Running phones and bookings for one dental practice is hard enough. Across five, ten or fifty clinics, the problems multiply: different phone systems, different booking rules, inconsistent patient experiences and no clear view of what's happening across the group. Calls that one clinic misses could often have been booked at another clinic nearby, if anyone had known.
This guide is for dental groups, multi-site practices and dental service organisations (DSOs) in Australia. It covers how to organise phones and bookings across sites, the operating models to choose from, and where AI can help.
Key takeaways
- Decide on an operating model first: local, central or hybrid.
- Standardise what patients experience (greeting, booking process, reminders) while allowing for local differences.
- Measure phone and booking performance per clinic, using the same definitions everywhere.
- Use routing and shared availability so a missed call at one clinic can become a booking at another.
- AI agents can cover overflow and after-hours calls for every site from day one, using each clinic's own information.
The three operating models
1. Local
Each clinic answers its own phones and manages its own book.
- Pros: local knowledge, a personal touch, patients know the team
- Cons: inconsistent performance, no cover when a clinic is busy or short-staffed, hard to see the whole picture
2. Central
A central team or contact centre handles calls and bookings for all clinics.
- Pros: consistent experience, efficient use of staff, easy to measure
- Cons: loses local knowledge, can feel impersonal, and the central team needs to know every clinic's rules
3. Hybrid
Clinics answer their own phones first, with overflow and after-hours calls going to a central team or an AI agent.
- Pros: keeps the local touch while catching the calls clinics can't answer
- Cons: needs good routing and shared information
Many groups find the hybrid model the best balance.
Standardise the patient experience
Whichever model you choose, standardise:
- Greeting and phone script, with each clinic's name. See our phone script template.
- Booking rules: appointment types, lengths and which clinicians see which patients
- Reminder and recall schedules. See the ideal reminder schedule.
- Emergency protocols, with clear on-call arrangements per clinic
- Privacy notices, including call recording announcements
Allow for real local differences: opening hours, parking, accessibility, services offered and the clinicians at each site.
Routing calls across sites
Good routing makes a group stronger than its individual clinics:
- Clinic-specific numbers route to that clinic first.
- Overflow goes to a central team or AI agent if the clinic doesn't answer within a few rings.
- Cross-site booking: if a patient can't get a suitable time at their usual clinic, offer the nearest clinic with availability, if they're happy to travel.
- A group number can ask which clinic the caller wants, conversationally rather than with a long menu. See IVR vs AI voice agents.
Measure per clinic, compare across the group
Use consistent definitions for every site:
- Answer rate and abandoned calls
- Chair utilisation
- No-show and late cancellation rates
- Refill rate
- New patients per month
- Pre-appointment and recall rates
A group dashboard showing these side by side quickly shows which clinics need help and which practices others can learn from. See front desk KPIs.
Governance and access
Multi-site groups need clear rules about who can see what:
- Role-based access: clinic staff see their clinic, regional managers see their region, and head office sees the group.
- Patient privacy: staff should only access the patient records they need for their role.
- Audit trails: log who accessed or changed data, and when.
- Single sign-on makes managing staff access across systems easier as the group grows.
Where AI agents fit
AI agents work well in multi-site groups because they scale instantly:
- Every clinic gets overflow and after-hours cover from day one
- Each clinic's agent uses that clinic's hours, services, clinicians and policies
- Reminders, recalls and waitlists run consistently across the group
- Every call and message is logged for group-wide reporting
IntelliDent's Enterprise plan is designed for DSOs and multi-location groups, with custom minutes and SSO.
Rolling out across a group
- Pilot at one or two clinics with different profiles, such as one busy metro site and one regional site.
- Set baseline KPIs before the pilot.
- Build a standard configuration, with a per-clinic layer for local details.
- Train clinic managers on escalation rules and reporting.
- Roll out in waves, reviewing results after each one.
See rolling out an AI phone agent in 30 days for a detailed checklist.
Frequently asked questions
Should every clinic keep its own phone number?
Usually yes. Patients know their local clinic's number, and local numbers matter for search and Google Business Profiles. Route behind the scenes.
How do we handle clinics on different practice software?
It's common after acquisitions. Standardise processes first, and plan software consolidation separately. Integration options depend on each system. See integrating AI with your PMS.
Can a central team really know every clinic?
With good documentation and a shared knowledge base, yes. AI agents can be configured with each clinic's information, which helps central teams too.
Next steps
Map your current phone setup for every clinic and pick an operating model. For group-wide AI phone and booking cover, talk to us about Enterprise or book a demo.