SmileDirectClub shut down on December 8, 2023: what it told patients, and where the case went

What it says#

The filing came first. On September 29, 2023, SmileDirectClub, Inc. and certain subsidiaries filed voluntary Chapter 11 petitions in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, according to the company's Form 8-K filed October 2, 2023. The press release attached to it said the founders had committed to invest at least $20 million, with up to $60 million more available on conditions including "the favorable conclusion of a marketing process," and that the company "intends to continue to provide affordable and accessible oral care to its customers without disruption"; it counted "over 2 million customers." A second 8-K the same day disclosed a debtor-in-possession loan of up to $80 million at 17.5 percent interest paid in kind, maturing December 29, 2023, and a Nasdaq notice that the stock would be delisted, with trading suspended at the open on October 4, 2023. The Kroll case site lists nine debtors under case number 23-90786 and a general bar date of November 27, 2023.

The end came ten weeks later. Bloomberg's report of the December 8, 2023 hearing, published by Fortune, quotes the company's lawyer, Spencer Winters, telling Judge Christopher Lopez that the founder-led bid "was really a Hail Mary" that failed for lack of support from lender HPS Investment Partners and lower-ranking creditors. The Associated Press, in Fortune on December 11, reported that "In a Friday announcement, SmileDirectClub said it had made an 'incredibly difficult decision to wind down its global operations, effective immediately,'" that the company said it had been unable to find a partner willing to bring in enough capital despite a monthslong search, and that it had reported nearly $900 million in debt at the filing.

The company's own words to patients survive in the Internet Archive's December 9, 2023 capture of its Customer FAQ. "For new customers interested in SmileDirectClub services, thank you for your interest, but aligner treatment is no longer available through our telehealth platform. For existing customers, we apologize for the inconvenience, but customer care support is no longer available." Unshipped orders: "All orders that have not yet shipped have been cancelled at this time, and you will not receive your aligners." Check-ins and the treating doctor: "If you wish to continue treatment outside of our platform, please consult your treating doctor or your local dentist with any questions around future aligner treatment." SmilePay: "SmilePay customers are expected to continue to make all monthly payments until payment has been made in full per the terms of our SmilePay program," with questions directed to HFD. The guarantee: "No. Effective immediately the Lifetime Smile Guarantee no longer exists." Refunds: "There will be more information to come once the bankruptcy process determines next steps and additional measures customers can take."

The case did not end with the shutdown. On January 24, 2024, according to a Proskauer client alert, Judge Lopez denied the debtors' motions for a sale of their remaining assets to the DIP lenders, a $25 million credit bid, followed by a structured dismissal. The Kroll case site records that "On January 26, 2024, the Debtors' cases were converted to Chapter 7," with Allison D. Byman appointed trustee, and a governmental bar date of March 27, 2024. Nasdaq had filed its Form 25-NSE removing the stock on December 27, 2023.

Then the payments. New York's attorney general announced on December 2, 2024 that SmileDirectClub "continued to charge consumers for services even after it abruptly halted its business operations" and that its website "continued to misleadingly advise consumers" that remaining installments must be paid in full. The office described a typical plan as $250 up front and 26 monthly payments of about $89, more than $2,500 in total, and said the agreement would return $4.8 million to more than 28,000 consumers nationwide, 2,265 of them New Yorkers, partly automatically and partly through refund requests to Healthcare Finance Direct.

Who it applies to#

Every practice that saw one of those patients. The company's notice named "your treating doctor or your local dentist" as the place to go, which made general dentists and orthodontists the default continuity plan for a business that, by its own count, had served over 2 million customers since its 2014 founding. Those patients arrived without a support line, without further trays, and in many cases still paying: the notice said SmilePay balances were due in full, and the New York settlement a year later shows that instruction stayed on the website after operations stopped.

Front desks took the calls about money. The notice was explicit that the guarantee was gone and that refund information would come from the bankruptcy process, not from the company; a practice could relay that and nothing more. The New York refunds ran through the finance company, not through dentists.

The record fetched for this page does not say how many patients were mid-treatment or what happened to trays already shipped. It also does not speak to SmileSet, the separate company to which smiledirectclub.com now redirects; that page says it bought SmileDirectClub's technology and assets and is a distinct business.

What changed#

Before December 8, 2023, a patient in a SmileDirectClub case had a manufacturer, a remote treating doctor, a payment plan and a lifetime guarantee, all from one company that had gone public in 2019 at a valuation the Associated Press put at about $8.9 billion and that reported a loss of $86.4 million in 2022. After that Friday, the treatment platform, the doctor access, the customer care line and the guarantee were gone at once, the payment obligation remained, and the court process ran for another seven weeks before the case converted to a liquidation under a trustee.

For the profession, what changed is that the largest direct-to-consumer aligner company's continuity plan turned out to be a sentence: consult your local dentist. Align's 2017 annual report, covered in a separate entry here, had described being SmileDirectClub's exclusive third-party aligner supplier from 2016; by 2023 the company was manufacturing on its own, and when it stopped, nothing took its place.

Where the source is#

The company's own documents are on EDGAR: the Form 8-K filed October 2, 2023 (Item 1.03) with the September 29 press release as Exhibit 99.1, the second 8-K of the same date on the DIP loan and the Nasdaq notice, and Nasdaq's Form 25-NSE of December 27, 2023. The company's wind-down notice was a Customer FAQ on smiledirectclub.com; that domain now redirects to SmileSet, so the text quoted here is from the Internet Archive's capture of December 9, 2023 (the capture displays the page but reports a 502 status code, apparently inherited from the original server, so it is linked in this paragraph rather than as a download: web.archive.org/web/20231209231242/https://smiledirectclub.com/). Court dates come from the Kroll Restructuring Administration case page, the claims agent, and from a March 13, 2024 Proskauer client alert on the January 24, 2024 ruling; the December 8 hearing is reported by Bloomberg's Jeremy Hill in Fortune (December 8, 2023) and the announcement by the Associated Press in Fortune (December 11, 2023). The refund figures are from the New York Attorney General's December 2, 2024 press release. Bloomberg Law's and CNN's reports could not be read for this page.