Ep 85 - 2026 AAO Innovator Award Winner Dr. Mehdi Peikar on the Future of Custom Braces

Orthodontics is entering a new era of personalization, precision, and digital efficiency. In this episode of the Golden Age of Orthodontics, Dr. Leon Klempner and Amy Epstein sit down with 2026 AAO Innovator Award winner Dr. Mehdi Peikar, founder of Celebrace, to explore how artificial intelligence and fully customized braces are changing the future of treatment.

Drawing on his unique background in orthodontics, biomechanics, engineering, and physics, Dr. Peikar shares the clinical challenges that inspired the development of Celebrace and explains how digital workflows can bring the same level of planning and personalization to fixed appliances that orthodontists have come to expect from aligner therapy. The conversation covers everything from AI-assisted treatment planning and bracket positioning to the advantages of fully customized prescriptions, indirect bonding, and digital case presentation.

The discussion also explores the business side of innovation, including how digital treatment systems can improve efficiency, reduce appointments, shorten treatment times, and create a more compelling patient experience. Dr. Peikar shares what he has learned from treating thousands of cases with Celebrace and why he believes customization will play a central role in the next phase of orthodontic care.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why Dr. Peikar believes orthodontics is rapidly moving toward fully digital workflows

• How AI supports treatment planning, bracket positioning, and appliance design

• What makes a fully customized bracket system different from traditional prescriptions

• How digital indirect bonding can improve efficiency and reduce treatment visits

• Ways technology can enhance patient education and case acceptance

• What orthodontists are reporting after implementing custom digital braces

• How personalized treatment systems may help practices differentiate themselves in a competitive market

• Why Dr. Peikar sees customization as the future of fixed appliance therapy

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

What follows is an AI-generated transcript. The transcript may contain errors and is not a substitute for watching the video.

Golden Age of Orthodontics Episode 85 Dr Mehdi Peikar v1

(00:00:00) Dr. Leon Klempner: Orthodontics is getting more personalized, more digital, and more precise. And the 2026 Ortho Innovator winner, Dr. Mehdi Peikar, is one of the people driving that shift. Want to learn more? Stay with me

(00:00:18) Welcome to the golden age of orthodontics

(00:00:34) One thing we know is that the future of orthodontics is digital. For me, the KL Owen custom solution checks off all of the boxes, takes the guesswork out of treatment planning, reduces treatment time and appointments, and lets the team best support the orthodontist. If you haven't already, I suggest you check them out.

(00:00:55) You can get more information as well as a special offer on our website. (00:01:00) Just go to pplpractice.com and click our partner tab. Welcome to Golden Age of Orthodontics. If you don't already know me, I'm Leon Klempner, board-certified orthodontist, director of orthodontics at Mount Sinai Hospital, part-time faculty at Harvard and Montefiore, current president of New York State Society of Orthodontists, and the CEO, of course, of People in Practice Marketing.

(00:01:25) I practiced for about 40 years before co-founding People in Practice in 2011 with my partner, my daughter, and my podcast co-host, Amy Epstein. Welcome, Amy. 

(00:01:39) Amy Epstein: Thank you. I like that setup every, when you do it with that cadence every, every month. Mm-hmm. My partner. I like that. Um, hello, I'm Amy Epstein, and yeah, we co-founded already, uh, 15 years ago, People in Practice, and our goal was to help bring all of those tried and true branding and marketing and public (00:02:00) relations tenets, um, that large multinational companies use, but to the local pr- orthodontist, and so they could have those professional strategies as well.

(00:02:11) And, um, you know, it's changed quite a bit over the years, especially in the last year or so, where So much of what we're doing is around raising the visibility of practices with the advent of AI and large language models. And so I know this is all everybody's talking about. In my world, I, uh, you know, uh, that's all we're talking about is, okay, what are the things that we need to do the same and differently in order to help orthodontists be surfaced in these kind of searches?

(00:02:41) Um, and we're making really great headway, which is great. The flip side of the coin is that AI is also affecting the practice clinically of orthodontics, and that's why today is such a great, uh, topic, and we're so pleased that our guest is Dr. Mehdi Pichai, who is an orthodontist, but he's also an (00:03:00) inventor of many different technologies.

