Built for general dental practices
AI Receptionist for General Dental Practices
General practices have the broadest call mix in dentistry, which is exactly why the front desk drowns. Hygiene recall, emergencies, insurance questions and new patients all compete for the same two phone lines.
General Dentists do not have a generic phone problem, and a generic phone solution does not fix it. The call mix in a general dental practice is specific: certain call types dominate, certain hours matter more than others, and the revenue attached to a single conversation can be an order of magnitude above the practice average.
Wavez is configured around that reality. Appointment types, triage thresholds, pricing language and escalation rules are all set to how your general dental practice actually operates, then reviewed line by line before a single patient hears the system.
A general practice recovering four missed new-patient calls a month clears its Wavez subscription in the first week.
Three things that cost general dentists money every week
Hygiene recall is the first thing to slip
When the phone is busy, outbound recall stops. An open hygiene column costs roughly $200 an hour in lost production, and the gap compounds because unfilled hygiene means undiagnosed restorative work.
New-patient calls hit during the lunch gap
Search traffic peaks between 11am and 2pm. That is precisely when a two-person front desk is down to one, and the average general practice misses 25–35% of calls in that window.
Insurance questions consume disproportionate time
A quarter of inbound calls are "do you take my insurance". Each one is three to five minutes and produces nothing except a booking that could have been made automatically.
The call mix in a typical general dental practice
Shares are typical for this kind of practice. Wavez reports your real split from the first week.
What one recovered call is worth in a general dental practice
| Treatment | Typical value | Why it matters on the phone |
|---|---|---|
| New patient exam, X-rays, cleaning | $320 | The single most valuable call outcome for a general practice. |
| Crown | $1,250 | Usually diagnosed at a visit that started as a pain call. |
| Root canal (molar) | $1,100 | Frequently arrives as an urgent after-hours call. |
| Recall prophy + exam | $190 | High volume; the base load of the hygiene column. |
Values are national averages for illustration and vary by region, payer mix and case complexity.
A real general dentist call, start to finish
Do you take Delta Dental PPO? And can I get in this week?
We do accept Delta Dental PPO. For a new patient exam with X-rays and cleaning I have Wednesday 2:40pm or Friday 9:00am.
Wednesday.
You're booked for Wednesday at 2:40 with Dr. Alvarez. I've texted the new-patient forms — completing them beforehand saves about ten minutes at check-in.
What changes in the first month
Every call answered, including the 9pm ones
Coverage runs continuously, and concurrency is unlimited, so peak hours stop producing busy signals.
Appointments, not messages
Bookings are written into your PMS with the correct type, duration and provider before the caller hangs up.
Your clinical rules, enforced consistently
Triage follows the tree your clinicians wrote — every call, every time, with a transcript.
Fixed cost, no overtime
From $599 a month, with nights, weekends and holidays included at no surcharge.
Traditional front desk vs Wavez
| Front desk alone | Front desk + Wavez | |
|---|---|---|
| Answer speed | 4–6 rings, then voicemail | Under 2 seconds |
| Coverage | Office hours only | 24/7 including holidays |
| Simultaneous callers | One | Unlimited |
| General dentist call knowledge | Depends who picks up | Identical on every call |
| Monthly cost | $3,200–$4,500 per FTE | From $599 |
What we configure for a general dental practice
Onboarding is not a template swap. We take your appointment types, provider eligibility, block scheduling and reserved capacity, and we write the triage tree with your clinicians rather than for them.
Dentrix and Eaglesoft are the most common general-practice systems and both support real-time appointment write-back.
- Appointment types and durations specific to general dentist workflows
- Clinical escalation thresholds written and signed off by your team
- Insurance and payment language taken from your own policy documents
- English and Spanish handling, including confirmation SMS
- HIPAA-aligned handling with a signed Business Associate Agreement
Objections we hear from this specialty
Will it double-book our hygiene column? No. Wavez reads live availability from your PMS before offering any slot and writes back atomically, so two callers cannot claim the same opening.
What if a caller asks something unusual? Anything outside its configured knowledge is handed to a human — warm transfer during hours, callback request with full transcript after hours.
Going live takes days, not months
Discovery call
We map your call types, providers, hours, insurance list and escalation rules — usually 30 minutes.
PMS connection
Wavez connects to Dentrix, Open Dental, Eaglesoft, Curve or Dolphin and reads your live availability.
Script review
You approve every line the AI can say, including pricing ranges and clinical escalation thresholds.
Supervised go-live
Day one is monitored call by call. Adjustments are made same-day, and you keep full transcripts.
A practice that made the change
We replaced two contract receptionists and got better coverage. The math wasn’t even close.
James Patel, COO — Lakeview Orthodontics, Chicago, IL (3-location ortho group)