I don’t like this interviewer’s tone, at all. It was like… confrontational but in a teenage way.
How Invisalign became the biggest user of 3D printers
51–60 of 135 posts
Re: How Invisalign became the biggest user of 3D printers
#52Tangential, but I have sleep apnea. Fortunately I have it mild enough to get away with a mouthpiece instead of a CPAP (which is good anyway because I also have bruxism). The mouthpiece works great and I would recommend everyone get tested for sleep apnea if your insurance covers it, but I have to admit that paying for it bothered me. Even with insurance covering some of it, it cost me about $600. I know that there's…
I think your comment would have been more insightful if you had at least pretended to try to account for labor before saying "They charged me 4000x the cost of goods!".
To be clear I'm not even asking for you to account for the cost of your printer, the 3d scanner, and software licenses in your math. Let's assume that all those are free. How many hours of specialized human time was spent on consultations, scans, design, reviews, to produce working guards for you?
The next question is then, of course, how much do they charge for subsequent guards now that the scan has been done and validated? Is it still 4000x the cost of raw resin?
Re: How Invisalign became the biggest user of 3D printers
#53There’s a dental procedure in Latin America that is cheaper but only a few places in the US do it.
Re: How Invisalign became the biggest user of 3D printers
#54Most teeth align themselves as kids age. This is almost never necessary.
Until wisdom teeth come in later on and cause crowding or visual issues
Re: How Invisalign became the biggest user of 3D printers
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
> All the same, I sleep like 10x better, so I suppose that considering that $600 is a cheap price to pay. First time? Price is not determined by cost to produce. It’s determined by the price a customer is willing to pay.
I suspect the introduction of the infinite-money pits of insurance doesn't help either. Since I do have the 3D scan of my teeth, I've debated designing my own, but I'm not sure which resins to buy that I could safely put in my mouth every night.
Even if you find a safe resin.
Might there be microscopic layer lines? Or other unknowns you're not familiar with? Making 3d prints that can be cleaned is non-trivial, maybe there is a surface finish involved, etc.
Also how do you know your design is correct? Won't cause your teeth to move? A 3d scan doesn't mean you know what a mouth guard should look like.
All of a sudden, having a product that's made with a vetted process is pretty attractive -- and 600 USD seems like a bargain.
What's the cost of having your teeth fixed, if they accidentally move? (Not to mention the discomfort, which can be considerable)
Re: How Invisalign became the biggest user of 3D printers
#56Tangential, but I have sleep apnea. Fortunately I have it mild enough to get away with a mouthpiece instead of a CPAP (which is good anyway because I also have bruxism). The mouthpiece works great and I would recommend everyone get tested for sleep apnea if your insurance covers it, but I have to admit that paying for it bothered me. Even with insurance covering some of it, it cost me about $600. I know that there's…
> I know that there's a deceptively high amount of engineering required for these kinds of things I think there's a deceptively low amount of engineering required for most medical and medical-adjacent tech. The high costs are rooted in pervasive industry-wide centuries-long FUD campaigns.
> centuries-long FUD campaigns
That dastardly Ben Franklin with his bifocals..
Re: How Invisalign became the biggest user of 3D printers
#57Tangential, but I have sleep apnea. Fortunately I have it mild enough to get away with a mouthpiece instead of a CPAP (which is good anyway because I also have bruxism). The mouthpiece works great and I would recommend everyone get tested for sleep apnea if your insurance covers it, but I have to admit that paying for it bothered me. Even with insurance covering some of it, it cost me about $600. I know that there's…
I think your comment would have been more insightful if you had at least pretended to try to account for labor before saying "They charged me 4000x the cost of goods!". To be clear I'm not even asking for you to account for the cost of your printer, the 3d scanner, and software licenses in your math. Let's assume that all those are free. How many hours of specialized human time was spent on consultations, scans, desi…
I did qualify multiple times that there are costs associated with engineering, So I feel that it it's implied that the 4000x figure is a naive one.
I'm sure labor is involved, and maybe it's a lot, but it still seems like an awful lot of money for a piece of plastic.
Re: How Invisalign became the biggest user of 3D printers
#58Tangential, but I have sleep apnea. Fortunately I have it mild enough to get away with a mouthpiece instead of a CPAP (which is good anyway because I also have bruxism). The mouthpiece works great and I would recommend everyone get tested for sleep apnea if your insurance covers it, but I have to admit that paying for it bothered me. Even with insurance covering some of it, it cost me about $600. I know that there's…
>Even with insurance covering some of it, it cost me about $600. Well that's pretty close to how much the entire CPAP system would cost depending on the sale.
The CPAP actually would have cost me less with insurance! At the time it would have cost me about $400.
Re: How Invisalign became the biggest user of 3D printers
#59Re: How Invisalign became the biggest user of 3D printers
#60Tangential, but I have sleep apnea. Fortunately I have it mild enough to get away with a mouthpiece instead of a CPAP (which is good anyway because I also have bruxism). The mouthpiece works great and I would recommend everyone get tested for sleep apnea if your insurance covers it, but I have to admit that paying for it bothered me. Even with insurance covering some of it, it cost me about $600. I know that there's…
With sleep apnea, I highly recommend you look into myofunctional therapy, which is like airway physical therapy. (full disclosure, my mom is a myofunctional therapist). It worked for several friends; They still use their cpap but they get much better sleep after committing to a routine. Not advertising but spreading the word, find someone local!