The infamous Smile Direct Club, whose advertisements enticed patients to “cut out the middleman )orthodontist)” for moving teeth, filled for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. If more money from new partners cannot be found, the company will be liquidated.
This article makes it seem as though their whole problem was COVID 19, but this is not the whole truth.
A Washington DC court Had voided the company’s hush orders to patient who had managed to get refunds. Problems with the system existed from the beginning with lost teeth, teeth needing root canals, and unstable results. On top of it, Invisalign, who was an initial investor, sued the company.
Do-it-yourself orthodontics was a stupid idea to start with. The great majority of orothodontic cases require generating more space to move teeth into. Usually this means reducing the side of teeth by abrasives. No consumer can do this at home.
Aligners are a somewhat clumsy way of moving teeth, practical only for a limited number of cases, after an extensive case analysis. There was no way some technician in a foreign country could effectively decide how a patient should be treated, without ever examining the patient in person.