(00:03:03) Um, and he's the founder of CeleBrace, which is an AI-powered custom braces company focused on making orthodontics more personalized and more efficient. He trained at UCLA. He has a PhD in biomechanics from Johns Hopkins. He has a master's degree in quantum mechanics and condensed matter physics from the University of Illinois, so, um, he's a bright guy.

(00:03:27) He spent his career combining orthodontics, biomechanics, engineering, and AI to create new treatment technologies. And through CeleBrace, which by the way earned the 2026 AAO Innovator Award, um, he's helping to advance customized braces so that each patient, um, has a, an approved treatment plan, but the orthodontist is still in full control.

(00:03:50) So thank you so much, Mehdi, for being here today. We're excited to talk to you about CeleBrace. 

(00:03:56) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: Of course. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. 

(00:03:59) Amy Epstein: Good. (00:04:00) 

(00:04:00) Dr. Leon Klempner: Okay. So Mehdi, you and I know each other for a while. You know, I was trying to think before the podcast, you know, w- where we first met.

(00:04:09) Was it the AAO? I don't know. Do you have any recollection? 

(00:04:13) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: Um, actually, I don't know. I, as you said, I'm sure I know you for a long time. I remember, um, I don't know which conference it was, but, you know, not surprisingly, it was in a conference. I don't remember what conference, but I remember when we were talking, and we were talking about independent movers back then.

(00:04:34) Dr. Leon Klempner: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So, um, you know, I, I mean, I thought about maybe going back to school and getting my degree in condensed matter physics, but- Didn't happen ... I decided. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I said, "So many people have that degree," and that, you know, why add another one to that? So- Yeah, the world 

(00:04:53) Amy Epstein: needs fewer of those types of people.

(00:04:54) Dr. Leon Klempner: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So, I mean, you know, the thing (00:05:00) that impresses me about you is that, uh, not only are you smart, but you've invented so many different things. It's like you're always looking to innovate. You're always bringing something new to market, and, you know, that it's impressive. And, you know, in my mind, I'm thinking, you know, we're marketers.

(00:05:24) Amy and I are marketers. We have people in practice and, you know, we solve real problems. So the real problem for us and our clients, the reason they come to us is they need new, new, more new patients, okay? That's no secret. So they need a marketing company, so we, you know, our goal is let's solve that problem.

(00:05:43) So I, I'm just wondering what clinical problem were you trying to solve when you created Celebrace? 

(00:05:50) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: Yeah, sure. First of all, thank you so much. You're too nice. Um, but I'm originally from Iran, and I did my residency there (00:06:00) before doing my residency at UCLA, and, uh, I believe from that, those days, I believe that orthodontics is going towards digitization.

(00:06:11) So everything is gonna be digital, and I have no doubt about it, and I think a, a lot of orthodontists agree with that. And about 25% of the market, 30% of the market is aligners, which is digital, but a huge segment of the market still is not digital, and I believe that's the opportunity to help patients.

(00:06:36) And why do we care about digitization? Um, it's gonna be accuracy. It's gonna be a lot of things that we're gonna discuss, but I believe- The marketing aspect of it is also will be affected when you have a modern technology. Um, it's not just, uh, digitization. You might say, "Okay, who cares?" But (00:07:00) actually, I started my own practice, uh, a little bit more than, uh, a year ago, and I totally see the effect of having a technology in the clinic, you know, and how we market ourselves.

(00:07:13) When I go to the consult room and, um, in the software, in the Celebrate software, I show, um, this, um, you know, uh, everything, the roots, the bone and everything, and I present to the patient through the Celebrate software. And I think even from a marketing per- perspective, it has helped us. Um, it's not just the customization that we're gonna talk about, but it's also the marketing aspect of it.

(00:07:40) Amy Epstein: Mm-hmm. 

(00:07:41) Dr. Leon Klempner: Yeah. Yeah, and, you know, we, we, we work with a lot of startups, and we're, we're always counseling them right from the beginning that, you know, everything needs to start with a scan. Every new patient starts with a scan. It's either gonna go down the aligner tree, or it's gonna go down the indirect bonding tree (00:08:00) because that is just the way it's gonna be.

