A new patient dials.
Someone answers.
Over 70 percent of new patients contact a practice by phone — even when online booking exists. Anyone who reaches voicemail at 2:10 pm calls the practice down the road. fonea handles booking, emergency triage, and automated reminder calls, in English and four more languages.
What is fonea for dental practices?
fonea is an AI phone assistant that answers calls for dental practices 24/7, books appointments by treatment type, routes emergencies instantly, and cuts no-shows with automated reminder calls — GDPR-compliant by design.
The structural availability problem
Why dental practices lose new patients on the phone
Peak call hours = peak treatment hours
Your busiest call windows coincide with peak treatment density. Between 8–10 am and 1:30–3 pm the whole team is chairside — and in a typical practice with a dentist, hygienist, and one or two nurses, nobody is dedicated to reception.
25–35 calls/day, 40 % missed
One missed call = lifetime revenue gone
Dental patient lifetime value runs to £12,000–30,000 over ten years. Five missed new-patient enquiries a week cost £40,000–100,000 in annual revenue. Whoever hangs up simply calls the practice down the road.
£40–100k lost per year
No-shows block chair time
At a 10–20 % no-show rate, a practice with eight daily slots at £150 leaves roughly 1.2 slots empty per day — over £3,600 a month in unrealised revenue. Automated reminders cut the rate by 30–50 percent.
£3,600/month empty chairs
What changes
How fonea works in your dental practice
100 % availability
Over lunch, after closing, during treatment: every call is answered — competently, politely, with an appointment or a structured callback request.
Appointments by treatment type
fonea distinguishes check-up (30 min), hygiene (60 min), pain emergency (15 min), new-patient exam (45 min) and cosmetic consultation (30 min), and books the right slot directly in your calendar.
Cut no-shows by 30–50 %
Automated reminder calls 24–48 hours before the appointment confirm, reschedule, or free up the slot instantly. Freed slots go straight to waiting-list patients.
Emergency triage that keeps its promises
"Knocked-out tooth", "severe bleeding", "facial trauma" — clearly defined scenarios trigger an instant transfer to your mobile. Everything else is booked or logged.
Live in days
How we set fonea up for your practice
Greeting & appointment types
We configure greeting, treatment catalogue, and slot durations: check-up, hygiene, emergency, new patient, cosmetic — each with correct duration and priority.
Connect your calendar
Integration with Google Calendar, Microsoft 365, or your practice-management software via iCal/API. fonea sees slots in real time — no double-bookings.
Emergency routing & billing FAQs
Define keywords for instant escalation. Configure standard answers on insured vs private, plan membership, self-pay rates, and hygiene pricing.
Test call & go-live
You call your own number, test scenarios (new patient, pain emergency, reschedule, pricing question) and go live. From that moment, no call is lost. Call forwarding works with your existing phone provider — no number change.
Typical call scenarios
How fonea handles dental calls in practice
Acute emergency — knocked-out tooth
Clear emergency triage with instant transfer. fonea gives no clinical advice, but the single correct next step.
New patient looking for a check-up
New-patient intake in a single call: correct slot length, structured contact data, insurance status logged. Zero lost calls.
Check-up plus hygiene pricing
GDPR and patient trust
Why fonea is the right partner for dental practices
GDPR-compliant by design
Patient health data is special-category data under the UK GDPR and EU GDPR. fonea processes it lawfully, with a data processing agreement, encryption in transit and at rest, and configurable retention — and supports your Data Protection Impact Assessment.
Billing & plan sensitivity
fonea captures insured, private, and plan-membership status in a structured form but gives no binding billing advice. Complex cost questions go to the practice manager — cleanly logged.
Transparent AI disclosure
Every patient is told at the start of the call that a digital assistant is in use. This announcement cannot be disabled — transparency is built in.
No voice ID, no biometrics
fonea does not build voice profiles. Calls are transcribed in real time and the audio discarded; transcripts are encrypted and deleted on your schedule.
Preise
Transparente Preise
Inklusive
- 120 Minuten KI-Sprechzeit inklusive
- EN, ES, FR, DE, IT
- Kalender-Integration & Termin-Buchungen
- KI-Anrufbeantworter 24/7
- Interaktive KI für Kundenservice
- Email & SMS Benachrichtigungen
- Monatlich kündbar, keine Bindung
Inklusive
- 500 Minuten KI-Sprechzeit
- 3 gleichzeitige Anrufe
- 3 Telefonnummern
- Unbegrenzte Assistenten
- Unbegrenzte Nutzer
Features
- Alles aus Basic
- Ausgehende Anrufe
Inklusive
- Ab 2'000 Minuten
- Individuelle Parallelanrufe
- Individuelle Telefonnummern
- Unbegrenzte Assistenten
- Unbegrenzte Nutzer
Features
- Alles aus Professional
- Individuelle Stimme
- Zero Data Retention
- Individuelle SLA
Frequently asked
What dentists need to know before using fonea
Do patients accept an AI phone assistant in dentistry?
Experience shows the vast majority accept the assistant as long as it answers competently and communicates transparently. What matters is not who picks up but that someone picks up. A friendly AI assistant that books instantly scores better than a busy tone or voicemail. Patients who explicitly want a human are transferred to your team at any time — if available, or captured as a prioritised callback.
Can fonea distinguish between check-up, hygiene, and emergency?
Yes. From the caller's description, fonea decides whether to book a check-up (30 min), hygiene (60 min), pain emergency (15 min), new-patient exam (45 min), or cosmetic consultation, and picks the right duration. "I have had tooth pain for three days" leads to a short-notice emergency slot; "I have not been in three years" to a longer first exam.
How does emergency transfer work for trauma?
You define scenarios that trigger an instant transfer: knocked-out tooth, severe bleeding, oral trauma, major swelling. fonea connects the caller straight to your mobile, no detour. If nobody is reachable, it points the caller to their local urgent dental service. fonea never makes clinical judgements.
Is fonea GDPR-compliant for patient data?
Yes. Patient health data is special-category data under the UK GDPR and EU GDPR. fonea processes it under a data processing agreement, with encryption in transit and at rest and configurable retention windows. Voice is transcribed in real time and the audio discarded. We support the recommended Data Protection Impact Assessment.
Does fonea work with our practice-management software?
fonea integrates via calendar interfaces with common practice-management systems — Google Calendar, Microsoft 365, and most dental software via iCal or API. We clarify the integration in the kick-off call. If no direct connector exists, the workflow runs reliably via Google Calendar or Outlook — no double-bookings.
How exactly does fonea reduce no-shows?
fonea calls patients automatically 24–48 hours before the appointment, confirms, or offers to reschedule. Freed slots are immediately available again and can go to waiting-list patients. In practice, reminders cut the no-show rate by 30–50 percent — for an average practice that is several thousand pounds in recovered revenue each month.
Which languages does fonea speak?
English, Spanish, French, German, and Italian. fonea detects the caller's language and replies naturally — useful for practices with international or multilingual patient bases.
What if a patient explicitly does not want AI?
fonea introduces itself transparently as a digital assistant at the start of the call. If the caller prefers a human, fonea transfers immediately — if someone is reachable — or captures a prioritised callback with their concern. Your team receives the summary on mobile or by email and can call back in a targeted way.
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