Getting AI Right by Jonathan Fashbaugh

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Categories: Financial Planning and Investments; Practice Management, HR and Accounting;
Getting AI Right 

How to strengthen, not strain, your practice

by Jonathan Fashbaugh

Artificial intelligence isn’t a distant trend or a tech buzzword anymore; it’s rapidly becoming an integral part of how modern dental practices operate. From patient communication and scheduling to treatment planning and insurance processing, AI is changing what efficiency and precision look like in daily practice management. The question is no longer whether dentists will use AI, but how effectively they’ll use it to enhance patient care and remain competitive in a rapidly evolving industry.

“AI is not coming for your jobs. People who know how to use AI are coming for your jobs.” That’s what Dr. Howard Farran said during his talk, Revolutionizing Dentistry: AI and Practice Management for a Thriving Future, at the 2025 annual meeting of the International College of Craniomandibular Orthopedics in Phoenix. And he’s right. The same can be said of competing dental practices. Dental practices that leverage AI effectively will emerge from this new era of automation more profitable and with a reputation for being more patient-friendly. They will grow, while offices that either refuse to embrace AI or attempt to adopt it without finesse and attention to the patient experience will struggle… perhaps even being absorbed by the winners.

You’ve likely seen the rise of artificial intelligence in everything from scheduling to billing. Every week, someone is pitching a new platform that promises to automate something in your office. You can’t find a marketing service that isn’t touting AI. The promise of AI is alchemical. But the implementation? That’s where things can go very wrong, and I think we all know it in our heart of hearts.

“If it sounds too good to be true…” Yeah, you can get fleeced pretty easily right now. AI can mess things up in very embarrassing ways. You need to avoid these mistakes at all costs, but you can’t afford to avoid AI mistakes by avoiding AI altogether. AI-powered automation can outperform your team when humans drop the ball. When done right, it can increase your practice’s efficiency and consistency, wowing patients, building trust, earning referrals, and ultimately boosting your revenue. Let’s look at three ways AI can totally screw up your patient experience, followed by three ways that human team members can do even worse, and of course, the right way to do it.


The cold, robotic phone answer
When phone automation functions unexpectedly, it creates frustration and makes the user feel undervalued as a customer. This hurts the next human interaction with the business that deployed the phone system. AI-enhanced phones are no different. When an AI phone system picks up a new patient call, if it sounds flat, robotic, or overly mechanical, we immediately put the caller on high alert: their precious time may be wasted. Patients carry baggage from past calls, even with malfunctioning phone trees, and will immediately assume your phone automation will do the same. The AI phone agent is skating on thin ice.

If it misses the caller’s emotional tone, interrupts them, requires them to repeat themselves, or fails to provide meaningful help, you may have a very angry person on the line. At the very least, this lack of warmth and personalization can immediately turn off a potential patient, and you miss an opportunity for connection.

Your phone is the make-or-break component in your marketing. If it sounds lifeless or confusing, you lose trust before you ever get a chance to build it.


Overdone intake
Developers can get drunk with power, and dentists can get sold on AI systems that over-automate the intake process. Patients may receive multiple forms, redundant confirmation messages, and be forced to jump through other frustrating digital hoops. This might seem like “efficiency,” but it often becomes noise. If your system includes many of these digital hoops and your human office workers ask for similar information in person, prepare for underwhelmed or even livid patients.

Instead, AI should simplify the process, not turn it into an obstacle course. If the patient experience is clunky, you risk cancellations and bad reviews before the patient ever sits in your chair.


Scheduling wow vs. scheduling woes
Finally, there’s the dream that you show up for work and the patients are all neatly lined up, ready for treatment, without you or your team having to lift a finger to schedule. AI can handle routine scheduling well, but when patients call with unique or urgent issues, it still lacks the judgment to perform proper triage. If there is no human backup, critical scheduling decisions may be missed entirely. If your AI-powered digital scheduler is broken or hard to use, prospective patients will hang up or click back to their search results and contact the next practice.

