As a busy general dentist, you may ask yourself why taking on an additional challenge of incorporating orthodontics would be a good idea for your practice. Seven seasoned pros share their expertise in the following clips!
1. Opens up more treatment options
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"[Without orthodontic knowledge] you make misdiagnoses. If you don't know anything about it, you don't see it. There's a blinder and you don't see a lot of things. [If you don't know orthodontics] you don't see the options."
-Dr. Don McGann, founder of Progressive Orthodontic Seminars
2. It's lucrative
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"From a business point of view, you'd be ridiculous not to be doing orthodontics as a general dentist because it's probably one of the most successful things you can do."
-Dr. Agim Hymer of Melbourne, Australia
3. Your patients know and trust you
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"If we look at orthodontics in a GP practice, it’s the place where the patients come to see the dentist. That's the person they see over the years so they build a relationship with the dentist."
-Dr. Jacques Cilliers of Johannesburg, South Africa
4. Assistants can contribute greatly
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"In orthodontics, the assistants are doing the bulk of the clinical work. In general, the assistants do everything from taking records to helping the doctor with band and bond procedure."
-Dr. Suzie Bergman of Vancouver, Washington
See the list of 50 orthodontic tasks your assistants should be doing.
5. Helps restore function
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"You can use adult ortho as a tool to accomplish your ultimate goal, which is to restore function. In fact, we use ortho to improve perio. We use ortho to improve TMJ. So it's kind of a tool that has its place in the comprehensive treatment plan."
-Dr. Hans de Bruyn of Antwerp, Belgium
6. Brings you more referrals
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"With ortho, when a patient sees a transformation in a year and a half, with no anesthesia, no pain, nothing really too complex involved, you see a lot more referrals. You see a lot more referrals to your practice because of orthodontics."
-Dr. Fawaz Habib of Tracy, California
7. Reignites your passion for dentistry
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"Frankly speaking, after almost 15 years of dental practice, I got burnt out. Then I saw a magazine and decided on the course. Two months later I realized I had so many cases to do. If you know ortho, it's different. It makes you think differently. My whole practice changed."
-Dr. Vasanth Sivaraman of Chennai, India
