Implant guides
AI notes for dental implant consultations. What to look for before you buy.
For practice owners, office managers and treatment coordinators comparing AI note tools for implant and full-arch consults.
Pick a tool that keeps the coordinator’s note apart from the dentist’s clinical note. Before you buy, check:
- Who reviews each note before it is saved.
- Where the note lands in your practice management system (PMS).
- How patients are told about recording.
- Where the vendor keeps recordings, and for how long.
Start with the job that is failing
Notes are one of four jobs a treatment coordinator’s software can cover, and your PMS may already handle some of them.
| Job | What it has to do | Where it may already live |
|---|---|---|
| Present the plan and fee | Show the options and fees, and start a financing application | The PMS treatment planner, lender portals |
| Record the consult | Capture the concern, the fee and financing discussed, what the team promised, who else decides, and the next step and its owner | Typed notes in the PMS, or an AI note tool |
| Track unscheduled cases | List presented plans with no appointment, with the reason and the next contact date | The PMS report of unscheduled treatment, plus a log |
| Reach the patient | Call and text, and log each attempt | The phone system, a patient texting platform |
If the notes are fine and the calls are late, a note tool will not fix it. How to track unscheduled implant treatment has a 10-case check that shows which job is failing.
Full-arch decisions can wait on a spouse, financing or a second visit, and the treatment runs across several appointments. The next caller needs to know who else decides, where financing stands and which appointment comes first.
One consult, two notes
The dentist’s note and the coordinator’s note answer different questions.
The ADA’s guidance on patient records says:
- The dental record typically holds recaps of talks about proposed treatment, its benefits and risks, and the alternatives, including no treatment. Date and initial them.
- Financial records, such as ledger cards, insurance benefit breakdowns and claims, are not part of the clinical record. Keep them separately.
If a tool puts the fee talk in the clinical note, someone has to split them by hand later. Ask the vendor to show both notes from the same implant consult.
What the coordinator note should hold
The eight items, each explained in what to record after an implant consult:
- The concern, in the patient’s words.
- The plan and fee as presented.
- The financing discussed, and where any application stands.
- What the team promised, with a name and a day.
- Who else decides: a spouse, an adult child, a second opinion.
- The next step and its date.
- One named owner for the next contact.
- How the consult ended: scheduled, thinking it over, needs information, referred out or declined.
If a sample note from the demo leaves out who else decides, the next step or its owner, the follow-up call starts from scratch.
Questions to ask in the demo
- Does it write a coordinator note, or only a clinical note?
- Ask for a sample from an implant or full-arch consult, with the fee and financing talk in it.
- Can the coordinator edit the note before it is saved?
- The person who was in the room should read it, fix it and approve it. Ask who signs it.
- Where does the note go in our PMS?
- Name your system and version. Ask what the tool reads from the PMS and what it writes back, then ask to see it working in a system like yours.
- Does it work for the calls after the consult?
- Follow-up calls change the plan too. Ask whether those calls can add to the same patient’s notes.
- How is the patient told?
- Decide with your attorney what you tell patients about recording, and put it in your intake and your script.
- Where are recordings and notes stored, and for how long?
- Ask who at the vendor can see them, how long recordings are kept, and whether the vendor will sign a business associate agreement.
- What happens after the note is written?
- A note in the record does not make the call. Ask how the next step and its owner stay visible until the patient books or says no.
- What does it cost, and what is the contract term?
- Get it in writing, with what happens to your data when you leave.
Consent rules for recording differ by state. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press keeps a state-by-state guide to the laws on recording calls and conversations. It is written for journalists and is not legal advice.
Under HHS guidance, a business associate is a person or company that handles patient information for a HIPAA-covered provider, such as a cloud service that stores it. The provider can share that information once the business associate signs a written agreement to safeguard it.
Test it on five of your own consults
Step 1
Pick five implant consults
Use your own, recorded with each patient’s consent.
Step 2
Write the note the usual way
Your coordinator writes each note as they do today.
Step 3
Compare against the eight items
Check both notes against the eight items above. Count what each one missed.
Step 4
Time the fixes
Note how long your coordinator spent fixing the tool’s note before saving it.
Five consults is a small sample. It still shows whether the tool writes the note your coordinator needs, or a clinical note with the money talk left out.
Questions
- Can the AI note replace the coordinator’s note?
- It can draft it. The coordinator should still read it before it is saved: they heard the tone, the pauses and what the patient did not say.
- Should the same tool write the clinical note?
- It can, as long as the clinical note and the coordinator note stay separate and the money talk stays out of the clinical record.
- Do we need AI for this?
- No. A consistent note, a weekly report and a named owner work without it. An AI tool can draft the consult note so the coordinator types less.
- Should a small implant practice buy software at all?
- Start with the PMS report and a shared log. Buy when you can name the job that keeps failing.
About HelloAugust
How August drafts consult notes
Your TC asks for the patient’s consent, then records on an iPhone, an Apple Watch, an Android phone, or the Mac and Windows desktop apps.
August drafts notes from the recording. The person who recorded checks them before they are saved to the patient’s record.
In Open Dental, the reviewed summary goes to the patient’s Commlog. On other systems, what can be written depends on your PMS, version and connection.
Each recorded conversation adds to the patient’s case file: their reasons, their concerns and the financing question.
Unscheduled treatment goes into one follow-up queue, with calls due on a set cadence. Booking the treatment stops the calls.
SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA: see our trust center (opens in a new tab) for current status and to request reports.
Checked against
Sources
The practices and patients in the examples are made up.
Book a demo.
Tell us which practice software you use, and we’ll confirm what’s supported for your office.