TECH

The risks and rewards of hiring an AI helper to staff your phones

The call is coming from inside the dentist’s office—but this isn’t the climax of an odontologically themed spooky story; it’s a new application of sophisticated artificial intelligence that more dental practices are exploring.

What’s happening: A growing number of DSOs and multi-site groups are piloting AI voice agents to handle front desk tasks, like answering calls, booking hygiene and new-patient appointments, confirming and rescheduling, chasing unscheduled treatment, and routing “Do you take my insurance?” questions to the right workflow.

• These products leverage rapid improvements in the capabilities of large language models (LLMs) to push automated response systems well beyond frustrating “Press 1 for …” phone trees and closer to human-like, conversational interactions.

Why it’s happening: Staffing challenges, profit and loss considerations, patient habits are all factors pushing healthcare organizations to explore voice AI systems.

• Call analytics suggest dental organizations miss about a quarter of inbound calls, sometimes more. An always-available voice AI receptionist solves that.

• Patients want to schedule appointments on their own time, and this often means after dental offices are closed. One academic study found 29.5% of self-scheduled appointments are booked after business hours.

• Even finding staff to answer phones has become more challenging (and, for some, cost-prohibitive). The American Dental Association (ADA) reported recently that staffing issues and increasing overhead were among dentists’ top concerns heading into 2026.

Why it matters: AI voice systems open the door to a major upgrade to the patient funnel that can translate into a healthier bottom line without having to recruit and hire new full-time staff.

• Houston Methodist’s innovation team reported that their AI voice assistant achieved a 91% automation rate for a high-volume hotline and answered 100% of calls on the first ring, eliminating abandonment during peak hours.

• Early vendor-reported case studies in dentistry also show promise, with DSOs increasing their bookings and achieving a healthy ROI on voice AI systems without adding marketing spend or staff.

Yes, but: When it comes to AI, patients have boundaries. In a 2024 Talkdesk survey of 1,000 U.S. adults, 81% preferred a human for medical advice and 74% wanted to discuss personal health information with a person, but 42% were okay with AI scheduling routine appointments.

• The top worries were inaccurate answers (26%), data privacy (24%), and losing the human touch (24%).

What to look for in vendors: If your voice AI system is going to be answering calls, you need to treat the search for the right system the same way you’d treat the search for a front-desk assistant, that is, with plenty of care. Here are some features to pay attention to:

• Tight scoping: Hand over basic jobs to the AI for tasks that will improve the patient experience, like scheduling after hours or when the phone is busy, providing conversationally accessible office information, and basic billing logistics.

• Human handoffs: Allow callers to speak to a person early to avoid frustration, and route emergencies and clinical complaints directly to humans. Don’t force people to mash the “0” key on their phones trying to reach someone.

• Robust integrations: A stand-alone voice AI that can take calls may be a cool trick, but in a silo, it’s not going to do much for your business. Bookings should write back to the practice management system, and exceptions should be passed off gracefully to a human to handle.

• Show me the metrics: Make sure you have access to a dashboard that can track answer rates, abandonment, booking conversion, time-to-appointment, and follow-up completion by location. You want to be able to spot any problems as soon as they emerge.

What’s next: As voice agents get better at holding natural, context-aware conversations, they can shift from “front-desk overflow” to a scaled extension of your care team. A recent article identified a number of potential next-gen use cases: multilingual care outreach to patients, perio maintenance reminders personalized to individual patients' circumstances, and automatic post-appointment check-ins. These use cases may not yet be ready for prime time, but it’s an exciting preview of things to come.