Dental & clinical
The AI receptionist for dental practices, for the calls reception cannot reach.
At twenty to nine your reception team is checking in a queue and three lines are ringing. ORLA answers the ones nobody can get to, takes the request properly, and never says a single clinical word.
Hear it before you read another word. Ring 020 4538 1650, describe your problem the way one of your customers would, and try to catch it out. That is a working line answered by the same system a client’s callers reach.
The call dental practices lose
Someone in real pain wanting the first appointment you have got, ringing at 08:40 while the desk is checking in a queue. Or a cancellation call at 17:55, which is a gap in tomorrow's book that nobody will find out about until tomorrow.
What it costs when it goes
An empty chair. Clinical hours are the one thing a practice cannot make more of, and an hour that goes unbooked does not come back. A patient in pain who cannot reach you rings the practice that answers, and they usually stay there.
What ORLA does with it instead
Answers in the practice's name, tells the caller it is an AI receptionist, then takes what they need, whether they are a new or existing patient, how soon they need to be seen, and when they can actually come in. It does not triage. It does not give clinical advice. It writes down what was said and gets it to the desk.
What ORLA asks on the call
These are the questions ORLA is set up to ask dental practices. They are yours to change — this is the starting point, not the ceiling.
- New patient or existing, which decides almost everything else about the slot.
- What they need — pain, a check-up, a hygienist appointment, a broken crown, an emergency.
- How soon they say they need to be seen, in their own words, recorded as their words.
- When they can actually attend, because a slot offered at a time they cannot make is not a booking.
- Whether they are NHS or private, if your practice runs both lists.
When the calls actually arrive
The lost calls are not spread evenly. They are 08:30 to 09:15, the lunch hour, and the twenty minutes after the phones officially close — three windows where the desk is real but unreachable. That is the whole problem, and it is the whole reason a divert on busy-and-no-answer is usually enough.
What ORLA will not do for dental practices
This part matters more than the list above. A receptionist you cannot predict is worse than a voicemail, so here are the refusals that bite hardest in your trade. The full list is on its own page.
It will not triage
ORLA does not decide how urgent a patient is clinically, does not grade pain, and does not tell anyone whether they need to be seen today. It records what the patient said and passes it to a person who is qualified to decide.
It will not give clinical advice
No advice on pain relief, no advice on whether to take antibiotics, no advice on whether a symptom is serious. If a caller pushes, it says it cannot advise and that a clinician will call.
It will not take card details
No payment information is ever spoken to ORLA or stored by it. Deposits and payments happen through your existing process, with your team.
What it costs
Starter, £69 a month — 150 answered minutes included. Pro, £129 a month — 400 minutes. Front Desk, £349 a month — 1,500 minutes, managed for you, with a £299 setup fee that applies to that plan only. No VAT is added to any of them, so the number you see is the number you pay. No minimum contract. A 7-day free trial runs before anything is charged.
The full breakdown, including what happens if you go over your minutes, is on the pricing page, and the market context — what everyone else charges, and what a human receptionist really costs — is in our guide to what an AI receptionist costs in the UK.
Questions dental practices ask
Does it replace our receptionist?
No, and we will not sell it as that. ORLA covers the calls your team cannot physically reach — the fourth line at 08:40, the lunch hour, after close. Your reception team still runs the practice; ORLA stops the overflow becoming voicemail.
Is it safe with patient information?
Callers are told they are speaking to an AI and that the call is recorded, before anything else is said. Access is kept to the minimum ORLA needs to take a message, actions are logged, and anything ORLA is unsure of is escalated to a person rather than guessed at. The detail is on our trust and privacy page.
Can it book straight into our diary?
Where you connect a diary and set the rules, yes — inside those rules it books, and outside them it takes a callback and says so. It only ever offers slots the diary has actually confirmed; it does not invent availability.
What about a dental emergency out of hours?
ORLA does not handle emergencies. If a caller describes a situation that needs urgent medical help it tells them to contact the emergency services or NHS 111 and stops trying to book. It is not a clinical service and is never configured to behave like one.