A dental front desk has a job no other reception has: the person answering the phone is often also the person chairside, sterilising instruments, taking payment and comforting a nervous patient in the waiting room. When the phone rings at 09:05 with two patients checking in, it rings out. Nobody is being careless. There are simply more things happening than people to do them.
That is the problem an AI receptionist is meant to solve for a dental practice, and the reason it is worth being precise about what one should handle, what it must hand over, and what it costs in the UK in 2026.
Why the dental phone matters more now
The access data is not subtle. More than half of people in Healthwatch's 2025 NHS dentistry poll said finding a dentist able to offer NHS treatment was a struggle, up from 41 per cent in 2023. In the GP Patient Survey 2025, 22 per cent of people who tried to get an NHS dental appointment did not get one. And Healthwatch's March 2026 update found 32 per cent of people in England had used private dentistry in the past year, against 22 per cent in 2023.
Read those together and the picture is a lot of people ringing round. Every one of those callers is a new patient for the practice that answers, and a missed call for the practice that does not. There is no reliable UK statistic for the dental missed-call rate specifically (the widely quoted 30 to 38 per cent figures are US data), but you do not need one: count the voicemails on a Monday morning.
What an AI receptionist should handle in a dental practice
New-patient enquiries. "Are you taking on NHS patients?", "Do you do private check-ups, and what does it cost?", "Do you take Denplan?" The AI answers from your own facts, captures name, number and what they are after, and books the new-patient appointment or the consultation. This is the call that pays for the whole thing.
Booking, rescheduling and cancelling on the same call. A patient who rings to move a hygienist appointment should be able to do that in one conversation, get the confirmation by text or WhatsApp, and receive the reminders. Several general AI receptionists still cannot book at all (RingCentral's UK page lists it as "coming soon"; Zoom needs a separate Scheduler licence), so this is the first question, not the last.
Recalls and the backlog. Six-month recalls, lapsed hygiene patients, the people who cancelled in March and never rebooked. A receptionist that can send the WhatsApp nudge and take the booking when they reply turns a list nobody has time to work into a full diary.
Deposits and the no-show policy. Long appointments and new-patient slots are where a no-show hurts most. If your no-show policy asks for a deposit, the AI should take it at booking and apply the fee when your policy says so, with the reminders at 48, 24 and two hours so that the fee is rarely needed.
The routine questions. Parking, opening hours, what to bring, whether you do whitening, how long a crown takes. This is most of the call volume and the part that interrupts the front desk least usefully.
Missed-call text-back. For the call it could not take, or the caller who hangs up, an immediate text or WhatsApp: "Sorry we missed you, reply here to book." It is the cheapest new-patient recovery there is.
Chasing the balance. Treatment plans and outstanding balances are a real admin load in a private or mixed practice. Remi's PaidUp follows up an outstanding invoice over WhatsApp and email and stops the moment it is paid. No general AI receptionist we have checked publishes this.
What it must not do
Clinical advice or triage. The AI is not a clinician and should not behave like one. What it should do is recognise the words that signal an emergency (facial swelling, uncontrolled bleeding, trauma to a tooth, severe pain, a child) and follow your written protocol: transfer to a named person if the practice is open, book the emergency slot, or give the NHS 111 or out-of-hours number. Write that protocol down before you switch anything on. A vendor that will not follow your protocol to the letter is the wrong vendor.
Pretend to be a person. In the UK, the honest approach, and the one the ICO expects, is a clear disclosure at the start of the call that the caller is speaking to an AI, plus a recording notice. Patients accept it; what they will not forgive is being misled.
Hold clinical records it does not need. The receptionist needs names, numbers, appointment details and your facts. It does not need to see clinical notes, and your data processing agreement should say so.
What it costs, honestly
Two kinds of vendor sell to UK dentists.
Dental-specialist AI receptionists (there are several, most launched in the last two years) mostly do not publish prices and quote per practice; third-party guides put typical setups in the low thousands of pounds plus a few hundred a month. We have not verified those figures on vendor pages, so treat them as hearsay and ask for a rate card.
General AI receptionists publish. From their UK pages, checked 24 August 2026: RingCentral is £32 a month for 100 minutes then 40p a minute; IONOS is £39, £69 or £99 ex VAT billed per call, with booking not on the £39 tier; Hey Jodie is £49, £99 or £199 with unlimited minutes (fair use: 1,000 calls a month), booking from £99. Remi is £149 a month ex VAT with 1,000 minutes included, then 15p a minute, with no setup fee and a one-week free trial. The full comparison is in how much an AI receptionist costs in the UK.
Then the comparison that actually decides it: a UK receptionist costs about £29,200 a year to employ once National Insurance, pension, holiday and recruitment are added, for roughly 40 hours a week. The AI covers the other 128 hours and the peaks inside the 40. Most practices that switch keep the person and take the phone off them.
Questions to ask a vendor before you switch
- Which practice management systems and diaries do you book into, by name, today?
- Can a patient reschedule or cancel on the same call, and does the diary update immediately?
- Show me your emergency protocol. Can I write my own, and will the AI follow it exactly?
- How does it introduce itself, and how does it disclose recording?
- Can it take a deposit at booking and apply my no-show policy?
- What happens to a call it cannot handle: warm transfer, message, text-back?
- Where is the data hosted, and will you sign a data processing agreement under UK GDPR?
- What is included, what is metered, and what is the rate above the bundle?
Where Remi fits, and where it does not
Remi is built for the practice that wants the phone and WhatsApp handled end to end: answered on the first ring, booked into Google Calendar, Acuity or Cliniko, confirmed, reminded, deposit taken, no-show fee applied, missed calls texted back, balances chased. It discloses that it is an AI, records with notice, signs a DPA, and hands over to a named person on your protocol. £149 a month ex VAT, 1,000 minutes, 15p a minute after, one-week free trial, no setup fee.
Where it is not the right fit: if your practice management system is not one we integrate with and you cannot run a diary alongside it, ask us before you trial rather than after; and if your patient base needs a human voice above all else, a human answering service is the honest recommendation, at a human price. Both options are covered in AI receptionist vs a human answering service.