Imagine this: one of your practices signs off on what looks like a clean, software-generated aligner setup. The case kicks off without much thought, after all, it “looks fine,” and the aligner trays ship quickly.
But fast forward a few months: the patient’s teeth aren’t tracking. Multiple refinements are needed. The doctor’s confidence dips. And your operational costs start creeping up again.
The Hidden Cost of Poor Treatment Planning
Most clear aligner headaches don’t start with the trays. They start with how the case was planned.
In many DSOs, treatment planning is treated like a formality, especially when software platforms make it so easy to click “approve.” But that convenience hides a bigger issue: without a clinically sound treatment plan based on actual diagnosis, you’re setting the case (and the patient) up for problems.
Whether it’s:
…the outcome is the same: more refinements, longer treatment times, higher chair time, and patients who question the value of aligners altogether.
This Isn’t Just Clinical Risk. It’s an Operational Liability.
When your practices consistently face mid-course corrections or failed outcomes, it hits your bottom line.
Refinements don’t just cost money, they cost time. Time your doctors and teams could spend on new cases. Time that ties up chairs. Time that chips away at your margins and patient satisfaction scores.
And when outcomes are unpredictable, scaling your aligner program across multiple locations becomes nearly impossible.
Why This Holds DSOs Back
The moment treatment planning becomes a volume game instead of a quality-driven process, the ripple effects multiply. Patients lose trust. Your teams lose confidence. And the standard of care becomes inconsistent across locations.
It also makes your aligner program harder to manage. Each refinement is a mini-crisis to solve. That’s not scalable — it’s chaos.
The Right Way: Diagnose First, Plan Second
Treatment plans shouldn’t be click-throughs. They should be grounded in orthodontic logic, patient-specific anatomy, and a clear understanding of what’s biologically realistic.
For DSOs, that means putting guardrails in place:
This small shift in approach can dramatically reduce refinements, improve predictability, and help your teams deliver consistent results at scale.
Raising the Standard
At ClearForward, we partner with DSOs who are ready to level up their aligner programs. That starts with planning cases the right way, with proper diagnosis and our Treatment Plan Optimization™ process built in from the start.
We’re not here to just push trays. We’re here to help you reduce chair time, improve patient satisfaction, and make your aligner program more scalable and profitable across every practice you operate.
If your aligner program feels reactive instead of reliable, it might be time to ask: are we signing off on setups or investing in outcomes?
We’re here to support the latter. Contact us here.
