Zenith with Open Dental
The front desk call, answered from the practice schedule.
Dental calls are about the schedule: a new patient wanting a first visit, a cleaning to move, a recall that slipped. Zenith connects with Open Dental through its API, books into the operatory schedule you already run, and knows who is overdue for recall, so the front desk is not the only place those calls can be answered.
Reads and writes
What Zenith reads from Open Dental, and what it writes.
Configured per practice and location through Open Dental's API, under the permissions your office grants.
- Patients
- Read to match a caller to an existing patient by phone and verified details. New patients are created only when they book a first visit.
- Appointments
- Read for the patient's next visit. Written when a patient books, moves or cancels, in the operatory and provider the rule allows.
- Schedule and appointment types
- Read so a cleaning, an exam or a new-patient visit is booked for the length and provider your practice uses.
- Recalls due
- Read to find patients overdue for a cleaning or exam, for recall reminders and win-back.
- Balance after insurance
- Read so a patient asking what they owe hears the patient portion, once they are verified.
- Last visit and provider
- Read for the caller card, so whoever answers knows who the patient usually sees.
Patient details
Patient details stay off the text thread.
A dental practice carries patient data, and Zenith is set up for that before a practice goes live.
Not sent by text
Treatment, clinical notes and balances are not sent by text. A text says an appointment is confirmed, not what it is for.
Verified first
Appointment and balance details are shared on a call only after the caller is verified as the patient or their guarantor.
Agreement first
Dental workspaces are set up under a business associate agreement before a practice goes live.
Recalls
Overdue recalls found in Open Dental, booked back in.
- 01
Find
Each night Zenith reads the patients whose recall is due or past due.
- 02
Reach out
Patients with consent on file get a reminder by text or call on your schedule, within contact hours.
- 03
Book
A patient who replies is offered open times and booked into Open Dental, then read back.
- 04
Remind
Confirmations and reminders follow, and a cancellation reopens the slot in your schedule.
On its own, and where it stops
Zenith handles the routine. Your people handle the rest.
On its own, Zenith answers scheduling calls, books and moves appointments in Open Dental and sends recall reminders. Billing disputes, treatment questions and anything clinical go to your front desk or a clinician.
Zenith answers, routes, books and handles routine questions on its own. Refunds, discounts, complaints, low reviews and campaigns wait for a person, and anyone on your team can take over a conversation at any time.
Your dataThe voice model carries the spoken conversation and nothing else. Your customer records stay in your own database, read only by your own agents.
Start here, keep the foundation
Start with one function. Add the rest without starting over.
Connect Open Dental and start with new-patient calls and recalls, the two places a practice most often loses a booking. The same patient and appointment records then carry into after-hours answering, review requests after a visit and the morning brief for the office manager.
FAQ
Questions, answered plainly.
Is the connection live today?
Connections are set up for each company when its Zenith instance is configured, and Ferrata confirms each one works on the company's own data before calls go live.
How does Zenith connect with Open Dental?
Through Open Dental's API, with access your practice grants for its own database. Zenith is an independent product and is not certified by or affiliated with Open Dental.
Is patient information sent by text?
No. Texts confirm a time and a location. Treatment, clinical details and balances are not sent by text, and on a call they are shared only after the caller is verified.
What has to be in place before our practice goes live?
Dental workspaces are set up under a business associate agreement before a practice goes live, and the connection is checked against your own schedule and patients before Zenith answers a call.
Will Zenith book the right appointment length and provider?
It books from your appointment types, so a new-patient exam and a cleaning take the time your practice uses, in the operatories and with the providers your rules allow.
Can patients find out what they owe?
A verified patient asking on a call can hear the patient portion after insurance, read from Open Dental. Disputes about a bill go to your front desk.
Related in Zenith
- DentalNew-patient calls, recalls and reschedules, booked into the practice system.View
- DentrixAppointments, recalls and patient balances from a Dentrix practice server.View
- Appointment schedulingAppointments and visits booked into your real calendar or system, confirmed and reminded.View
- Customer reactivationLapsed customers found in your POS or ERP, with offers drafted for a person to approve.View
- Caller contextThe caller's orders, bookings, balance and last conversation on screen before hello.View
From Ferrata Labs
- The platformThe Brain: retrieval, models and audit inside your own environment.
- How it worksAssess, Anchor, a first agent live in under 90 days, then your team.
- The embedded teamTwo forward-deployed engineers, working with your IT team.
- Book a discovery callThirty minutes on one workflow, and an honest answer on where to start.
Start with Zenith, or talk it through first.
Thirty minutes with Ferrata Labs on how calls and messages reach you today. You leave with a view of where Zenith fits, and an honest answer if something else should come first.
Your menu, your policies, your routing and the way you talk to customers are yours. Zenith is configured to them. You are not fitting your front desk into a template.