(00:08:03) And why not start out that way and, and get, get into that routine? Because, you know, I practiced for... As I said, I practiced for 40 years and I, you know, I put the brackets on by hand and, you know, I was good at it, but, you know, saliva, tongue, cheek, you know, retractors. Um, and then, you know, as I started getting older, you know, my glasses, I was like, you know- Zoom

(00:08:28) zooming in and zooming out a little bit, you know, to get back to the molars and second molars. You know, it, it, it's a lot different when you're, you can go onto a, a computerized screen and you can put, put the brackets really where they belong and know that's the way it's gonna be. So, so we're, we're totally on board with you in terms of the profession moving digitally, and that it's just gonna be that way.

(00:08:53) I mean, there's no... I don't think anybody is gonna dispute that, so. 

(00:08:57) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: Yeah, absolutely. You know, just the (00:09:00) indirect bonding part of it, you know, that used to be non-digital. Right now, you know, there are digital indirect bonding systems. That only decreases the number of visits by two to three visits. And I think in, in a, especially in a big clinic, you know, that's gonna be very significant, and it makes up for it.

(00:09:19) But what we are working on ob- obviously, you know, what we have is a digital indirect bonding system that I would say, you know, there should be more research on this, but it's gonna be even more accurate than, like, non-digital indirect bondings that used to be around maybe, like, 10 years ago or, um, before that.

(00:09:39) But, um, obviously Celebrite is not just about digitization of the indirect bonding. It's, it's also about customization that we're gonna talk about. 

(00:09:47) Amy Epstein: So earlier, Mehdi, you mentioned, um, the patient experience, and you were talking about explaining treatment plans. I'm sure from an educational standpoint that's really helpful.

(00:09:58) I almost always ask this (00:10:00) question to podcast guests who are talking about technology, um, because we are extremely interested, as you can imagine, in the h- how do we market this to patients to bring more patients into a practice? So it really involves looking at any system, any technology from a parent's perspective or from a patient's perspective and then translating whatever it is we're talking about so that it resonates with them.

(00:10:25) So talk to me a little bit about w- where you see the primary benefits to the patient experience. 

(00:10:33) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: Yeah, that's a great question. Actually, about this experience that you say, you know, from the very beginning, the first visit, uh, you know, in my clinic always we scan as Leon, you said, like every single patient gets scanned, and we do CBCT on all the patients, and they will be uploaded to the Celebrate software, software.

(00:10:53) And after a few minutes, it renders everything. You can see the roots, the bone, the airway, the teeth, (00:11:00) everything. So when I go in the consult room, I go and present on the Celebrate software. So I think that has really helped us a lot. You know, as I said, you know, we have... We are a kind of new clinic here. We are right next to a very established, very good orthodontist that, like, almost everybody in this area knows him.

(00:11:21) He's amazing. But when they come to our clinic and they want to hear about, like, a second opinion, you know, they see that and they say, "Wow, you know, we have never seen such a technology," and, "We have been in other places, we haven't, you know, we haven't seen such a thing." So I think this has really helped us from a marketing point of view, but that's just the marketing part of it.

(00:11:40) But from the perspective of the orthodontist, I want not to be the bottleneck in the clinic. So, you know, we have all seen this, uh, scene that we are in the consult room, we come out and the assistants are waiting for us. They have put the brackets on their teeth and then, (00:12:00) uh, you know, something is on the face of the patients that the brackets don't get cured, and we go there and we pla- position the brackets.

(00:12:08) When you have an indirect bonding tray, they can do that. The orthodontist is not the bottleneck anymore. And as an orthodontist, I love to do the treatment planning on a big screen. You know, when I want to look at, like, upper seven that is recently erupted, you know, and I want to put the tube there and the isolation might not be great, you know, I want to make sure I can see it on a bigger screen and plan everything ahead of time.

(00:12:38) So I don't want, like, after several months with tr- like traditional braces, I tell the patient, "Actually, you know what? We have to do IPR for you." And there is something called button discrepancy. I don't want to get to that point. From the very beginning, I want to know the end in mind, and I want to tell the patient exactly what, what's gonna (00:13:00) happen.

