Welcome to The Golden Age of Orthodontics, the podcast that keeps orthodontists ahead of the curve in innovation and patient care. In today’s episode, hosts Dr. Leon Klempner and Amy Epstein are joined by Jose Hogan, President and CEO of Align Technology They delve into how Align is reshaping the future of orthodontics with breakthrough technologies and digital solutions. Joe shares insights on how orthodontists can embrace the digital shift, addressing the challenges and benefits of transitioning to digital workflows. From AI and 3D printing advancements to reducing treatment times and minimizing office visits, this conversation looks into the transformative power of digital orthodontics and Align’s ongoing commitment to supporting orthodontic practices worldwide. Tune in to learn how these innovations reshape patient care and practice efficiency in the orthodontic industry. Remember, there has never been a better time to be an orthodontist.

IN THIS EPISODE: 

• [4:40] Joe Hogan explains how Align Technology supports orthodontists
• [10:24] Joe predicts digital trends and advancements for 2025
• [14:20] Joe is hopeful that a stronger economy will be favorable to orthodontists
• [18:47] Joe addresses concerns from the orthodontist community
• [25:09] Why are so many orthodontists still using brackets and wires rather than Aligner Therapy

KEY TAKEAWAYS: 

• Under Joe Hogan's leadership, Align Technology invests over $350 million annually in digital orthodontics, focusing on groundbreaking tools like ClinCheck and 3D controls tailored for orthodontists. Despite serving general dentists, Align Technology remains committed to innovation and partnerships within the orthodontic community.
• Joe Hogan highlights three innovations shaping orthodontics: the iTero Lumina scanner for faster, precise imaging, the five-minute ClinCheck for touchless digital workflows, and 3D printing as a breakthrough in aligner manufacturing. These advancements set Align Technology apart, focusing on groundbreaking platforms rather than incremental changes.
• Despite aligners handling 95-100% of orthodontic cases, widespread adoption could be improved by the workflow transformation required for digital integration. Joe Hogan highlights the efficiency gains of aligners—reduced treatment time, fewer visits, and scalability—while acknowledging the challenges for orthodontists in retraining staff and adapting to a digital-first approach. This shift demands commitment from practitioners.

RESOURCE LINKS

People + Practice  - Website 

Leon - Email

Amy - Email

People + Practice - Email

Align Technology - Website

BIOGRAPHY:   

Joseph Hogan, President and CEO of Align Technology, has led the company to significant financial success over the past eight years. With extensive leadership experience from ABB and GE Healthcare, where he increased revenues by 25% and doubled them from $7 billion to $16 billion, Hogan brings a wealth of expertise in business strategy, market development, and operational management.

For us to bring you new episodes. Lightforce Orthodontics is revolutionizing orthodontic care with cutting edge custom bracket technology that offers personalized digital treatment plans that are fast, precise, and uniquely tailored to your patient's needs. Take advantage of the new standard of care with 3D printed, fully customized brackets combined with indirect bonding and digital planning.

Narrator: The future of orthodontics is evolving and changing every day. But although the way to achieve practice growth has changed, there's never been a better time to be an orthodontist. Let's get into the minds of industry leaders, forward thinking orthodontists, and technology insiders to learn how they see the future of the orthodontic specialty.

How will digital orthodontics, artificial intelligence, clear aligner therapy, remote monitoring, in house printing, and other innovations Change the way you practice. Join your host, Dr. Leon Klempner and Amy Epstein each month as they bring you insights, tips, and guest interviews focused on helping you capitalize on the opportunities for practice growth.

And now welcome to the Golden Age of Orthodontics with the co-founders of People and practice, Dr. Leon Klempner and Amy Epstein. Welcome to the Golden Age

And today, as usual, I'm joined by my partner, my daughter, and the brains of People in Practice Marketing, the guru of marketing herself. Amy Epstein. Welcome, Amy.

Amy Epstein: Thank you very much. It gets better every single podcast that intro. So thank you Um, i'm amy epstein the other founding partner of people in practice Um, and we started this business together because it takes both of us in order to provide the best insights and To, uh, orthodontists to help them grow their practice.

That are shaping its future, which is the whole reason why we have this podcast. And today we're thrilled to have Joe Hogan back on the show for almost 10 years. He's led aligns growth and innovation in the clear aligner space and new technologies continue to emerge that have a significant impact on the ortho industry.

He brings a wealth of experience leading complex global organizations. And today we're going to hear Joe's insights on aligns vision. Discuss their commitment to orthodontics and talk about the evolving role of technology in our industry. Welcome back to the show, Joe.

