Attua / Industries / Dental practices

AI for multi chair and group dental practices

Most pages like this start with what is possible. Dentistry is the one industry where I would rather start with what is forbidden, because the sector is full of products making clinical and marketing claims that will land a practice owner in front of a regulator rather than in front of more patients.

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The no list, before anything else

These are excluded from the first conversation. Not staged, not revisited once the practice is comfortable, not available with a disclaimer. Each one is either a clinical act, a regulated representation or a record that a registered practitioner has to own personally.

Interpreting radiographs or any clinical image: Software that performs a diagnostic function is regulated as a medical device in Australia and generally has to be included in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods. Whatever you decide about such a product, it is not something a consultant wires into your practice as a workflow.
Treatment planning, or anything shaped like it: Sequencing treatment, choosing between options and advising a patient on them is dentistry. A letter explaining a plan the dentist has already made is administration. The difference is not subtle and the workflow is built around it.
Writing clinical content into a patient record: A record is a legal document and the practitioner who signs it carries it. Tidying their own dictated words is acceptable. Adding findings, inferring anything or filling a gap with something plausible is not.
Patient endorsements and outcome claims in advertising: The National Law restricts the use of patient endorsements when advertising a regulated health service, along with misleading claims and anything creating an unreasonable expectation of benefit. That applies to your website and your social posts whoever drafted them, so endorsement material is kept out of the content workflow entirely.
Telling a patient what their health fund will pay: An estimate is an estimate and an entitlement is the fund's decision. Preparing the estimate from your own fee schedule and the item numbers the dentist has selected is fine. Stating what a patient will get back is not.
Any clinical question from a patient, in any channel: Including a reply drafted for reception to send. Pain, swelling, bleeding, a lost crown or a knocked out tooth goes to a clinician immediately, and the workflow is designed assuming the urgent case rather than the routine one.

If a vendor demonstration crosses any of those lines, that is the moment to slow down, not the moment to be impressed.

Now the other side

What is left, and why it is still the better half

With the no list set aside, what remains is the administration of a practice, and in a multi chair practice that is a great deal of work carried by a practice manager and a front desk who are also answering the phone.

Hygiene and examination recallLists built from clinical history and attendance patterns rather than a flat interval, with messages that refer to when the patient was last seen.
Unscheduled treatment follow upTreatment the dentist recommended and the patient did not book. It sits in your software, qualified and waiting, and in most practices nobody works it.
Treatment plan letters and estimatesDrafted from the plan the dentist made and your fee schedule, so the patient leaves with something clear rather than a verbal summary.
Referral letters to specialistsAssembled from the record, with the history and the reason for referral in place for the dentist to check and sign.
Laboratory case trackingCrowns, dentures and appliances out with a lab, chased before the appointment rather than on the morning of it.
Failure to attend and short notice gapsA gap in a chair at 2pm is lost revenue. A drafted call list of patients who could fill it, in priority order, lets reception work the phone.
Claiming and account exceptionsRejections from health fund terminals and public scheme claims grouped by cause, so the pattern is fixed rather than each claim rekeyed.
Compliance record keepingSterilisation cycle records, radiation licensing and plan documents, staff registration currency, and training completions all tracked by date.
Chair utilisation reportingA weekly read per practitioner and per site, in the same shape each week, naming the 2 things worth asking about.
Front desk phone overflowMessages taken and categorised with the callback prepared, excluding anything clinical, which goes straight through.

The main event

Recall and unscheduled treatment are the two numbers that move

If a practice does nothing else from this page, these 2 are the ones. They are also the two most practices know they are not doing well, because both require somebody to be on the phone consistently and nobody at the front desk has an uninterrupted hour.

Why recall underperforms

Most practices run a flat interval and send the same message to everybody. A patient who has not attended in 3 years needs a different message from one who is 2 months late, and a patient with a history of periodontal treatment needs a different message again. Segmenting that properly is list work, and the message writing is drafting.

Why unscheduled treatment is worse

The dentist recommended a crown in August and the patient said they would think about it. That is a qualified, documented recommendation sitting in your practice software, and unless somebody runs the report and makes the calls, it stays there. A drafted list with the recommendation, the date and the clinical context already attached turns it into a 20 minute task.

What the front desk actually needs

Not a bigger list. A shorter one, ordered by who is most likely to book, with the context already in front of them so they are not reading a chart while someone answers. Twelve good calls beats 400 messages.

Where it goes wrong

Volume without judgement. A mass message to everybody overdue produces complaints, unsubscribes and a handful of bookings, and it damages the relationship with long standing patients. Any recall workflow we build is capped at what your front desk can realistically follow up.

Compliance

The compliance paperwork a practice has to hold

Dental practices carry a compliance load that general small businesses do not, and almost all of it is date based record keeping. Reprocessing of reusable instruments is governed by the current Australian Standard and your sterilisation records have to show it was done properly, with validation and cycle logs. In Queensland, using radiation apparatus requires licensing under the Radiation Safety Act 1999 along with a radiation safety protection plan. Practitioners are registered with the Dental Board of Australia through the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, with continuing professional development and registration dates to track. Clinical records have retention periods, longer for patients treated as children.

None of this requires judgement from software. All of it requires somebody to notice a date, hold a document and be able to produce it. A register that surfaces what is due, drafts the chase and shows the position per site is ordinary administration done reliably, which is exactly the point.