(00:13:00) The day that, that we want to put the, uh, brackets there on the Celebrate software, we show, you know, how the teeth will look like, how the teeth are gonna move. So that's, that's my goal and that's... And I think for anybody, any orthodontist who does, like, a little bit of indirect bonding or, like, digital orthodontics, it's really hard to go back when you see the benefits there.

(00:13:23) Amy Epstein: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It sounds to me that the, that the, you know, if I look, if I, if I, in my mind I'm putting together this, uh, you know, a blog post for the landing page and I want to develop an ad, like this is how we, we think, uh, to attract patients and bring them back, it sounds like, you know, the, the communication and the clarity of the plan for the pa- I'm just talking about the patient side of things for a second, um, is a, a big benefit.

(00:13:52) There's often like this, a little bit of a what's happening on the other side. Mm-hmm. They take these records, they go away with them. I don't really see them. I don't really know what it (00:14:00) means type of thing. But it sounds like that incorporation of the visuals into the education about what you're going to do and how it's going to happen and what the end result is, um, can really help a parent, put myself in, in the shoes of a parent 'cause I am one of, you know, little kids, and, um, can really help to understand what's going to happen and what the pro- progression is going to be like.

(00:14:26) So, um, all right. That sounds great. I like it. 

(00:14:29) Dr. Leon Klempner: You know, Mehdi- Excellent ... when I first started in practice, I saw the advantages of indirect bonding. We didn't have computers, right? Mm-hmm. Sure. So I would take a model impression, pour it up in stone. 

(00:14:39) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: Mm-hmm. 

(00:14:40) Dr. Leon Klempner: And then I'd put the brackets on the model with like, um- Sh- and there was a, like a, a candy, like s- I think it was called Sugar Daddy.

(00:14:49) I don't remember what it was. It was like- Yeah. ... caramel. And I used to, I took, I took a wax, I took a wax spoon or whatever, uh, you know, number seven (00:15:00) spatula, and I would- ... you know, adhere it on there. I'd make a tray, and then I'd wash it with hot water, and that was the, like kind of the process. So it's came, come, like a long way from, from that, for sure.

(00:15:13) But, you know, I want to switch the conversation over to, uh, AI. Mm-hmm. This, this is my favorite subject actually. And actually- Mm-hmm ... for our listeners, you know, AI has really, um, changed the landscape of how patients are finding you. Mm-hmm. So, you know, you need to like check your website, and you need to make sure that it's AI ready, and that- Mm-hmm

(00:15:38) involves a lot of the backend coding and adding content, but you need to do that. And actually we have... We should put s- put this in the show notes, a link where we can give you a scorecard and make recommendations about your website. So, uh, you know, if you click on it and put your website in there, we'll send you a report telling you what you need to do in order to- Mm-hmm

(00:15:58) to update it. (00:16:00) But, you know, AI is playing a bigger and bigger role in our lives. Mm-hmm. And it's, it's infiltrating obviously our, our clinical and our administrative processes in terms of utilizing AI. So I, you know, I wanna know, are you using AI at all in the Celebray system? And, and if it is, how, how do you do it?

(00:16:24) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: Yeah, sure. You know, AI used to be more like a buzzword, but it's getting more real and real. You know, just in Celebray's, as I said, when you upload your scan and CBCT with AI, after a few minutes you can see all the rendering. You know, this is something that if you wanna do it manually and, you know, you know, w- we used to do it manually like several years ago, that takes several hours of a technician.

(00:16:50) But right now, after a few minutes, everything is automated and everything is basically segmentation is automated. So that's one part of it. The other part of it, how the teeth (00:17:00) get aligned and also Based on your preference because, you know, in the Celebrace software, you write your clinical preference as the orthodontist, what you like, what you care about, what slot size you want.

(00:17:13) Um, and based on your preferences, the auto-alignment happens and obviously there is a also a technician that looks at the treatment plans to make sure that this is exactly what you want. So that's another part of AI that is helping Celebrace. The other part of AI that helps is bracket positioning. You know, with standard brackets, uh, with traditional braces, you have to place the brackets.

