The Practice
Desirée Walker, DDS, is an American Ninja Warrior competitor and a North Carolina native. After graduating from the University of North Carolina School of Dentistry and working as an associate, Dr Walker opened her own practice, Lumber River Dental, in Lumberton, North Carolina, in 2008. Lumber River Dental aims to provide a comfortable and patient-centered experience each time. The practice offers a variety of services, including pediatric care, professional teeth whitening, comprehensive care, and clear aligner therapies.
The Prior Solution
Dr Walker uses a clear aligner service in the practice, but she finds that On Demand Orthodontist (ODO) helps her fill gaps in the practice that exist because of timing—what she describes as bottlenecks.
“I see so many patients that a lot of time I don’t have enough appointments to be able to get to them in a timely manner, especially with the other clear aligner service I use,” Dr Walker says. “That was a really big benefit of ODO—you can do it remotely with DentalMonitoring. The treatment plans are proposed by an orthodontist, which means I am able to have really close contact with the orthodontist on the case.”
Upgrade Inspiration
Dr Walker heard about ODO and thought it would be a good fit for her practice, which aims to serve patients in a comprehensive way. ODO makes it easier and more efficient for general practitioners to bring clear aligner therapy into the practice while eliminating time and cost barriers, according to Dr Walker. She introduced ODO to her practice in early 2021 and uses it alongside her initial clear aligner solution to optimize the ortho workflow.
The Benefits
Included in the ODO Concierge package are Ormco Spark Clear Aligners, the DentalMonitoring app and ScanBox pro, retainers, case diagnostics, design and treatment plans, marketing materials, and more. Dr Walker says that ODO has provided her dental practice a huge advantage with this robust package.
“It provides a very efficient way to deliver clear aligner therapy. It’s some of the highest quality [aligner therapy] that you can imagine because it’s done by orthodontist’s recommendations and it’s done super efficiently,” she says. “With most of my cases—even the most difficult ones—there are patients who instead of having to come in for 10 to 15 visits for cases, they only have to come in for 3 to 4 visits, which is amazing.”
Cutting down on time and visits opens up the chair for Dr Walker and her dental practice.
“It eliminated so much chair time and saved me a lot of money,” she says.
The New Solution: On Demand Orthodontist
On Demand Orthodontist (ODO) is a clear aligner therapy program that allows dental practices to offer clear aligner therapy to their patients without requiring a new orthodontic system. ODO has a team of experienced orthodontists to support partner practices virtually with suggested aligner treatment plans, patient monitoring, and concierge end-to-end support for each case. It provides Ormco Spark Clear Aligners and other tools to provide general practitioners with the kind of robust clear aligner plan that can be a big benefit to the patient and clinician.
On Demand Orthodontist
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What’s Up Next
Dr Walker believes that ODO offers a great opportunity for general practitioners to begin offering clear aligner therapy in their practice without having to break the bank or invest in rigorous specialty training. ODO supports dentists through its recommended treatment planning and monitoring with their patients. Case ownership stays with the dentist who has that established patient relationship and trust. This is material to dentists as they often have their own treatment plan (airway, bridge/crown, implants, etc) that they wish to be accounted for within orthodontic treatment.
“I think it would benefit more general dentists who are nervous about getting into clear aligner therapy. They would be more prone to do this than a different clear aligner therapy because they don’t have to go to any special classes or continuing education,” Dr Walker says. “Their patients get the benefit of having a nice, straight, aligned smile.”
