agreements in order to get their money back. Eventually, a court case said they couldn’t do that anymore and released all those who were previously under the non-disclosure agreement. That released about 17,000 complainants. This happened in June of 2023. By September they’d filed for bankruptcy. They were unable to find a buyer and ended up closing up shop.
One of the reasons they went under is because mail order orthodontics are a really bad idea. First, you can’t guarantee an accurate impression of your teeth. Without that, your treatment is going to have problems. Second, you would not be under the care of a dentist. While there were patients where everything went perfectly fine, there are many occasions when teeth do not cooperate. As a result, adjustments have to be made in the treatment. That’s not possible to do when there is no one checking on how things are going.
You can tell from the number of the complaints they had that there were problems with quite a few treatments.
There have been multiple companies that have popped up since then offering something similar, but they are all going to have the same problems. My recommendation is that you do the real deal and get Invisalign with your dentist.
Aside from getting the proper care, there is a hidden benefit. The aligners used in the Invisalign treatment can double as teeth whitening trays. You can ask your dentist for professional strength teeth bleaching gel and wear them in your aligners. This allows you to straighten and whiten your teeth at the same time for a fraction of the cost it would be if you did both procedures separately.
This blog is brought to you by West Seneca Dentist Dr. Carl Embury.