(00:17:42) You have to put them in a specific place like in the middle, mesiodistally, occlusal gingival, you have to put it in a specific place. Otherwise, it's not gonna work the way you want. But with Celebrace, because it's a fully custom, uh, bracket system (00:18:00) and it's 3D printed, it doesn't matter necessarily where you put the bracket.

(00:18:04) You can put the bracket very, very mesially or distally if the teeth are cro- crooked, and the software detects that, for example, this bracket is hitting the adjacent tooth, and it moves the bracket to the opposite direction. Or, for example, if the tooth, if the tooth is hitting the bracket on, um, in the opposing tooth, uh, in the opposing arch, again, that moves and it...

(00:18:30) Sometimes you cannot, like, make it 100% without collision with the brackets because, for example, the deep bite is more than 100%, but, uh, it can definitely minimize it. This is something that traditional braces cannot do because we are stuck with standard position of brackets. But Celebrace with i- its AI, it minimizes all these collisions.

(00:18:54) Or, for example, if a tooth is semi-erupted, it tries to avoid the (00:19:00) gum. So it might move mesially, distally or occlusally, gingively to, like, avoid all these contacts and minimize, minimize all these contacts. These are just a few examples that, you know, orthodontists can see, um, the effect of AI in the software.

(00:19:17) Uh, but obviously on the back end there is a ton. You know, these days you just wake up and there is a new breakthrough in software development. Like recently there was like Mythos, Fable, you know, like it came like this week and, you know, it changes things like how faster and how better you can like develop things on the back end and, you know, like- Mm-hmm AI is real.

(00:19:46) So for sure, you know, like again, like maybe two years ago when ChatGPT, ChatGPT moment happened, it was mostly I want to write an email and I want to write it- Yeah ... better with ChatGPT. But right (00:20:00) now it's beyond that. It will affect every aspect of our lives. 

(00:20:05) Amy Epstein: Mm-hmm. 

(00:20:07) Dr. Leon Klempner: So, so just a, um, I have my clinical hat on right now and I'm thinking.

(00:20:12) Mm-hmm. So, so I get these trays back and I bond this in place, and it's exactly how I want it to be. Now, now what happens, you know, a patient eats a Tootsie Roll, and now I lose an upper left central. 

(00:20:25) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: Mm-hmm. 

(00:20:25) Dr. Leon Klempner: Like, you know, in my practice when that happened, I would just get the tray out and put another upper left central in.

(00:20:31) Like what do I do? You're not 

(00:20:32) Amy Epstein: talking about your granddaughter who- ... uh, literally does these things pretty much 

(00:20:37) Dr. Leon Klempner: every other month. Well, no, no, she's the extreme. I'm talking about you when you were in braces. 

(00:20:43) Amy Epstein: Understood. 

(00:20:44) Dr. Leon Klempner: Yeah. So, so what do you... You know, what does a clinician do if they lose a bracket? 

(00:20:49) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: Yeah, that's a great question.

(00:20:50) So when we send the custom brackets that are loaded into the IDB trays, we send two sets. So you already have a backup there. (00:21:00) So you can easily cut the tray and use it as a jig. So always you have a second one. And obviously because it's metal bracket, it's 3D-printed metal bracket, you can reuse the, uh, previous one if you want.

(00:21:15) You can just sandblast it and reuse it, but you have a backup. And also you can order more brackets for free. You know, if you want, you can just go to the Celebr8 software. Um, it's web-based. You can order, uh, more brackets, and you're gonna receive them very, very quickly. And again, because we have a lot of automation and, you know, I'm just always thinking, uh, as an orthodontist what I care about.

(00:21:38) You know, if I want to order something, I want to receive it very quickly. So because we have a, a lot of automation in our digital designing and digital aspects of it, and also in the physical manufacturing, we ship it in a very, very short time. Like, um, last month, uh, our average was like eight days, which kind of (00:22:00) increased compared to the previous month because we had a lot of new orders.

(00:22:04) But, you know, we are trying to keep this, uh, below 10 days. So after you order, after you approve your treatment plan, you're gonna receive all the brackets and IDBs, two sets of them, less than 10 days. Um, and you know, there is... Because it's 3D printed, there is like full customization and, you know, I need to talk about this, what aspects of customization we have.