Joe Hogan, President and CEO of Align Technology: Thanks, Amy. Great to be here. Great to see both you and Leon again.

I appreciate being on the show.

Amy Epstein: Thank you.

I'm sure that's not new to you. Um, and arguably, the orthodontic community has, Made a line what it is today. So my question to you is what, if any, what plans, if any, does, does the line have to help support specifically the orthodontic practice community?

Joe Hogan, President and CEO of Align Technology: I think that's a good question. You know, I, I know that that exists in the orthodontic community, just the way you frame it.

Like I was explaining at our summit recently is when I first came into this business, My quick summary of an orthodontist is it was someone that straightened teeth, right? And look, I've been in the medical profession for my goodness at that point in time, 10 years of my life or whatever, and, you know, different ends of medical.

I had no idea, like you, you talked about structural cranial. I mean, I had no idea that the orthodontist Actually dealt with face aesthetics and functionality and how it works. You just weren't straight think teeth. And so, and obviously the team here understood that much better than me, but there's aspects about orthodontics.

And, uh, I can tell you that it's a huge upfront, um, focus of this business. The most important part of what we do, not just in the US, but all over the world,

Dr. Leon Klempner: and I get that and I get that. But, you know, obviously, GPS are a big part of the growth of the line and your business. And I understand that as an orthodontist.

I know that not not a lot of orthodontists are happy about it, but. I mean, it's part of part of growing a business, but specifically for orthodontists themselves, I think that there's a, there's a sentiment that, you know, we've kind of been tossed aside and, and, and you've gone for a kind of bigger fish.

And I was just wondering if there was any effort at all to kind of, you know, throw us a bone somewhat and do something for us in some way. So that that's the question.

Remember, we only sold the orthodontist at one point in the career. I wasn't here at that other company and we were made to, you know, sell to general dentist to, um, I don't know if I laugh about this. I've heard some, you know, orthodontist say, well, you filed that case against yourself so that you could service the GP community.

Right. And I kind of laugh and I think, you know, well, we're not that smart to do that. Anything like that. It's just, and it just doesn't work that way. Um, yeah. You know, I think with general dentistry and they are teeth straighteners, they think about strengthening teeth. And so they basically take derivatives of the broad products that we sell to the orthodontic community.

I think we bring groundbreaking leading technology that allows you to address Cases digitally in a different way and we can get into that Uh, certainly than you ever could have with, you know, common devices like s6 devices and things that have been used, you know twin block that they use for you know, in case of you know, class two and those those types of things and so I Also, if you look at the what we've done with clincheck over the last You I'd say three or four years, you probably have put 250, 300 million in the last five years for a five minute limb check.

It's that kind of efficiency that the orthodontic community, if you're going to focus on clear aligners, I think demands and needs to make that happen. And so I would say broadly, do we sell to GP? Sure. Do I appreciate them as customers? Yes. Predominantly who we sell to in the United States and all over the world are orthodontists.

That's the predominant part of us. Do we try to service gps as well as we can? Yes They're not as demanding in the sense of the product specificity And the productivity is what you have with orthodontists. So, you know right now we spend about 350 million dollars a year in technology Remember if you roll up all of our competitors, that's like 4x What anyone else would spend or 5x before?

And I think that's the best way I can answer is that we are You We spend that money with a focus on the orthodontic community and how do we move digital orthodontics forward? I hope that helps.

Joe Hogan, President and CEO of Align Technology: Yeah, you know, I mean, it's a good question i'd say um broadly Uh, there's three areas of specifically that we focus on one is ITERO and you saw our new Lumina product that we just announced and it is an orthodontic product that we, you know, first announced and, you know, we'll move it into general dentistry here as we go in the first quarter of next year.

It allowed speed and breadth and capability to image a palette and do the entire thing. Um, that is the new platform I feel for, uh, scanners all over the world. You're going to have to have multi structured light in some form or fashion, confocal imaging, and just single camera with a mirror is going to be in the past in a hurry.

So secondly, is the five minute clean check that I just mentioned is. You know, at one point in time, when I first started here, we were moving more information back and forth and forth. Adonis than Netflix was moving to people. It's that these files are that intense and that big. And so we've always known that that whole typing suggestion in Leon, like you were used to in the past and us making a change in Costa Rica and bringing that back and make that workflow was not digital.

I mean, I was, I grew up in the plastics industry. I think you knew that Leon, um, and Amy. Um, so I always had a fetish for material science. I grew up in Pittsburgh and I studied metallurgy at one point in my career and whatever. I've always felt that if you look at any invention in the world, really, that's significantly changes something.

