Clearly a Winner

Dr. Melissa Shotell has been using ClearCorrect clear aligners nearly as long as she's been practicing—which means she's had a front-row seat as the brand grew from an aligner company into a complete digital ecosystem with a powerful aligner system at its core.

"I've seen a huge evolution over the last 20 years of the product and of the system," said Dr. Shotell, a board-certified orthodontist and educator in Northern California. "Now, it's about refining the digital ecosystem even further and offering more enhancements."

That 2-decade vantage point gives her perspective most clinicians don't have. And while plenty of clear aligner products compete for attention, Dr. Shotell feels ClearCorrect stands out for 2 key reasons: the material and the software.

ClearQuartz: The Right Amount of Force

ClearCorrect's ClearQuartz trilayer material delivers greater orthodontic control, pairing 2 layers of resilient polymer with an elastomeric inner layer for gentle, consistent force.

"The trilayer material is a big advantage—it gives you really continuous, sustained forces," Dr. Shotell said. "When you pair that with the biomechanics of the aligners, how they're designed with a high and flat trimline, you get a lot of treatment efficiency."

As Dr. Shotell explains it, the elastic inner layer lets the 2 harder outer layers distort enough to fit onto the teeth, then pulls the teeth back into alignment. That's what activates the tooth movement.

"You get lighter forces on insertion than you would with a single-layer material, and because the elastic inner layer resists permanent distortion, it lets those forces act much, much longer.

"There's also substantial published research behind this type of material. "ClearCorrect really managed to design an excellent material, and they paired it with a very researched design as well," she said.

ClearPilot: Control at Your Fingertips

The ClearPilot treatment planning tool allows clinicians to see case details, patient records, treatment paperwork, and comment history while leveraging a wide variety of visualization and analysis tools.

"The software has really evolved tremendously over the past 10 years," Dr. Shotell said. "With the amount of control the doctor is given, you can essentially customize a setup however you would like. That's a big advantage, especially when you're busy and you want to just make one minor adjustment to a treatment setup."

ClearPilot also caters to clinicians who may be newer to clear aligner treatment planning. "I think they've done a good job of making it very intuitive through different levels of software functionality," Dr. Shotell said. "For someone who's not comfortable working in digital software, they can still type in notes and let the technicians make the changes."

A Powerful Digital Ecosystem

Today, ClearCorrect looks very different as a company than it did 20 years ago. A strategic partnership with Straumann opened the door to a digital workflow—one that starts with an intraoral scan, continues through integrations into the ClearCorrect Doctor Portal, and has since expanded with accessories that make treatment planning easy and predictable.

"The ClearCorrect Case Assessment tool actually grades the case—is it predictable, moderate, or complex?—in 3 to 5 minutes," Dr. Shotell said. "There's also the ClearCorrect Outcome Simulator, and you can go through the whole treatment planning process with ClearPilot. But there are lots of digital accessories that help the whole way along."

The ClearCorrect Sync App lets doctors take and edit patient photos with guided templates and upload them to the ClearCorrect Doctor Portal instantly from a phone or tablet. With categorized lists and status icons, doctors can access detailed case information from any location.

"I would have to say that's one area where ClearCorrect over time has really, really expanded the amount of education that they offer, especially online, for doctors to get started," Dr. Shotell said. "And there's a lot of team training online now, too."

Doctors can also request phone calls with the ClearCorrect clinical team when they need assistance—for example, if they get a setup back and it isn't what they pictured. 

"You can ask for a concierge phone call and jump on a meeting, and the technicians will make the changes with you right then and there," Dr. Shotell added.

Over the next 2 decades, ClearCorrect plans to keep helping clinicians integrate aligners into both their clinical workflows and growth strategies, all while making aligner therapy more accessible.

"I think we're going to be able to treat more and more complex and interdisciplinary cases," Dr. Shotell said, "and continue to leverage both digital technology and the technology of the aligner system itself."