Dental Answering Service · Oral Surgeons
Dental Answering Service for Oral Surgery Practices
An answering service for dental practices that finishes the job — booked appointments in your PMS instead of a morning message list. Configured for the call mix a oral surgery practice actually receives.
Most dental answering services were designed around a single deliverable: make sure nobody hears a ring-out. That was a reasonable goal in 1995. It is a low bar in a market where the patient who called you at 8pm has already booked with a competitor by 8:04pm.
In a oral surgery practice the stakes are different from general dentistry. Oral surgery runs on referrals and urgency. A referring office that cannot reach you on the first try sends the patient somewhere else — and rarely tells you why.
Never losing a referring office to an unanswered phone is the single highest-leverage change an oral surgery practice can make. Practices moving off traditional answering services report morning callback lists shrinking by more than 80%.
What a dental answering service handles in a oral surgery practice
Shares are typical for this kind of practice. Wavez reports your real split from the first week.
A oral surgeon call handled end to end
This is Dr. Ruiz's office — we have a patient here who needs a surgical extraction, ideally this week.
I can book that now. Do you have a periapical or panoramic you can send, and is the patient in acute pain?
Pan is ready, moderate pain.
Thursday 1:15pm with Dr. Nkemelu. I've texted a secure upload link for the image and logged the referral under Dr. Ruiz.
Why oral surgeons choose this over the alternatives
Message lists disappear
Your morning starts with confirmed appointments, not thirty callbacks to work through.
Urgency handled correctly
Clinical triage rules you write decide what escalates and what waits.
No per-call surcharges
Holiday weekends and flu season cost exactly the same as a quiet Tuesday.
Full transcripts
Every interaction is searchable, so disputed conversations are settled in seconds.
Traditional front desk vs Wavez
| Traditional | Wavez | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical output | Message / callback request | Booked appointment |
| Holiday pricing | Surcharged | Included |
| Triage | Generic operator judgement | Your written clinical rules |
| Recordkeeping | Message log | Full transcript + outcome |
| Monthly cost | $600–$1,800 + surcharges | From $599 flat |
Dental Answering Service, tuned to oral surgeon workflows
The economics are also unfavourable. A per-call or per-minute service charges most when your practice is busiest, and the value it delivers — a message — is the same whether the caller was a new implant consult or a supplier.
Most oral surgery practices run Dentrix or a surgery-specific system; Wavez books via PMS integration or calendar bridge where no API exists.
- Full-bony third molar extraction (x4) — typically $2,400: The volume mainstay; frequently booked in summer and winter breaks.
- Surgical extraction (single) — typically $450: Most common referral outcome.
- IV sedation — typically $650: Adds pre-op instruction load Wavez absorbs.
- Biopsy — typically $700: Urgency-flagged referral requiring rapid scheduling.
The objections worth taking seriously
Will referring offices accept talking to AI? They care about being handled in one call. Referral coordinators consistently prefer an instant structured intake to a hold queue or a callback promise.
Can it receive imaging securely? Yes — it sends a secure upload link rather than accepting attachments by SMS, and the upload is attached to the appointment record.
Can Wavez replace our answering service entirely? For most practices, yes — including overnight and holidays. Some keep a human escalation path for clinical calls, which Wavez routes to automatically.
What happens if the AI cannot handle a call? It transfers to a human during hours, or takes a structured callback request with full transcript after hours. Nothing is silently dropped.
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 were missing 40% of our calls. Now we miss zero — and patients can’t tell it’s AI.
Dr. Maria Chen, Owner — Sunrise Family Dental, Phoenix, AZ (4-chair family practice)