Guide · dental practices
Cutting Recall Calls in a Dental Practice
Almost every practice we assess is working its recall list by hand. One person, a printed report, and an afternoon of voicemails. It is the single largest recoverable block of time in a dental front office, and it is also the one most often "solved" by software the practice already pays for and never switched on.
Check what your practice management system already does
Before buying anything, open your PMS and look for recall automation. Dentrix, Open Dental and Curve all ship some form of it. In roughly half the practices we look at, the feature exists, was never configured, and would cover most of the need for nothing.
The test is simple: can it send a message on a schedule based on last visit date, without someone pressing a button? If yes, start there.
What to add when the PMS falls short
Two-way texting is what moves the number, not email. Patients reply to texts. Weave and NexHealth both do this well and integrate with the major systems; expect $200 to $500 a month depending on size.
If budget is tight, a scheduled SMS tool wired to a nightly export gets you most of the benefit for under $50 a month. It is less elegant and someone has to watch it.
What we tell practices to skip
AI voice agents that call patients. The technology works in demos and disappoints in a practice, and a bad automated call costs you a patient relationship that took years to build.
Anything requiring a data migration to solve a scheduling problem. The payback is measured in years.
Want this done for your business?
This is the kind of thing our assessment does for your specific setup: the tools that fit, what they cost, and which four to start on Monday.See what we find in dental practices.