“It’s not mandatory” to visit a dentist, one employee said. However, SmileDirectClub requires all potential customers to see a dentist within six months before their treatment. This gives SmileDirectClub proof that the patients’ teeth are healthy enough to be treated.
When confronted with the videos, SmileDirectClub Chief Legal Officer Susan Greenspon-Rammelt, said it was the employees’ lack of training or personal opinions, which do not reflect the company’s policy.
“That may be a Smile guide who didn’t actually have or remember the proper training,” said Ms. Greenspon-Rammelt to NBC News.
SmileDirectClub currently has more than 1,800 complaints nationwide reported to the Better Business Bureau. While many of the complaints are over customer service issues, such as delivery or payment problems, dozens of patients have filed complaints over treatment results, including broken teeth and nerve damage.
The company’s network of dentists is responsible for developing treatment plans for patients, not SmileDirectClub itself, said Ms. Greenspon-Rammelt. She also added that the poor treatment results may have been caused by patients not adhering to treatment programs properly.
“That could be because they weren’t following the instructions for use, they didn’t come in for a midcourse correction when they were advised to do that, they didn’t follow up with the dental team,” she told NBC News.
If a customer can prove the treatment plan didn’t work, they must sign a confidentiality agreement before getting any kind of refund. In response, Ms. Greenspon-Rammelt said that by the time patients sign the agreements they have already posted the news about the treatment to social media platforms and filed other complaints.
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