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Welcome to Dental Unscripted
Welcome to Dental Unscripted
Welcome to Dental Unscripted, a podcast brand that meets doctors wherever they are at in their professional journey. We talk about starting a practice, buying a practice, and running a practice. We cover a lot of ground on this channel!
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Dental Unscripted
Dental Unscripted

Revolutionizing Front Office Team's Productivity: With New Advanced Phone Systems

Revolutionizing Front Office Team's Productivity: With New Advanced Phone Systems

12/29/2025 1:24:11 PM   |   Comments: 0   |   Views: 44


In the fast-paced world of dentistry, the front office is often the most overworked and misunderstood or even the most overlooked. The front office is actually the engine driving the business forward. During a recent episode of the Dental Unscripted podcast, hosts Mike Dinsio and Paula Quinn sat down with Richard May from Mango Voice to discuss how modern telephone technology is evolving from a simple utility into a powerful tool for growth. The conversation took place during "Shark Byte Week" technology series. They revealed how the "old-fashioned" phone system might actually be the key to fixing the industry’s most persistent overhead and patient experience problems.

Standardizing the Patient Data Narrative: Utilizing "AI Call Summaries"
 
Traditionally, front office staff are trained to take notes on every call, but in reality they have 20 other things going on at once. Details are left out or rushed to be entered into the PMS software. Leaving notes unclear or fragmented. Mango Voice is utilizing AI to solve this by creating automated, standardized summaries of every phone conversation.

Standardization: Whether it’s a veteran employee or a new hire answering the phone, the notes logged into the practice management software look identical in quality and structure.

Clinical Insight: Doctors can look at call notes before a consultation to see exactly what the patient is worried about, whether it’s fear of pain, cost, or a specific clinical concern. This allows for a more personalized chairside experience.

Quality Control: The system even provides a "sentiment score" (positive, negative, or neutral) and analytics on whether the staff talked too fast or stuttered, serving as a built-in coaching tool.

Empowering your Front Office Rockstars

Paula Quinn highlighted a critical issue facing many modern practices:
Front office burnout. In many offices, especially startups where a single person is responsible for checking patients in, verifying insurance, and answering every incoming call.

By using an AI-integrated VoIP system, the "solo" front office gains a digital assistant. If they need to step away to help a hygienist or simply take a break, they no longer have to worry about "sacrificing" a new patient call. The technology is designed to support the team, not replace them, by handling the overflow and capturing leads that would otherwise be lost to the competition.

The Hidden Cost of Missed Calls is Still a Big Challenge for Practice Owners

Perhaps the most startling statistic shared by Richard May is that the average dental practice misses approximately 35% of its calls. Despite the proliferation of patient engagement platforms and online scheduling, more than a third of potential patient interactions are vanishing into voicemail.

For many practitioners, there is a misconception that these missed calls only happen at night after hours. However, the reality is often quite different. Calls are missed during the busiest parts of the day... during the lunch hour. Patients have a spare moment to call and yet the front office team is tied up checking in a patient or assisting the clinical staff, or on lunch break themselves! 

"We live in a fast-paced world where I can just Google the next closest practice... and I'll just call them if I'm a new patient," May warned.
When 35% of calls go unanswered, a massive chunk of marketing ROI is essentially being thrown away.

Moving Beyond the "Dying"Age of Voicemail

If a call isn't answered, the traditional safety net has always been voicemail. But according to Mango Voice’s data, voicemail is a "thing of the past". Only 27% of missed callers actually bother to leave a message. The average length of those messages is less than 15 seconds. 

To bridge this gap, Mango Voice introduced an AI receptionist named Margo. Unlike a static recording, Margo can answer basic questions about insurance, office hours, and location. 

The results are transformative: While traditional voicemails are ignored, 92% of calls answered by the AI agent result in conversations lasting longer than three minutes. This provides the office with the detailed patient information needed to successfully convert the lead when they call back.

The Future: From Inbound to Outbound Automation

When asked where the industry is headed in the next two to three years, Richard May predicted a shift from managing inbound calls to automating outbound motions.The "Holy Grail" of dental administration is automating the tedious outbound tasks that eat up hours of staff time.

Insurance Verifications - using AI to call payers and verify benefits.
Recall Scheduling - using AI proactively reaching out to patients to fill the hygiene schedule.

While the industry isn't quite there yet, it's close. Richard May believes the next 24 months will see a huge surge in these capabilities. These new technologies will fundamentally change how practices employ and train their teams.

Use Systems that Optimize "Data-Driven" Ownership 

For the modern dental owner, the takeaway is clear - you cannot manage what you don't measure!

Move away from "gut feelings" about how your front office is performing. Start using systems that utilize hard statistics. Things like missed call rates, conversion percentages, and marketing source tracking. It is the only way to compete staying lean and profitable in an increasingly challenging landscape.

The phone is no longer just a way to talk to patients, it is a data-gathering tool and a lead-capture engine. As Mike Dinsio noted, practices that embrace this level of integration are the ones that will find success in the "Shark Byte" era of dental technology.


Category: Practice Management, HR and Accounting
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