TECH

AI is rewriting the call center calculus for DSOs

A simple thing like always picking up the phone can make a big difference to a dental practice’s bottom line. Now with more advanced AI, it’s achievable for even smaller multi-practice operators.

What's happening: For years, the centralized call center was a luxury reserved for scaled-up multi-practice operators. AI is rewriting that script. A new generation of dental-specific voice agents and intelligent routing tools has gotten good enough—and cheap enough—to change when and how multi-practice operators can offer their customers call center-style support.

• Dental-specific voice agents can now handle after-hours calls, appointment booking, FAQs, and insurance questions for a few thousand dollars per location per year—a fraction of what hiring a dedicated central team would cost.

Why it matters: Every unanswered call is a patient you risk losing to a competitor that does take their call. Scale that leak across a dozen locations and the number gets uncomfortable fast. “Call conversion is the most measurable revenue lever DSOs are targeting,” one dental consultant reported in Planet DDS’s 2026 Dental Industry Outlook.

• Unfilled follow-ups on accepted treatment plans can make revenue leakage even worse. Last year, 58% of treatment plans were accepted but only 47% were completed, an 11-point gap that shows up directly in production.

Yes, but: AI isn't a shortcut around operational discipline. Deloitte contact center research found that while AI raises the return on a well-run contact center, it can hurt customer satisfaction when implemented poorly. Clean scheduling rules, clear workflows, and strong escalation paths are prerequisites. Without that, automation just creates faster mistakes.

How to start: Once you have reached an inflection point in your business where your traditional front desk model is starting to crack—missed calls are piling up, staff are burnt out and turning over—it’s worth thinking about layering in an AI voice agent.

• Standardize the workflows AI will amplify. Scheduling templates, call scripts, recall cadences, and treatment plan follow-up processes. If these are inconsistent across your offices, centralizing or automating will lock in the inconsistency.

• Pilot AI on narrow, high-volume intents first, like after-hours calls, appointment confirmations, and common FAQs. Save the complex patient conversations for humans until your data, scripts, and oversight processes are mature.

• Have a way to track what happens after the call. It’s great that someone’s phone call was answered, but what you really need to know is what happened after. Did an appointment get scheduled, completed, and collected on?

• Don’t lose the human touch. Calls that still require a human touch can be passed along to a centralized team of people who manage overflow and complex situations, while staff in the office can focus on in-person experience and high-value interactions.

Bottom line: With sophisticated AI tools on the market, DSOs don’t need to make a binary decision between using a traditional call center or not. A hybrid approach, with technology reducing the burden of high call volumes on staff, can now realistically plug leakage and scale up your patient support without adding significantly to headcount.