AI Front Desk for Dental Practices: Where Could Your Team Use Backup?
I needed to replace an AC unit in Texas, and I couldn’t get someone on the phone.
I was ready to hire a company. I started calling down the list, and the first one that answered got the business. When your AC needs help in Texas, patience becomes a very limited resource. 😂
I shared that story with Josh Gosnell, Vice President of Revenue at Adit, because it gets to the heart of our conversation about an AI front desk for dental practices. A patient may be ready to schedule, but your team has to be able to help them take that next step.
Josh joined me on the Nifty Thrifty Dentists Podcast to discuss how Adit approaches missed calls, patient follow-up, and the competing demands on dental teams. There’s a lot of AI talk out there. I wanted to get into what these tools actually do during a busy day.
This episode is sponsored by Adit.
Start with the problem your team is facing
Josh made a useful point early in the conversation: implementing AI should help you become more efficient or solve a problem.
That gives practice owners a practical starting point. Before looking at another feature list, look at where the work gets stuck. Does the phone ring while the team is checking out a patient? Are appointment requests coming in after the office closes? Does someone say they’ll call a patient back, then get pulled into three other things?
Josh explained that Adit’s platform grew from problems its dental clients brought to the company. In this episode, he describes bringing tools such as phones, texting, forms, scheduling, and analytics into one place.
For me, the useful question is what that means for the people doing the work. A tool needs to fit into their day and help them move a task forward.
What happened after the patient called?
One of the most practical parts of our conversation was the distinction between knowing you missed a call and knowing what happened afterward.
Did someone call back? Did they reach the patient? Was that patient trying to book an appointment? Did the appointment get scheduled?
Josh describes AI Call Intelligence as a diagnostic tool that analyzes conversations involving your team, including inbound and outbound calls. It can help identify why someone called, whether they booked, and what still needs attention.
He also shared an example of a practice whose team was turning away new patients because they believed the schedule was full. According to Josh, reviewing the calls helped uncover that misunderstanding.
That is an opportunity for a better conversation with the team. We can look at a specific situation, understand what happened, and decide how to handle it next time. I said in the episode that we can use that information to improve without turning it into finger-pointing.
Make patient follow-up easier to track
Josh brought up a familiar system for callbacks: sticky notes on a desk or computer.
Most of us can picture it. The intention is good. Someone wants to remember to help a patient. The challenge is keeping track of whether that next step actually happened.
In the episode, Josh explains how Call Intelligence can help organize patients who called with an interest in scheduling but didn’t book. He also describes automatically generated tasks for unresolved questions.
His example is a patient asking for a cost estimate. If the team needs to check and get back to them, the system can flag that unfinished item and create a follow-up task.
The value is in making the next step visible. The team still needs to follow through, but they have something clearer to work from than a growing pile of reminders.
How an AI front desk for dental practices can provide backup
Call Intelligence and AI Front Desk serve different purposes in Josh’s explanation. One analyzes what happened in conversations. The other can participate in patient conversations and handle requests such as scheduling, rescheduling, and cancellations.
Josh describes after-hours coverage and daytime overflow as common uses for AI Front Desk. If a team member can’t get to a call, the agent can help the caller and transfer the conversation back to the team when needed.
That matters for the person already standing at the counter, too. Josh talks about seeing a team member repeatedly answer the phone and put callers on hold while trying to help a patient in front of them.
We’ve all seen how quickly attention gets divided. Support for those calls can give your team more room to finish the conversation they’re already having. For a practice considering this setup, a useful demo would show how scheduling rules and handoffs work with its own practice management system.
Give your team a voice in the change
I asked Josh about the concern some team members may have when they hear the words AI front desk. It is a fair conversation to have.
In the episode, we talk about filling coverage gaps and making the team’s workload more manageable. I also mention how much I’d rather have a strong treatment coordinator helping a patient understand treatment than spending that same time trying to fill the schedule over the phone.
Josh previews AI Recare as the next step toward outbound calls and texts for follow-up. He describes it as coming soon, so it is something to ask Adit about rather than assume is available from the conversation alone.
The starting point is listening to your team. Ask which tasks keep interrupting them and which patient conversations they wish they had more time for. That will give you a much better basis for evaluating a tool than simply adding AI to the shopping list.
Watch my full conversation with Josh Gosnell for the examples behind these workflows: https://youtu.be/W8vQTQBrwzk
Josh also shared an exclusive offer for Nifty Thrifty Dentists members: receive a $150 Amazon gift card for completing a demo. If you sign up for an Adit package, receive free phone hardware plus VoIP service free for life.
Learn more and ask for the Nifty Thrifty member offer at https://adit.com/nifty