(00:22:26) Amy Epstein: Yeah. That's exact- Let's do that. So to... You know, it's fully custom. What, what... How much of it is fully customized? 

(00:22:34) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: Yeah, sure. So, um, any, uh, the slot of the bracket, you know, that's this... That's one thing that is 100% custom. You can choose 018 size, you can choose 020, you can choose 022. You can choose 0197.

(00:22:51) Like, you can choose anything because it's 3D printed. Mm-hmm. It's not like, um, injection molding, like traditional- Sure ... braces. So you can do any (00:23:00) size. And the other thing is the tip and torque that the braces have, they are 100% custom for the patient. And actually last month, uh, we were at AO and, um, you know, I had a talk, and just a few days before my talk, I was putting together the data, uh, from the Celebrite software.

(00:23:20) I was looking at the virtual treatment planning of the doctors. And I tell you, I just made one slide, like, right before my talk and, you know, I, I, I was able to present it, and it was very educational for me, myself. You know, I was just looking at the virtual treatment plan and the torque that the doctors approved for upper central, and then there was a huge range.

(00:23:47) It was 30-something degrees to some of the doctors for some patients, they approved minus eight-something degrees. That's like a 40 degrees of range for upper (00:24:00) central. Obviously, when you have class III patient that you do camouflage, the torque is gonna be much more. When you do class II that is camouflage, the torque is much less.

(00:24:09) It could be, like, negative. But if we think about doing NBT or Roth prescription. For NBT, for upper central, you do 17 degrees, and this is the only option you have. And you do this for every single patient in the clinic. And your daughter, if your orthodontist is using NBT and is not, not using- Mm-hmm

(00:24:33) custom brackets, getting, is getting 17 degrees, and all other kids or adults who have braces, they get 17 degrees of torque for upper central. So there are two options here. Either your orthodontist needs to do a lot of wire bending, and I personally don't know any orthodontist who can exactly do that angle that- 

(00:24:54) Dr. Leon Klempner: No, 

(00:24:54) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: no

(00:24:54) is needed. There might be s- I'm sure some orthodontists are very good at wire bending, but, like, (00:25:00) how would you do, like, 13 degrees of bend in the wire? But... Or you have to compromise the treatment. There's either of these two options. And- Um, obviously if you have this straight wire system that is fully straight wire, uh, this will decrease the number of visits.

(00:25:20) And, you know, this customization in tip and torque really saves you a lot, a lot of time, the number of visits, um, wire bending, repositioning of the brackets. 

(00:25:31) Dr. Leon Klempner: Mm-hmm. 

(00:25:31) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: So tip and torque is another customization that I mentioned. Size of the slot is another customization. And then the base of the bracket, because with 3D prints, the base of the bracket fits perfectly on the tooth.

(00:25:46) Dr. Leon Klempner: Mm-hmm. You 

(00:25:46) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: know, with traditional braces, you have one size fits all. You know, the bracket, you know, again, all the patients in the clinic, they get the same base of the bracket. And sometimes, you know, basically we put some (00:26:00) adhesive there to fill up the gap- Right ... and that's the weak point, and that increases the bond failure.

(00:26:08) But when you have a fully custom system that is 3D printed, like Celebrace, it fits perfectly on the tooth. The area of bond increases, and I don't say that the bond failure goes to zero because, you know, always kids chew on- 

(00:26:25) Amy Epstein: Yeah, knocking off- ... rocks or- ... pen, pen, and yeah, chewing on rocks. Exactly. 

(00:26:29) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: Right. Yeah.

(00:26:31) So it happens, but definitely decreases, and that saves a lot of time. Mm-hmm. And this is another, you know, because- 

(00:26:39) Amy Epstein: Yeah, 

(00:26:39) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: patient experience ... 

(00:26:41) Amy Epstein: you are experts- 

(00:26:41) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: Yeah. Exactly. You are experts in marketing and, you know, this is something that we have to... And I think any sales, because, you know, I think all our lives are sales.