It's always based on material science. Look at silicon wafers and how that moves, right? You think about battery technology, right? From cadmium, you take lithium ion from cadmium nickel, right? Those are huge transitions and it's usually based on material science. When I came into the business and realized that we were only making molds and then vacuum forming of performance plastic on top of that, I thought, wow, the holy grail here.

It's what's going on in the industry, but I haven't seen any competitors do anything what I, you know, when I, when I look at. When I look at technology, I always think of breakthroughs, platforms and derivatives is how I always think of technologies. Okay. And derivatives are quick things that you do that are kind of incremental, whatever platforms I call Lumina, a breakthrough platform.

Okay. I call 3d printing a true breakthrough going through. When I look at our competition, I don't mean this demeaningly at all. They work off of derivatives. They basically take what we've been doing for 27 years. They do some little Twitch on it or something to get it in the marketplace. So I don't.

There's no trend, I'd say, overall in platform or breakthrough technologies that I see in the orthodontic industry that has to do with, you know, moving teeth that's facilitated by our competition.

We have a new administration coming in. There's potentially major economic policy change on the horizon. Do you think that any regulatory shifts will affect the orthodontic industry and and how might it

Joe Hogan, President and CEO of Align Technology: Well, I you know, honestly i'm i'm a business person, you know guys i've been in a lot of industries I I always think that a light touch on regulatory is a good thing.

Not a bad thing Uh, what I've seen is from a public company standpoint with the SEC and different, you know, organizations or whatever over the last, you know, several years have been really difficult to deal with. This is a huge amount of cost and focus and things we have to do with some legitimate, some not.

There's a lot of export and imports or whatever. Uh, you know, my job is to make sure that we help to mitigate that in some way. Uh, when I first started here, we only had a plant in Mexico today. We have a plant, um, you know, outside of inside of China. We have a plant in Poland. We have our plants in Mexico.

We've moved treatment planning all over the world or whatever. And so I feel like we have a certain degrees of freedom to be able to manage around those tariffs that they, you know, they come to be in some way. Uh, but lastly, I'd say I I'm hopeful. That we'll see a stronger economy in the next, uh, couple of years.

And you take a look at the orthodontic community in our sales, uh, for three years in 29, 10, and 11, we were down, or we were down like 5 percent growth and you were the con community was down. Uh, and so it's almost been repeated completely like that. And what we're seeing on our best gauge on that is the Michigan consumer confidence index.

If you watch that, And a lot of people in the analyst community will regress that to our stock price. But I want you to forget about that. Just look at the orthodontic business itself and look at those back three years. We've seen this before. And when these are, you know, orthodontics is a big consumer purchase.

And that's what we're going through now. And I feel if we can see a stronger economy here with a lot less inflation, uh, that index should go up and it should be a better market for all of us. Wow. That's a long answer to your question. And you're going to answer to my

Amy Epstein: question. It's exactly what I was looking for.

So thank you.

Dr. Leon Klempner: So Joe, you, you, you mentioned ITERA. So I'm going to bring up another pain point that I'm seeing in the industry. I'll bring up the pain

Amy Epstein: points and I'll do it moving forward. And you're not going to want to talk to him.

Dr. Leon Klempner: I mean, how often? How often do I have an opportunity to talk to the CEO of Alarm Technology, right?

One is why can't use any scanner and why is there like a list of preferred scanners? Um, that's question number one. And question number two, if I buy an iTero scanner, why can't I sell it to one of my colleagues? It seems like I'm, I'm, I'm locked in, in some kind of anti competitive culture or something.

Those are the issues. And this is from,

Amy Epstein: these are, these are questions that you're like harvesting from Facebook.

Dr. Leon Klempner: Facebook groups. Facebook I'm on, I'm active on all those Facebook groups and, and you know, we have 8, 000 orthodontists that have subscribed to those that, that, you know, so, so these are things that come up repetitively.

So tell me what your thoughts are.

Coming out here shortly with a much better integration between I. D. S. And a D. P. M. S. System. So you eliminate that duplication of entering information into I. D. S. And then having to enter the same, it's frustrating. I know for doctors the same information in your in your D. P. M. S. System, right? So that with that is we're just trying to create a platform in a work experience.

This is productive for both of us as we possibly can that you can use. Mhm. The other side of it is everyone, you know, all CEOs talk about, you know, artificial intelligence today and whatever. Remember, we have, we've done 20 million cases roughly. I'm rounding up about a million, 20 million cases from that.

