You take photos of your teeth with your phone every week or two, we review them between appointments, and you come to the office less often. That’s the whole idea. The value isn’t the technology — it’s that we see your progress every week instead of every eight, so a problem gets caught in days rather than at your next visit. Fewer trips is the part patients notice; earlier correction is the part that actually changes outcomes.
We use two systems depending on your treatment: Dental Monitoring and Invisalign Virtual Care.
What does a scan actually involve?
You’ll get a small plastic cheek retractor and a phone app. Once a week or so, you put the retractor in, open the app, and it walks you through a series of angles — front, both sides, upper arch, lower arch — telling you when to turn and when it has the shot. It takes about two minutes and you can do it in your bathroom.
The scan uploads. Software flags anything that looks off, and we review it. If everything is tracking, you hear that everything is tracking and carry on. If something isn’t, we tell you what to do — stay on your current aligner a few more days, or come in.
That’s the entire workflow. There’s no appointment to schedule and nothing to remember beyond the reminder the app sends you.
What can you actually see in a photo?
More than people expect, and less than an exam.
What scans catch well: whether teeth are moving on schedule, whether an aligner is fully seated or lifting off the back teeth, whether an attachment has broken off, whether a bracket has come loose, whether a wire has slipped, and how your oral hygiene is holding up. Those cover most of what goes wrong between appointments.
What scans can’t do: they don’t show roots or bone. They don’t replace the CBCT imaging we use to plan your case, and they don’t replace a hands-on exam. Remote monitoring is a way to watch a plan unfold, not a way to make one.
That distinction matters, and it’s the same reason mail-order aligners are a bad idea. A photo taken at home can tell us whether a tooth moved. It can’t tell us whether that tooth had enough bone around it to move safely in the first place. The diagnosis has to happen in the chair.
Does this mean fewer appointments?
Usually, yes — but the honest framing is that it means better-timed appointments.
A traditional schedule brings you in every six to ten weeks whether or not anything needs doing. A fair number of those visits amount to us confirming things look fine. With scans coming in weekly, we can skip the check-ins that would have been uneventful and bring you in when there’s actually something to do.
For families driving in from Kennewick, Richland, or West Richland, that’s real time back. For teenagers, it’s fewer school absences. And when something does go wrong, you’re not waiting six weeks to find out.
Which system will I use?
Invisalign Virtual Care for Invisalign patients — it lives in the same app you already use to track your aligner wear, so there’s nothing extra to install.
Dental Monitoring for most other cases, including braces. It’s the more capable of the two for tracking fixed appliances, and it’s what we use when we want closer visibility on a case.
We’ll tell you which one applies at your appointment and set it up with you before you leave. You won’t be handed an app and left to figure it out.
A note if you’ve been with us a while: we previously used Grin, and some longtime patients may remember it. We’ve since moved to the two systems above. If you still have the old Grin app on your phone, you can delete it.
Does it work with braces, or only aligners?
Both. Remote monitoring gets talked about as an Invisalign feature because that’s where it started, but it’s arguably more useful with braces — a loose bracket is invisible to you and obvious in a scan.
Every case here is planned with CBCT imaging and 3D-printed indirect bonding regardless of appliance, so remote monitoring is one more layer on a workflow that’s already digital end to end. Our digital orthodontics page covers how the planning side works.
What does it cost extra?
Nothing. It’s part of treatment, not an upgrade tier — the same way Damon Ultima brackets are standard here rather than a paid option.
Do I have to do it?
No. Some patients prefer coming in, and that’s a completely reasonable preference — we’ll keep you on a conventional schedule. Others start with scans and decide the weekly reminder isn’t for them. Either is fine, and it isn’t a decision you’re locked into.
Where it tends to matter most is with patients who travel for work, families juggling several kids’ schedules, college students home only on breaks, and anyone whose case we want to watch closely for a stretch.
The short version
Remote monitoring means we see your teeth weekly instead of every couple of months. That catches problems earlier and lets you skip appointments that wouldn’t have accomplished anything. It doesn’t replace diagnosis, it doesn’t replace an exam, and it costs nothing extra.
If you’re weighing treatment and want to know how it would fit your schedule, our consultation is free and covers the plan, the timeline, and the cost with no obligation. Text or call (509) 792-1008. Se habla español.