Summary
Align has now required their providers to submit 10 cases per year and take 10 hours of CE or lose their status as a provider of Invisalign. This applies to all providers regardless of experience or cases provided. These standard could cause major anger and discontent among its current providers and scare off new Dr.s from getting trained
Analysis
The recent proficiency standard issued by Align Technolgy could have a detrimental affect on the number of cases submitted to Align. The atandard are an attempt to improve quality control and improve clinical outcomes by better training and having fewer doctors doing more cases. I believe this is a flawed and potentially disastrous decision.
While it is admirable to improve the training and results it may result in a large drop in cases submitted cases. Align needs to state how many of their existing provider base actually submits 10 cases /year. I would guess the % to be quite low. They are mistaken if they think these standards will suddenly change this especially in these economic conditions.
They are also saying that even if you have done 50,100, 200 or more cases that the same standards will apply and you could be bumped out of thier provider base. THis is cauisng a huge groundswell of anger and discontent and may seriously damage the company and help competitors such as Clear Correct.
It is my opinion that they will have to do serious damage control quickly or risk alienating their current base of clients
