Dentists
Booking and recall systems for dental practices
A dental practice does not usually have a marketing problem. It has a capacity problem and a recall problem: the chair time lost to failed appointments, and the patients who quietly drift away because nobody reminded them they were due.
Recalls due - September
6-month check-ups · auto follow-up at 14 days
An illustration of the kind of screen this builds towards - yours is built around how your dental practice actually runs.
The reality
Where the time and money goes in a dental practice
Failed appointments cost chair time you cannot sell twice
An hour of surgery time lost at short notice is gone, and in a practice running several chairs a small percentage of failures adds up to a serious number over a year.
Recalls depend on somebody remembering to run them
Six-month check-ups are the backbone of the book. If recalls are generated by hand when reception gets a quiet ten minutes, they slip, and patients slip with them.
Reception is on the phone all morning
Registrations, appointment changes, questions about opening hours and prices - most of it is routine, most of it could be self-service, and all of it is happening while people queue at the desk.
Emergency slots get swallowed
If nothing protects them, same-day emergency capacity gets filled with routine work by Tuesday, and then you are turning away the patient in genuine pain.
New patients cannot get started online
Somebody who has moved into the area is ready to register at ten at night. If the only route in is a phone call during working hours, a good proportion of them never make it.
The approach
How we'd fix it
The two things worth building first are recalls and reminders, because they pay for themselves quickly. Recalls run on their own - a patient seen in March is contacted in September, then chased if they do not respond, with the practice deciding the intervals. Reminders go out ahead of every appointment by text and email, with a link that lets the patient confirm or move it without ringing.
The rest is about taking routine work off reception. New patient registration and medical history forms completed online before the first visit. Appointment changes done by the patient inside the notice period you set. Emergency slots ring-fenced so they cannot be filled by routine work. Clear NHS and private information on the site so half the phone calls stop happening.
What we build
Built for dental practices
Automatic recall cycles
Check-ups and hygienist recalls generated on your intervals, with follow-ups for anyone who does not respond first time.
Reminders that cut failures
Text and email ahead of every appointment, with confirm and reschedule links so patients can move it themselves rather than not turn up.
Online new patient registration
Details and medical history completed before the first visit, so the appointment starts with treatment rather than a clipboard.
Protected emergency capacity
Same-day slots held back and only released on the day, so genuine emergencies can always be seen.
Separate diaries per clinician
Dentists, hygienists and therapists each with their own hours, appointment types and durations.
Clear NHS and private information
Band charges, private price guides and what is currently available, kept up to date on the site so reception stops explaining it forty times a week.
What changes
The difference it makes
- Failed appointments fall, which is the fastest way to recover chair time
- Recalls happen on schedule rather than when someone finds a spare ten minutes
- Reception spends less of the morning on routine calls
- New patients can register at any hour instead of only during opening times
In practice
Where the money actually is
For most practices the numbers are not close. Winning new patients is slow and competitive. Recovering failed appointments and lapsed recalls is quick, and the patients are already yours - they have been through the door, they are on the system, and they are not going anywhere in particular.
That is why we build recalls and reminders first and worry about the marketing side afterwards. A practice that reduces its failure rate and gets its recall cycle running reliably usually finds the diary tightens up within a couple of months, without a penny spent on advertising.
The systems behind it
What this is built from
Everything on this page is put together from the same handful of systems, shaped around how dental practices actually work.
Questions
Dentists - the questions I get asked
Will this replace our practice management software?
Usually not, and it does not need to. Most practices keep their clinical system and add online booking, recalls and patient-facing forms around it. Where the practice software has an API, the two can be kept in step; where it does not, the online system handles the patient-facing side and reception works from one screen. I would rather find that out before quoting than promise an integration that turns out not to exist.
How much difference do reminders really make to failed appointments?
A large one, because most failures are not people being awkward - they are people who genuinely forgot. A text 48 hours out with a link to move the appointment converts a lot of would-be failures into reschedules, which costs you nothing. Practices that add reminders and a short-notice cancellation list typically see failures fall substantially.
Can patients register and complete medical histories online?
Yes. Registration details, medical history and consent are completed before the first appointment and arrive on the patient record. It saves clinical time, it is easier to keep legible and searchable than paper, and it means somebody deciding at nine in the evening to change practice can actually act on it.
How do we stop routine bookings eating our emergency slots?
By ring-fencing them. Emergency capacity is held back and only released on the day itself, so it cannot be filled a fortnight in advance by a routine check-up. You set how many slots per day and per clinician, and reception can always override in a genuine case.
What about data protection with patient information?
It is built with that in mind - encrypted in transit and at rest, UK hosting, access controlled by role so staff only see what they need, and a clear retention position. I am not going to pretend a website build is a substitute for your own information governance obligations, but the technical side will not be the weak link.
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Run a dental practice? Let's have a look at it
Tell me how things work at the moment and I'll come back with a clear, fixed quote - and an honest view on whether it's worth the money. No pressure and no jargon.