Systems

Practice software and the claiming layer

Dental4Windows, Exact or Praktika: Clinical and appointment history as a read source for recall lists, unscheduled treatment lists and utilisation reporting. Nothing is written into a clinical record.
Your imaging software: Left alone. Images are not inputs to any workflow we build, and interpretation is a medical device question handled separately.
HICAPS and Tyro terminals: Claim rejections and account exceptions grouped by cause, with the pattern named rather than a list to rekey one at a time.
Your fee schedule and item numbers: Treatment plan estimates drafted from the items the dentist selected, with no statement about what a fund will pay.
Your laboratory correspondence: Case tracking against appointment dates, with the chase drafted before the appointment rather than on the day.
Google Business Profile: Review responses drafted within the advertising rules, with anything clinical or complaint shaped escalated to the principal instead.

How it runs

What a practice should do first, and what to ignore

A Diagnostic first. A few days in the practice during normal sessions: time at the front desk, time with the practice manager on claiming and compliance, and a conversation with the principal about what is actually being recommended and not booked. In a group, a day in the support office as well.

The order is almost always the same. Recall and unscheduled treatment first, because the data is already there and the result is measurable in bookings rather than in opinions. Compliance registers second, because they are low risk and they remove a standing anxiety. Anything touching the clinical record last, carefully, and only once the practice has seen how the tooling behaves.

Four to six weeks on the first workflow, running beside the current method, measured on whether the front desk works the list. If they do not use it, the list is too long, which is a design problem rather than a people problem. The wider sequence is AI strategy, the build is AI implementation, and the team side is AI training.

Illustrative example, not a client story

Example scenario: treatment recommended in autumn and never booked

Picture a practice with 5 chairs, 3 dentists and 2 hygienists. Over 6 months the dentists have recommended treatment that patients did not book on the day: crowns, replacement restorations, a few extractions. It is all recorded in the practice software. Nobody runs the report because the front desk is answering the phone and the practice manager is reconciling health fund claims.

In this example a short list is drafted twice a week per dentist: the patient, what was recommended, when, and the clinical context the dentist noted at the time, ordered by how likely the patient is to be contactable and to proceed. Reception works 15 calls rather than reading a 300 line report, and anything a patient asks clinically goes to the dentist. No recommendation is created, changed or implied by the workflow. Illustrative example, not a client story.

Data

Clinical records, images and retention

Dental records are health information, which is the most protected category of personal information under the Privacy Act and the Australian Privacy Principles. They also include images, which are identifying in a way a text record is not. A breach involving them is very likely notifiable, and a practice that cannot say where a patient's information went has a problem independent of any clinical question.

How it is set up: business grade accounts with training on your data switched off and data residency understood before anything starts, each workflow given the narrowest read access that does the job, no workflow writing into a clinical record, and clinical images excluded from scope entirely. Recall and treatment lists are built inside systems you control, and the output is a list your team works from rather than a message that sends itself. Where a practitioner wants to use a dictation or note tidying tool, it goes through the practice with patient consent recorded, not around it.

The practice also needs one page the whole team can follow: what may be typed into which tool, what never may, and who to ask when it is unclear. In a practice with casual reception staff and visiting practitioners, that page matters more than any workflow on this list.

Starting from $9,999 (AUD, ex GST)

Every job is scoped up front after a Diagnostic. Sam is based in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, and travel is charged at cost from Brisbane. See the cost guide.

Questions

Common questions from practice owners and principal dentists

What about the AI software that reads radiographs?

That is a medical device question, not a workflow question. Software that interprets a radiograph performs a clinical function, which generally means it needs to be included in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods before it is used here. If you are considering one, the questions are whether it is included, what the dentist's own obligations are when relying on it, and what the patient is told. It is a different project from anything on this page.

Can we use patient reviews in our marketing if software writes the copy?

No, and this catches practices out regularly. The National Law restricts the use of patient endorsements in advertising a regulated health service, and that applies to what you publish regardless of who drafted it. So endorsement content is excluded from any drafting workflow at the source rather than filtered later, and your marketing person is trained on why.

Our recall list is thousands of patients long. Where do we start?

With the ones most likely to come back, written to properly, rather than with everybody at once. A list built from clinical history and visit patterns, a message that refers to when they were last seen and what was recommended, and a volume the front desk can actually follow up on the phone. A single message to everybody on the overdue list produces complaints and a handful of bookings.

Can it write clinical notes?

It can tidy a practitioner's own dictated account into the practice's format, and the practitioner then reads, corrects and owns it. What it does not do is add clinical content, infer findings or describe anything the practitioner did not say. A note is a legal record and the person who signs it carries it.

We are a group with five practices. Does that change the approach?

It changes the order. A group gets most from the work that repeats five times and from closing the gap between the best and worst performing site: recall performance, chair utilisation, claiming exceptions and compliance records reviewed centrally. A single practice should usually start with recall and unscheduled treatment and leave the reporting layer alone.

Will patients know software was involved?

They will not notice a well written appointment reminder, and that is fine. Where they should know is anything involving their clinical record or a recording of a consultation, which needs consent and a privacy policy that says what actually happens. Being straightforward about it is also easier than maintaining a careful silence.

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