AI recall calls for dental practices
Every practice has a list of patients who are six months overdue and a front desk with no time to call them. An outbound voice agent works that list in the quiet hours, books the ones who answer and follows up the ones who do not.
How do AI recall calls work for overdue dental patients?
You export a list of patients who are past due and have agreed to be contacted. The voice agent calls each one inside the hours you set, says who it is calling for and why, offers open hygiene slots and books the one the patient picks. Unanswered calls are retried on a schedule you control and followed by a text, and every call is logged with a transcript.
Worked example
What one overdue list looks like as a campaign
Suppose your system shows 600 hygiene patients more than six months overdue. Reaching one usually takes several attempts, which is why the list never gets worked by hand.
| Step | Count |
|---|---|
| Patients on the opted-in overdue list | 600 |
| Answered within three attempts (example: 35%) | 210 |
| Booked on the call (example: 30% of those answered) | 63 |
| Not reached, sent a follow-up text with a booking link | 390 |
Replace the percentages with your own after the first week. Each booked cleaning also puts a lapsed patient back on your regular recall cycle.
Consent and calling rules
The rules a recall campaign has to follow
- Call only patients who agreed to be contacted and remove anyone who has asked not to be called.
- AI voices are treated as artificial voices for US calling rules, so prior consent matters; check the requirements with your counsel before the first campaign.
- Respect calling hours in the patient's time zone and set a sensible retry limit, for example three attempts over a week.
- Say who is calling and why at the start of the call, and offer to transfer to the office or stop future calls.
- Keep it to scheduling. The agent does not discuss diagnoses or treatment plans.
Getting started
Start with one slice of the list
Begin with patients 6 to 12 months overdue; they are the most likely to rebook. Run it for two weeks, compare bookings with the same slice worked by hand last quarter, then widen to longer-lapsed patients with a different script. Allow about 5 business days for the managed voice line to be set up before the first calls.
The script
What a good recall call sounds like
A recall call works when it is short and specific. The agent opens with the practice name and the reason: "Hi, this is the assistant calling for Riverside Dental. You're due for your six-month cleaning with Dr Patel." It offers two concrete times rather than asking "when suits you?", confirms the booking back, and offers a text with the details. If the patient says they have moved or switched dentists, it thanks them and flags them on your list so nobody calls again.
Hear the agent book a new-patient exam
Book a demo and we'll map your new-patient calls, recall list and on-call rules onto Botcadence, with NexHealth if you use it.
Common Questions
Dental recall call questions
Patients who are past due for hygiene and have consented to calls from your practice. Exclude anyone on your do-not-call list, patients with an upcoming appointment already, and anyone whose last visit ended with a billing dispute or complaint.
Yes, with NexHealth connected: it books appointments that sync with Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Open Dental and other practice systems, so the slot shows up in your schedule. Otherwise the agent captures the patient's preferred day and time and the front desk confirms the booking. Botcadence doesn't sign BAAs today, so check with your compliance advisor before connecting patient records.
The call is retried inside your calling hours up to the limit you set. After the last attempt the patient gets a text with a way to book or call the office, and the outcome is recorded against their name.
Recall calls draw on the same minute pool as inbound calls: the Voice AI plan is $299 a month for 1,500 minutes, then $35 for each extra 200 minutes. A recall call that books usually lasts two to three minutes, so you can estimate a campaign's minutes from the size of the list.
Start with the calls your front desk misses
Most practices start with after-hours and lunch-hour calls, then add recall reminders and website chat once bookings look right. Voice lines go live in about 5 business days.
- Reader-first workflows
- Human handoff when needed
- Grounded in your content