Chennai orthodontist alleges role confusion at MakeO’s Toothsi

by Piyush Mathur

Chennai-based orthodontist and aligner specialist Dr. Romario Jerie has publicly raised concerns about what he describes as an improper division of responsibilities at Toothsi, the clear-aligner business of MakeO.

In a LinkedIn post dated August 8, 2026, Jerie writes he had been working with Toothsie at the Adyar, Chennai branch for around 1.6 years. His LinkedIn profile also lists ‘toothsialigners’ in Chennai among his professional experience and identifies his dental education at Mahatma Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Dental Sciences and Hospital.

This is a screenshot of Dr. Romario Jerie’s LinkedIn post from August 8, 2026. (Screenshot credit: Thoughtfox)

Jerie's complaint centres on two incidents involving patient refunds. In the first, he said a patient arrived at the centre accompanied by police over a refund that had reportedly been pending for nearly three months, despite repeated escalations. He adds that the centre manager had been informed a day beforehand about the planned police visit—but when police arrived, the manager did not report to the centre, leaving Jerie and another clinical colleague to deal with the situation.

According to Jerie, the refund was initiated immediately after the police arrived, and the related pending correspondence was also attended to—suggesting that the delay had been due simply to administrative neglect. But a similar incident had also occurred several months earlier, his post points out, when a patient arrived with lawyers to record an interaction concerning another refund.

Jerie questions why doctors were being left to handle administrative or financial disputes outside their clinical responsibilities. He writes that his principal concern was not the patients' anger—which he described as justified—but the absence of organisational support when doctors faced such situations.

LinkedIn commentators—most of whom from India’s dental-care sector—resonated with his concern; some of them shared similar experiences of their own.

Calling the conditions Jerie reportedly faced as ‘completely unacceptable’, Aditya Kangane—a Pune-based Practice Development Manager—insisted that Toothsi must ‘protect the doctors who actually keep the business running.’ Vaishnavi Vijay, an orthodontist, stressed the need to highlight how India’s ‘corporate dental clinics’ operate, claiming that their administrations humiliate the dentists, who are ‘even threatened’.

Sonal Chandana, a project manager, seemed to express her relief that an employee has ‘finally…highlighted what many customers may have experienced.’ She went on to add that she had ‘been undergoing treatment with Toothsi for the past two years’ and has faced a ‘lack of accountability, poor coordination, and disconnected digital systems, which often make it difficult to get timely updates or proper resolution.’

In his post, Jerie had tagged MakeO/Toothsi four co-founders—Dr. Pravin Shetty, Dr. Arpi Mehta, Dr. Manjul Jain and Dr. Anirudha Kale—asking them to understand what was happening on the ground. Shetty responded within hours, thanking him for supporting the company and promising him ‘all necessary action…to avoid such incidents’ in the future.

Apparently a bit less at ease with taking the responsibility for Toothsi’s operational deficiencies, Mehta—another co-founder and chief executive officer of the company—echoed Shetty’s response, but also redirected the blame somewhat back to Jerie by claiming that if he ‘had reached out to any of the founders at the time of it happening, would’ve ensured immediate action.’

What are MakeO and Toothsi?

MakeO’s Toothsi is MakeO Healthcare Technologies' clear-aligner brand. MakeO says Toothsi provides customised, 3D-printed clear aligners, with orthodontist/dentist involvement, virtual and in-person monitoring, and experience centres across India. The company currently says Toothsi has designed 300,000+ smiles and works with 2,200+ dentists and orthodontists, while its aligners are manufactured in India and are US FDA 510 (k)-cleared.

It is important to note that the workplace and management allegations above are claims made by Jerie in his LinkedIn post; the screenshot included in this report does not establish the allegations independently.

Jerie’s post remains accessible on the following Unique Resource Locator (URL) as at the time of this report’s publication: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7491722120117276673/