REGULATIONS

The AI consent question every DSO is about to face

Your AI tools are listening, transcribing, and summarizing. Your patients may not know that—and new lawsuits are bringing that issue to life.

Driving the news: A federal judge handed Heartland Dental a procedural win on a lawsuit revolving around AI transcription and analytics of patient communications done without what the plaintiffs alleged was proper consent, tossing a putative class action against the DSO and its phone vendor RingCentral.

• The court let the case go, finding the AI features were treated as part of an ordinary phone service, but did acknowledge the underlying privacy concern was real enough to get into court in the first place. Public reporting suggests the plaintiff has since refiled.

What it means for you: The rise of new technology brings up new questions about patient data. As adoption increases, the question of whether patients need to be informed AI is being used in the course of their treatment is going to get asked again, and in tougher venues.

• States like California, Illinois, and Washington require everyone on a call to consent before recording. A handful of states, including Texas and California, now have AI-specific disclosure rules on the books for healthcare settings.

• Sharp HealthCare is facing a class action alleging an ambient AI scribe recorded exam-room conversations without proper consent. 

Why it matters: AI is showing up everywhere in DSO operations—telephony analytics, ambient scribes, imaging assistants, chatbots, claims tools, patient outreach—and quietly capturing or generating patient information. The fact that most patients have no idea is becoming both a legal and reputational risk.

What you can do: Make sure as you roll out AI tools, you’re following a few basic practices to minimize potential patient consent landmines. 

• Inventory every AI tool in your practice. Phones, scribes, imaging, chatbots, billing, marketing. If you can't list them, you can't disclose them.

• Tell patients, in plain English. Build AI mentions into call scripts, intake forms, in-office signage, and your website privacy page.

• Give patients a choice. Train staff on a simple opt-out path, like manual notes or a non-recorded line, and document when patients use it.

• Pressure-test your vendor contracts. Make sure your AI vendors can't use patient data to train their models or sell it downstream without your explicit say-so. Heartland's case turned in part on what a vendor was doing on the practice's behalf.

• Know your strictest state. If you operate across state lines, your floor is whichever jurisdiction is toughest. 

Bottom line: AI is moving into every corner of dental operations, and the practices that get ahead of disclosure and consent now will be best positioned to build trust with patients. The ones that wait will spend it explaining themselves to patients, regulators, or even a courtroom.