(00:26:51) You know, we are like, uh, talking to our friends that let's go to, like a movie theater or go, let's go to a concert. You know, it's just sales. You know, I, I wanna go to movie (00:27:00) theater. He- Mm-hmm ... he wants or she wants, well, go somewhere else. So I think the biggest part of sales is education. And, you know- Mm-hmm

(00:27:07) we have to teach the mom, teach the dad, or if you have adult patients, teach the patient that what are the benefits of- 

(00:27:15) Amy Epstein: Mm-hmm ... 

(00:27:15) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: a custom system. And if we do that, and if we can differentiate ourselves, you know, the goal of marketing is to get more patients. So I think this is the way to go. You know, like in 2010 or 2011, if you wanted to differentiate yourself, or 2008 maybe, you could say, "I do aligners."

(00:27:36) Amy Epstein: Uh-huh. 

(00:27:37) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: It doesn't work that much anymore because a lot of- Mm-hmm ... orthodontists are doing it. But I think custom braces, you know, definitely this is a differentiator. It- having a digital system is a differentiator from marketing point of view. Because we are talking about fewer number of visits. We are talking about, um, shorter treatment time, which is (00:28:00) very valuable.

(00:28:00) But like- 

(00:28:01) Amy Epstein: Yeah ... 

(00:28:01) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: what is the marketing aspect of it? 

(00:28:04) Dr. Leon Klempner: Yep. So Mehdi, uh, we're coming towards the end, so I, you know, there's a lot of questions in my mind, but just one clinical thing quickly is, um, i- is the bracket, um, customizable as well? Is it self-ligating? Is it twin? Is it, is it ceramic? Or tell me about that.

(00:28:25) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: So it is metal and, uh, it is, it is twin bracket. You know, like having a self-ligating bracket that is, uh, 3D printed is very challenging. Challenging. I won't say it's impossible- Yeah ... but that's very challenging, and it's gonna be, like, super expensive. Got it. But I think this needs to be for, like, m- mass all orthodontists use it, or like majority of orthodontists go to digital.

(00:28:49) We need to have a reasonable price. And for example, with Celebrace, getting two sets of brackets and IDBs could be 400 something dollars if you really switch (00:29:00) to Celebrace. And you know, I think twin bracket is the way to go, and fully custom is the way to go, and digital is the way to go with a reasonable price.

(00:29:08) And you receive it pretty fast. So these are the things that always, you know, I, in my own clinic I care about, and I am trying to provide it for other orthodontists. 

(00:29:20) Dr. Leon Klempner: So, you know, Amy and I learned about Celebrace at the AAO, but I know that you've been using it, and I'm assuming that you've had other users, other orthodontists that have been- Mm-hmm

(00:29:32) using it for a period of time. So w- you know, could you tell us a little bit about, you know, what you've learned from the cases? You mentioned a little bit before about the, the variation in torque, but- Mm-hmm ... what's the feedback from the orthodontist basically- Yeah ... and, and- 

(00:29:48) Amy Epstein: High level and, and, and patient too, those that are- Yeah

(00:29:51) you know. Yeah. Do they know the difference once the, once it's- 

(00:29:54) Dr. Leon Klempner: Yeah, exactly ... 

(00:29:56) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: on? Yeah, sure. So, um, we have learnt a (00:30:00) lot . I mean, any, any startup from like an orthodontic clinic to... So, uh, you know, we ha- we have been working on this for about three years right now, and we have ta- treated thousands of patients.

(00:30:12) What we learned is that definitely the number of visits decreased significantly. Um, and, you know, firsthand for me and also for doctors that I talk to, and they are heavy Celebrace users, they tell me about like the marketing aspects of, um, Celebrace and how d- they differentiate themselves compared to like- Mm-hmm

(00:30:38) other orthodontists. Treat- treatment time is definitely shorter. Um, we have like strong evidence that treatment time is shorter, and it's like, you know, intuitively it's like it makes sense- 

(00:30:50) Amy Epstein: Mm-hmm ... 

(00:30:50) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: when you use indirect bonding and, you know, your staff do it correct and they really accept to do it, because that's another challenge.

