[ad_1]
CVS Health is embarking on dental care with the intention of offering a relatively new tooth smoothing service.
The pharmacy chain announced Thursday that it would add SmileDirectClub sites to hundreds of its stores, where customers could begin to recover, without a dentist or orthodontist appointment. This lack of office visit attracted criticism from orthodontists.
CVS Health and other pharmacies have lobbied in recent years to add more services to their branches, partly to help their customers stay healthy. They also seek to attract customers for cost-effective beauty products and avoid competition, such as online retail giant Amazon.com, which delivers the same day many products that pharmacies sell outside their pharmacies.
As part of the CVS plan, customers get a 3D picture of their mouth done by a SmileDirect employee in one of the pharmacists. The image is sent to a dentist or orthodontist who approves the patient's treatment plan. Patients are shipped in a clear and removable alignment designed to straighten their teeth.
They register remotely at a dentist or orthodontist, often by smartphone. The service costs $ 1,850 before insurance.
The American Association of Orthodontists has criticized the service, warning that in-person visits are important in this type of care. Dentists can detect gum disease during these visits and X-rays can detect bone loss not visible in a photo, said group lawyer Sean Murphy.
"Our concern is the health and safety of patients," said Murphy.
CVS Pharmacy President Kevin Hourican said he had no safety concerns with SmileDirect, which provided a "high quality" product and limited care to patients not requiring complex dental care .
SmileDirect spokeswoman Carrie Moore said the company, which began in 2014, has served more than half a million people. She said in an email that it was common for "traditional industry representatives to balk" when a new business model is accepted.
CVS Health will also add the SmileDirect service as a covered option in the dental network of its newly acquired Aetna health insurance business. Another insurer, UnitedHealthcare, announced Thursday a similar extension of its coverage.
SmileDirect sites will only appear in a small percentage of CVS Health's 9,800 points of sale in the country. But company officials say they could eventually expand to more than a thousand sites. The company began testing the approach in a few stores last fall.
CVS Health found in its pilot that SmileDirect sites had attracted new, younger customers.
"People want to improve their smiles and feel better about themselves," said Hourican.
[ad_2]
Source link