The Future of Orthodontics: Lets Start the Speculation

A stroll through the trade show at the 2009 AAO Annual Meeting in Boston highlighted dozens of trends gathering like storm clouds around the profession.  While the coming storm will bring life to new technologies and new opportunities — it is likely to leave a path of destruction that will clean out the old and make way for the new.

I have no official insider information, but I’m planning to take the next few posts to speculate on the trends and business decisions that could significantly impact the orthodontic profession in the coming years.

I’ll begin my observations, but re-posting an article I wrote that was recently published in Ortho Tribune.  This article is a basic reminder of the impact the GPs are having and will continue to have on the profession if orthodontists continue to go without leadership as a profession.

Here is a preview of the coming articles and trends I plan to speculate on:

1. The End of Orthodontics as a Specialty — 8K specialists now have 32K GPs offering some type of orthodontic treatment (most aligners) — could it happen, if so how and what can you do about it?
2. Brackets — from a boom business to a commodity — tough decisions facing the companies whose bread and butter are brackets.
3. Practice Management Systems — will there continue to be a business for software providers or will Patterson drive the software providers to commodity status.  Why the open platform architected products will be the winners — and why there may be a new player emerge even as the current players consolidate or die a slow and painful death.
4. Aligners — the battle of the aligners — can Invisalign continue to innovate or will it fall with its patents?
5. Orthodontic Specialty Programs — why we may have too many graduate programs in the US and what educators will have to consider in the future.
6. Patient Financing — what is the message doctors should receive from Capital One’s decision to no longer lend in Orthodontics — will they be left alone to finance all procedures?
7. Marketing — in Denver marketing suppliers could scream loud enough to get the attention of orthodontists and their staff — in Boston marketing companies were swamped — what orthodontist have learned in a year, what they have left to learn and what that will mean for the profession.
8. Patterson entered in ortho by buying Dolphin — Henry Schein chose brackets and picked up Ortho Organizers — why these players want to play in orthodontics and why their decisions will change the industry.
9. Imaging — the six figure decisions orthodontists must make today — and the likely challenges that could make today’s technology worthless tomorrow .Then I hope to give industry strategists and professional practitioners a few bones to chew on:
   1. Technology continues to flow until it meets consumer demand.  Technology that doctors find compelling may create a gathering pond for a while — but technology will break the temporary holding ponds and continue to flow until it satisfies consumers demand.  What are the deep consumer demands that will be met — and who are the players that are likely to meet those demands.
   2. Most Orthodontists aspire to be the Jim Nordstrom’s of orthodontics — but what would a Sam Walton do if he were to manage the space.  Can an individual orthodontist play Wal-Mart and why haven’t any large retail focused orthodontic chains chosen the Nordstrom retailing model?

I may be right, and I may be very wrong — but I’m enjoying the dialogue and invite your continued feedback.  I hope many of you who have been e-mailing me with your comments, will decide to engage on line so others can see and respond to your comments.

One final invitation — I think there has never been a better time to gather the leaders of the profession industry and practitioners (perhaps in separate sessions) for a debate and a discussion of the future of orthodontics.   I would be happy to organize such an event — if you’d be interested in participating let me know.
Be Smart!
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