(00:30:58) You know, like sometimes it's hard to (00:31:00) convince our team to really use a new system. It's a whole other 

(00:31:03) Amy Epstein: podcast topic- 

(00:31:04) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: Yes ... 

(00:31:04) Amy Epstein: right? 

(00:31:05) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: Yes, for sure. Uh, but if they do it right, you know, definitely treatment time decreases, and what we have learnt is, um- The internal referrals, you know, when the patients really see that treatment could be much shorter and, um, with less involvement of the doctor.

(00:31:26) You know, that's another thing. I think, like, for each doctor, something might be more important. Like, for... I know some of orthodontists, they really care about that. They don't wanna be the bottleneck. They don't wanna, uh, you know, if a bracket is broken, they don't want to go and, like, place the bracket there.

(00:31:42) So- Mm-hmm ... just your assistant uses the jig, places the bracket there. Everything is more streamlined, and I really believe, like, just the, the fact that it's a digital system, you know, it's gonna be the, the future. Mm-hmm. So a lot of learnings, we (00:32:00) are trying to publish a paper about, like, these find- findings that we had, you know, one pub- publication about, like, those variation in torque that we have.

(00:32:09) We're, we are trying to, like, um, publish that and also about, like, efficiency in the clinic, shortening the treatment time. Um, and obviously, like, profit per visit. You know? Like, we, we are, like, looking at that too. You know, like, when You have fewer visits, the treatment is shorter, other than, like, it increases the satisfaction of the patients.

(00:32:31) Also, you need fewer staff, which is a huge challenge. I, I would say after COVID, we all feel it that, you know, um- Yeah ... staffing is very, very difficult. And, um, basically switching from staff to technology maybe is the way to go. 

(00:32:50) Dr. Leon Klempner: Great. 

(00:32:51) Amy Epstein: Yeah. Yep. Well, thank you so much. Um, that super interesting conversation, we appreciate it very much.

(00:32:57) If our listeners have questions for you, (00:33:00) is there a way that they can best reach out? 

(00:33:02) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: Uh, yeah. Um, uh, so, uh, you can email us at [email protected]. 

(00:33:10) Amy Epstein: Uh-huh. 

(00:33:10) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: Or you can go to celebrace.com, and you can, uh, fill out a form, and our team will, uh, get back to you. Or you can go to help.celebrace, um, .com/register. You can just, um, um, register on our platform, and you can start, like, submitting cases.

(00:33:28) So yeah- Huh ... like different ways to... Um, it's very... I'm trying to make- we are trying to make it very streamlined to, you know, start and, you know- Yeah, 

(00:33:37) Amy Epstein: low barrier to entry. That's good. 

(00:33:38) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: Exactly. Yeah. 

(00:33:39) Amy Epstein: Great. 

(00:33:40) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: Yeah. 

(00:33:40) Amy Epstein: Okay, wonderful. Well, thank you again for being here today. Uh, we look forward to seeing you again sometime soon.

(00:33:46) Good luck with it in the meantime. We- we'll be following you for, uh, the data that comes out and the feedback that we hear. 

(00:33:52) Dr. Mehdi Peikar: Thanks, Mehdi. Thank you so much. Thank you, Leon, and thank you, Amy. It was fun. Absolutely. Yep. 

(00:33:59) Amy Epstein: You can (00:34:00) subscribe or download other episodes of The Golden Age of Orthodontics on Apple, Spo- Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts.

(00:34:09) And if you enjoyed it, we'd appreciate it if you told a colleague. And for more information about People in Practice, visit our website at pplpractice.com. 

(00:34:20) Dr. Leon Klempner: And if you have any questions, marketing questions, uh, you can reach me at [email protected]. And don't forget the link, uh, in the show notes. If you wanna put your website in, we'll send you, uh, well, a scorecard and, and give you the advice that you need in order to get yourself visible on AI.

(00:34:41) But most importantly, as always, remember, for forward-thinking orthodontists, it has never been a better time to be an orthodontist. We are in the golden age right now. Take advantage of it. And until next time, see ya.(00:35:00) 

(00:35:04) Thank you for listening to the Golden Age of Orthodontics podcast. Subscribe to our podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or visit our website at pplpractice.com