In this promotional seminar introduction, Dr. Bill Hang, a third‑generation orthodontist with 46 years of experience, warns that direct‑to‑consumer orthodontic providers like SmileDirect could soon dominate the market and threaten traditional practices. He describes a niche service his clinic offers—reopening previously extracted orthodontic spaces and, in some cases, adding extra bicuspid teeth—to treat sleep‑apnea and pain patterns without retraction. Dr. Hang emphasizes that concerns about periodontal damage are unfounded, citing seven peer‑reviewed articles that refute the risk. He invites a broad range of dental professionals to attend his seminar to learn these techniques, positioning the training as a way to differentiate their practices, attract international patients, and prosper despite competition from corporate orthodontic models.
Chapters
Hi, I'm Bill Hang. I'm an orthodontist from Agoura Hills, California. I've been doing orthodontics for 46 years, and I think I have a very unique perspective on the profession. A 3rd-generation orthodontist and former orthodontic department head has predicted that SmileDirect, within 5 years, will do more orthodontics than all of the orthodontists in the United States combined. Now, if you understand what that means, Pretty much, to me, it means that every practice will be devastated. And how can you compete with SmileDirect? We have patients in our practice right now where we're reopening previous orthodontic extraction spaces. They're coming from more than 25 states, several provinces of Canada, and several other countries, including Switzerland, the UK, Kenya, India, Australia, New Zealand. People are willing to spend that kind of time and energy and money to come see us. Uh-huh. To have their extraction spaces reopened. I have people contact me all the time, gee, do you know someone in my area who does this? And usually the answer is no. I'd like to train other people how to do this. And it's not just about reopening previous extraction spaces to get rid of sleep apnea and/or pain patterns. We're talking about other things that are non-retractive, taking generalized spacing and not retracting, but getting rid of it. Reopening previous lateral incisor extraction spaces like that. And also, even adding extra bicuspid teeth in certain cases to help get rid of sleep apnea and/or pain patterns. We'll show specific examples of these things. Some of you are probably feeling a little bit nervous now when you think about adding extra bicuspid teeth. Well, Dr. Hang, you're going to be pushing these teeth off the bone support. People are going to lose their teeth to gum recession. I'll be very honest with you, there are 7 articles in the refereed literature which tell you this is not going to happen, and I will share all of them with you as part of this. I urge you to come, to bring your restorative dentist friends, orthodontists, periodontists, pediatric dentists, dental hygienists, anyone from your office. If you want to prosper and have a really great practice where people come to see you because of your expertise, not just because where you're competing against the other guy down the street in orthodontics, or competing against SmileDirect, I think you need to come to this seminar. I look forward to meeting you.