Uh, this is, iTero information is different than what you pick up with 3Shape or what you pick up with Serona or what you pick up with Medit or Shining3D or whatever. I don't want to spend that money to, to qualify another scanner and put more machine learning on that and filter out that equation. To me, it's just, it's not, it's not what we want to do.

And, Uh, or where I want to spend my money. Now I know some, you know, orthodontist would maybe want to use a three shape or something or whatever. Uh, but we feel like we have leading technology and that technology is a platform for productivity and growth. I'll stop there before I get to number two. Does that, does that

Dr. Leon Klempner: help?

Joe Hogan, President and CEO of Align Technology: Yeah. Well, when you talk about an STL file, I think of a PDF, I got an image, but I don't have the integrity that I have from the file itself that was created with our technology.

Okay. Uh, you ever try to modify a PDF image, you want to shoot yourself, Leon. So, uh, and there's so many different scanners in the world and they all employ different technologies. majority of them are confocal and mirror now, you know, and Lumen is the first of I'm sure many, I'm sure other competitors will come out, you know, with derivative technology of what we do.

Uh, and it will in the future as it is now drive more and more of this, what we call no touch wind check that makes things so much more efficient. Okay. What

Dr. Leon Klempner: about the

Joe Hogan, President and CEO of Align Technology: second

Dr. Leon Klempner: question?

Joe Hogan, President and CEO of Align Technology: Uh, you know, you know, overall when You know, as you look at, you know, scanning technology in general, right? Is it, we deliver these iteros to, and you want them to work.

Okay. And they do work and they function and we're behind them. Right? If you have an issue, obviously, you're paying a subscription fee. We're making sure we're updating the software. We're making sure that things work or whatever. Um, we have a active engagement. If you want to change your platform, we'll buy those scanners back and we will, we create what's called a CPL unit.

Not sometimes often we'll get a call and say, Hey, this thing doesn't work. We need you guys to fix this thing. And we'll say, well, where did you get it? Well, you know, Leon sold us three of 'em. You know, he said they were great. And we said, well, we love Leon, but those aren't working right and it's gonna cost us, you know, $10,000 to fix those things, to get 'em where you want to.

And, and, and it's just not a con, have we addressed those and help that? It's just not a conversation you wanna have, uh, with. With someone who paid maybe even more than what you can get, you know, on eBay in some way for that particular thing. So we just eliminate consternation and conflict with our doctors.

But I just don't, we just don't want that constant aggravation that we have and you have as an orthodontist when you get a scanner and it doesn't work. And then it's all of a sudden our responsibility to deal with it. And it's not that we won't deal with it. It's like, we think there's a better way.

Amy Epstein: So, Joe, let's, let's shift a little bit and talk about, um, aligners as a treatment modality versus brackets and wires.

Because, you know, brackets and wires are still the, like a vast majority of treatments. Right. And so, uh, and especially when we're talking about kids and I think even teens, um, where is, why is that the case, I guess? And is it driven more as a marketer? I'm curious. Is that like, who's the decision maker on that being the case?

What's your perspective?

Joe Hogan, President and CEO of Align Technology: I you know, I mean not to be cute, but it's a little bit of everything you said Okay is i'd start with uh when I first met leon and we got together nine years ago or so We could do about 60 of the cases And so there was always To me, when I thought about clinical confidence with our product line that we had to get better at what we do and cover a broader amount of cases so we could up the clinical confidence of our orthodontist out there to handle cases.

So, again, probably, you know, more than a billion dollars of R& D spend over much more than that over the last, I'd say, you know, eight years or so. We can now comfortably do 95 percent of the cases are orthos with IPE and, you know, pallet expansion and different things. We feel we're at 100 percent of the cases.

Um, so I would say we're at the point now to answer your question. I mean, this is about, and I don't say this demeaningly at all. I say this very supportively. The hardest things in work to do are change workflow because you're not just changing your own workflow, right? You're changing your practices, workflow, every, the way you think, the way you operate, the way that you work with patients or whatever.

You can do a thousand cases here on three chairs. And especially now with virtual care where you can monitor the patients and we use AI to figure out where they stand or whatever. And you get a lot of cases that last 18 months that you might have four visits with, right? So the productivity is huge, but it's, you have to learn everything.

Clin checks and the intricacies of how you work with it. And so I honestly think it's, it's, it's preference for orthodontist. And, and do I support that orthodontist have the final say? I certainly do. Look, but I know many of the orthodontists out there not being comfortable with our product one way or another We'll use a terminology Well, you know your kid won't wear the aligners.

