AI receptionist for dental clinics: RCT prices, pain calls

An AI receptionist for a dental clinic answers the calls that decide whether your chair is full: the patient in pain who wants to be seen today, the caller asking what an RCT costs, and the cancellation for tomorrow morning. It quotes the prices you fix, such as consultation and scaling, explains that root canal treatment, implants and braces need a check-up before anyone can give a figure, offers the next free slot, and takes a message for anything clinical. It does not diagnose and does not suggest medicines.

"How much for RCT?" is the call you get most

Patients in India shop for dental treatment by phone. They call three or four clinics and ask the same questions: how much for a root canal, for a cap, for an implant, for braces or aligners, for cleaning. The desk is usually with a patient, and the honest answer to most of these is "it depends on your teeth", which is hard to say well in thirty seconds.

So the calls go one of three ways. Nobody picks up, and the patient rings the next clinic. Someone gives a vague answer, and the patient hears a clinic that does not know its own prices. Or someone gives a figure over the phone, and the patient arrives expecting it for work that turns out to be very different. None of those fill the chair.

Which dental prices can an AI receptionist quote?

Give it two lists, and it treats them differently.

The first is your fixed prices: consultation, scaling and polishing, an X-ray, a whitening session, a simple filling if you charge a set amount. These do not depend on the patient, so it quotes them exactly as you wrote them.

The second is treatment whose price depends on what the dentist finds: root canal treatment, crowns and caps, implants, bridges, braces and aligners. For these it says a check-up comes first, tells the caller what the consultation costs, and offers to book it. If you publish a starting price, write it in the words you want used, such as "from", and it uses the same words. It never makes up a number.

With PhoneMyAgent, you upload your price list and clinic details or point it at your website, choose a voice and a greeting, and get an Indian phone number that the receptionist answers. You publish that number on your website, your Google listing and your appointment cards. It is set up to answer in English, and one switch in the dashboard makes it tell callers at the start that they are speaking to an AI assistant.

What does it do when a patient calls in pain?

Toothache does not book ahead. A patient with a swollen face at nine in the morning is not comparing prices. They are going down a list until someone offers a time.

The receptionist's job here is narrow on purpose. It does not ask how bad the pain is, does not judge whether it can wait, and does not suggest a painkiller. It offers the earliest free slot, so if you keep time aside for pain cases, leave it open in your appointment times and there is a same-day slot to offer. It follows your house rules, so add one for emergencies that asks the caller to hang up and dial 112, India's emergency number. Every one of those answers is one you set in advance, because a phone line is the wrong place to decide how urgent someone's mouth is.

Who fills the empty chair?

Dental work is chair time. A cancellation you hear about the evening before is a slot you can offer to someone else in the morning. A cancellation that sits unheard until lunch is an empty chair that still cost you an assistant and a room.

Patients cancel when they realise they cannot make it, which is usually the evening before, when nobody is at the desk. The receptionist takes that call at any hour and emails it to you when the call ends, with the patient's name, number and what they asked for. It cannot move or cancel the booking itself, so your staff decide what happens to the slot. A patient can also ask when their appointment is, and it reads it back.

What it will and won't do

It answers in your clinic's name, quotes the prices you fixed, explains which treatment needs a check-up, books consultations and routine appointments into free slots, reads back a patient's existing booking, and takes cancellations and messages. Every call is in your call log with a summary and the transcript, and bookings and messages are emailed to you. Calls are transcribed, not recorded as audio.

It will not diagnose, will not advise on symptoms or medicines, will not decide how urgent anything is, and will not handle an emergency. It does not make calls, so it will not work through your recall list or remind patients about check-ups. It cannot put a caller through to the dentist either: when someone needs a person, it takes a message and you call back.

Plans start at ₹2,999 a month for 180 minutes of calls, with no setup fee: see the plans. For the wider clinic picture, read the AI receptionist guide for clinics, and to set the price against a salary, see what a receptionist costs in India.