What an AI phone for dental clinics does on a busy morning
The calls that pull your front desk away from the patient in front of them are mostly routine. Someone wants a check-up. Someone's running late. Someone wants to know where to park. Those are the calls an AI phone handles well, and they're most of what rings.
When it answers, it says first that it's an AI. Then it works from what it knows about your clinic: your services, your practitioners, your hours, your address, the bits you've told it about cost. If you haven't told it what you charge for a new-patient exam, it won't guess. It'll take a message.
Here's roughly how the morning's calls get sorted.
| The call | What the AI phone does |
|---|---|
| New patient wants an appointment | Asks the reason, books a first visit into a free slot |
| Existing patient wants to book | Books a new time while they're on the line |
| Patient wants to move or cancel | Takes a message with the details for your team |
| Hours, parking, how to find you | Answers from your clinic's profile |
| Fees or insurance | Says only what you've told it to say |
| Pain, injury, something gone wrong | Marks it urgent and puts it through if you've chosen that |
| A clinical question | Takes a message for a clinician |
| Suppliers, sales calls, other practices | Takes a message |
Every call is recorded and transcribed with a short summary, so nobody has to scribble a number on a sticky note while a patient waits.
Booking that doesn't double book
This is the job clinics care about most, and the one that goes wrong most visibly. Two patients turning up for the same 10 am is a bad morning for everyone.
With your Google Calendar connected, the AI checks for free time before it offers anything. It only offers times your diary actually has free, for the length of appointment the caller needs, inside the hours you've set. The caller picks one, it books it there and then, and it reads the day and time back before hanging up. If nothing suits, it can add them to a waitlist for the next opening.
Three settings make the difference in a clinic:
- Give each appointment type its own length. A new-patient exam isn't a check-up. An initial physio assessment isn't a follow-up.
- Block clinician leave in the calendar. If your hygienist is away on Thursday, the AI can't offer Thursday.
- Decide what a new patient tells you. Usually a name, the number to ring back on and the reason for the visit, in their own words.
There's a full walk-through in booking appointments by phone with an AI.
For dental practices
Dental calls have a sharper edge than most. The starting list of urgent words for a dental practice includes severe pain, knocked out, bleeding, swelling, abscess and broken tooth. A knocked-out tooth is time-critical, so think hard about where that call should go.
When a caller uses one of your urgent words, the call is marked urgent so your team sees it first. You can choose to have those calls put through to a number you name, so the patient talks to a person straight away. The ones that aren't urgent get booked, answered or written down.
The pages for dental practices have more ideas, including example calls.
For physio clinics
Physio calls are a different shape. A lot of them come after the weekend: someone tweaked a hamstring at Saturday football, or their back went lifting the kids into the car seat. In New Zealand, plenty will ask about ACC before they ask about times.
That's fine. The AI can book an initial assessment, note the injury in the caller's words, and take a message about cover for your team to answer. You might add urgent words like a fall, a new injury, numbness or pain that's getting worse, so those calls rise to the top.
There's more on the physiotherapy clinics page.
How do I stop it giving medical advice?
You write the rule, once, in plain words. For a clinic, the safest version is simple: the AI handles logistics and your clinicians handle health. Something like:
- Don't give medical or dental advice, or suggest a diagnosis.
- Don't say whether a symptom is serious, except to pass on our instruction to call emergency services in the situations we list.
- For any clinical question, take a message for a clinician and say when we'll be in touch.
Callers already know they're talking to an AI because it tells them at the start of every call, so nobody mistakes it for a clinician.
Recording and patient privacy
Health information is sensitive, so keep it tight. The opening of each call says it's an AI and, where the country's rules call for it, that the call may be recorded. Recordings and transcripts are deleted on the retention schedule shown in your account settings.
Keep the questions the AI asks to what your front desk would ask on the phone. Detailed history taking belongs in the appointment, not in a phone call.
Setting it up for your clinic
Start by pasting your clinic's website. Prepaid.ai reads up to 5 pages and builds a profile: services, practitioners, hours, location. Read it properly. It's what your callers will hear.
Then add your appointment types and their lengths, set your hours, connect Google Calendar, and go through the urgent words. Write your advice rule. Decide who gets put through during the day and who gets a message.
Last, talk to it in the browser. Play three people: a new patient wanting a check-up, someone with a swollen jaw, and someone asking whether their knee needs a scan. Each one should land where you expect.
Each prepaid plan runs 30 days with a local number and minutes included. Standard is US$79 with 350 minutes and answers 5 calls at once, which suits a busy front desk. All the plans are on the pricing page, and you can try it free for 7 days with no card.
Nights and weekends work a bit differently. After-hours calls for clinics covers what to do when the doors are shut.
FAQ
Does it connect to my practice management software?
No. It books into your Google Calendar. If your practice software is your diary, the AI can take a message for anything it can't book.
Can it tell patients their results or treatment plan?
No, and it shouldn't. It takes a message for a clinician instead.
Will patients know it's an AI?
Yes. It says so at the start of every call.
Can patients still speak to a person?
Yes. You choose which calls are put through to your team, and the AI takes a message for the rest.
Does it work in languages other than English?
Not today. It answers in English.
Does the clinic get its own number?
Yes. Every plan includes a local number for your AI phone line. In New Zealand, Australia and the UK the carrier checks your details before it switches on; in the US and Canada it's ready in minutes.