And I have a certain amount of empathy for you might be a part in your career where you just don't want to deal with that. I get that. I really do.

Amy Epstein: Do you think that I know we're going to talk about AI in a second because that's the that's the last thing we wanted to touch on before we let you go. But do you think that the AI component, the virtual care component will move the needle?

More so than in the past in terms of convincing practices to consider integrating aligner therapy into their practice or transitioning to a practice that offers

Joe Hogan, President and CEO of Align Technology: aligners. Yeah, I talked in my speech, I gave it to orthodontics summit recently we had in Las Vegas. I said that there's two variables in the equation.

That's the critical variable equation. The second part of that is, you'd say, I get the time piece is, you know, what about the space piece? It's virtual care, right? You don't have to have these patients coming back to your office all the time. Uh, you can, we can monitor what's going on out there if a change needs to be made and bring them back and you don't have that comfort time or, you know, when you have a wire bracket that comes loose and you, you know, they have to come back to the office and they interrupt your workflow or whatever.

And so that's really a virtual increase in space that virtual care allows that you can monitor these patients and only bring them back where they can. It affords, I think, a really, uh, a lot of productivity to patients, uh, to parents too, in the sense of not having to drag the kids back into the office all the time.

And honestly, I What I try to explain too is that you can move teeth with wires and brackets. It's a miracle. Okay. When you, when you really look at how those wires, you know, obviously been in this industry enough, but I look at that, I think it is just amazing that you can do that. And you can anticipate what those movements are when you have all those teeth floating at one time.

I mean that from, I mean, I have an incredible amount of respect for that skill, right? But I call that skill a craft. It's a craft. It's, it's what you do. What we've done is we've changed. This is you can still practice this craft, but you can scale this craft and from a productivity standpoint and a number of standpoints that you could never scale wires and brackets, but you have to make this critical change into a much more different workflow than what you had before.

Dr. Leon Klempner: So let's talk a little bit more about that. Let's talk a little bit about AI, and I'm giving a lecture at the AO meeting in Philly this year. The title of it is, you know, AI won't replace you, but your competitors using AI just might.

So I'm very interested in exploring both the applications and the potential pitfalls of AI in ortho. So where does the line stand in terms of AI? What's the vision and where are we going?

Joe Hogan, President and CEO of Align Technology: You know, our vision, I think AI is such a broad term now, you know, it's like love. It's hard to kind of get your hands around.

Uh, obviously the key to these, um, when you look at AI, the key is. Large data sets. If you, the more larger your data sets get, and remember, they have to be qualified data sets to you. You have to make sure that that information could give you a funny example, but you have to make sure that information is gained right and then access properly.

But the more data you have, the better off you are in the sense of being able to predict it. And that's what you have. And so I think obviously align with 27 years of experience through this, we have a huge amount of information that we're mining and using or whatever, but we're, we're using that information to improve our aligners and the functionality aligners and to prove our treatment planning and the, and how the treatment planning functions too.

I said, it's really cool. He just said, look at it closely. And the dinosaur had five legs. He says you would never see that fifth leg if you didn't look closely and he said that's the danger with AI. Is it shows you exactly what you want, but it's a subtleties behind it. Did you have to make sure? That you address and not take for granted.

And I think that's the opportunity with AI and that's the danger of AI. And I'm going to try to stay out of the danger zone and just use that information and then qualify it again and again and again to make sure it's right.

Amy Epstein: All right. Well, Joe, thank you for your insights. Thanks for joining us again.

We hope that we'll be able to have you on the show again in a year or so. And we can continue the tradition of touching base every once in a while, because we enjoy talking with you.

Joe Hogan, President and CEO of Align Technology: Well, Amy, I enjoyed talking to you and Leon, too. It really, uh, I, we have a great history together and I appreciate that.

And thanks for having me on the show. I, uh, I really appreciate it.

And for more information about light force and people in practice, you can visit our website at pplpractice. com.

Dr. Leon Klempner: And thank you for watching and listening. Uh, you can tell that Amy and I enjoy it and, uh, having a guest like Joe Hogan adds a lot of value. We believe to the podcast. So we appreciate Joe's time.

And if you'd like to contact me directly with any marketing questions. Or even suggestions of topics that you'd like Amy and I to address on the podcast. Shoot me an email at leon at pplpractice. com. And remember, for forward thinking orthodontists, it has never been a better time to be an orthodontist.

Narrator: Thank you for tuning in to the Golden Age of Orthodontics. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or visit our website at thegoldenageoforthodontics. com for direct links to both the audio and video versions of this episode.