A good scheduler can think critically and adapt. Most AI systems cannot do that yet. If a patient with a cracked crown gets stuck in a loop of “Sorry, I didn’t get that,” they may never call back.


How humans can be even worse
Poor customer service at the front desk is still one of the most common practice killers. Again, your front desk will make or break your marketing. If you opt out of automated phone intake but the human team in your office doesn’t answer the phones, you’ve actually opted for automated phone intake anyway. In most cases, your voicemail will attempt to rescue the opportunity, and the prospective patient will hang up without leaving a message. Existing patients will frequently take it as a bad sign as well.

If your team answers the phone with an unenthusiastic greeting, responds slowly, or fails to listen, it can do more damage to your brand than a bot ever could. People crave personal, human connection, so taking a personal approach with your front desk can be great. But that connection has to be genuine and helpful. A poor human experience feels personal and is more likely to generate complaints or negative reviews. It will thwart practice growth.


Old school intake
Some practices are still handing out clipboards and paper forms. This can feel painfully outdated, especially to younger patients. It also increases the risk of transcription errors and slows your workflow. Patients expect a digital experience. While humans can facilitate analog intake, the delay in deploying a digital solution is costing dentists far more than the modest costs of electronic intake forms.

Email forms are sometimes being replaced with knowledge-base-powered chatbots, such as custom GPTs. This will tank lead conversion in your office, but in a way, it’s no worse than a basic Contact Us form that sends an email to a neglected inbox. If the person in charge of lead follow-up in your office doesn’t take care of these leads, calling the patient right away, they will likely fizzle.


New patients going to competing offices
Similarly, human scheduling mistakes cost dentists incalculable revenue numbers. Overbookings, missed follow-ups, and poor recall efforts are still major issues caused by human error and inactivity. Even well-meaning team members can forget to log calls or make assumptions that end in empty chairs.

Between marketing costs and the opportunity cost of treatment not performed, scheduling efficiency is the heartbeat of the practice’s profitability. One dropped patient follow-up can cost tens of thousands of dollars in lifetime patient value.


The path forward: Choose both, choose intentional integration
The best dental practices today are not replacing humans with AI. They are combining the consistency of AI with the empathy and intuition of a trained team. And they are doing it with purpose.

AI is no longer a fringe concept. If the rate of adoption in this technology is giving you whiplash, you’re not alone. Let that sense of shock and awe embolden you.

AI is everywhere. Consequently, patients are more tolerant of automated systems than ever before, especially when those systems work. If your office leverages AI to help the patient get answers quickly and clearly, you win. But just like any tool, it has to be used intentionally.


The right way to implement AI in your office
Use AI to handle repetitive tasks and maintain consistency. Leverage automation to connect patients who contact your practice through “Contact Us” or scheduling forms, to the right team members creating a premium patient experience.

Ask the companies providing your AI services to tap your human team when nuance, urgency, or empathy are required. To ensure that this is happening, regularly monitor AI systems and human performance to identify gaps in experience or outcomes. Don’t allow slapdash AI offerings to create a slapdash patient experience with your office’s brand.

Take charge and move your practice forward with artificial intelligence. With clever and considerate implementation, AI becomes just another part of the dental office. It fades into the background like a well-organized supply cabinet or an efficient sterilization protocol. It supports your brand instead of eroding it. While other offices continue to drag their feet and struggle with old-school practices, your office can deliver next-level patient experiences thanks to AI.
Author Bio
Jonathan Fashbaugh Jonathan Fashbaugh is the president of Pro Impressions Marketing, a full-service agency that helps dental practices attract and retain more patients through strategic digital marketing, analytics, and content creation. He is the author of the forthcoming The Marketing Mix That Works: A Comprehensive Marketing Manual Designed to Help Dental Offices Grow, and co-author of The TMJ Trifecta: Solving Your Pain Puzzle.
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