#280 5 Ways AI Helped This Practice Grow

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Most dental practices don’t realize how many new patients they’re losing to missed calls.

In this episode of Dental Marketing Goat, Gary Bird sits down with Dr. Shane Wingler to break down exactly how AI is used in a real dental practice to capture missed calls, improve diagnostics, automate patient communication, and reduce front-desk overload.

You’ll hear how AI converted 19 out of 28 missed new patient calls into booked appointments, how the team is using AI for x-ray diagnostics and insurance verification, and how simple automation is helping drive more new patient growth without adding more chaos to the schedule.

Gary shares real strategies SMC is seeing across dental practices nationwide around phone conversion, AI receptionists, dental marketing, and practice management.

If you want more new patients without overwhelming your team, this episode is for you.

Subscribe for more tactical dental marketing strategies, real case studies, and growth systems from Gary Bird and SMC.

✨ Timestamps ✨
00:00 - Introduction to AI & Automation in Dentistry
02:04 - Enhancing Diagnosis & Calibration with Overjet AI
07:12 - Automating Back-Office Tasks with Overjet (Insurance, Charting, Notes)
10:00 - AI for Internal Processes & Document Optimization
12:32 - AI Agents for New Patient Acquisition
14:22 - Team Empowerment & Personal AI Productivity

Connect with our Guest, Here ⤵️
Website: https://carolinapinesdentistry.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kwinglerdds/

Connect with our Host, Gary Bird, Here ⤵️
SMC: https://bit.ly/4fxFOTI
Personal: https://bit.ly/4vAdu7F

Want the strategies we talk about delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to Dental Marketing Digest: https://bit.ly/4uku2zu
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Dental Marketing Goat is the go-to podcast for dentists who want to grow faster, market smarter, and build practices that thrive in today’s competitive landscape.
Hosted by Gary Bird, the Dental Marketing Goat himself and founder of SMC National, recently named Best Dental Marketing Agency by over 60,000 dental professionals. Each episode unpacks the real strategies, marketing frameworks, and operational shifts that high-performing practices use to attract more patients and increase production. Whether you're a solo practitioner or scaling a DSO, you’ll learn how to align your marketing, team, and systems to drive predictable growth.

🚀 Want to see how SMC can help you grow?
📱 Book a call here:➡️ https://bit.ly/4aAtM8x

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I'm all in on AI and automation. You see things online of AI schedulers, AI charters, AI X-rays and softwares and stuff. We have several things in play at our office. The first one we implemented was with our X-rays. We use Overjet in our office. What recently I have done and learned is that obviously you can use that for calibration purposes. Like when you look at the x-rays without the markers on it, and then you have people chart everything. So it's a good like calibration tool to make sure we're treatment planning the same. And if we're not, we have conversations about that along with our photos and stuff that we take of patients. So it's good for calibration with the team.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Welcome back to another episode of Dental Marketing Go. I'm your host, Gary Bird. I'm the owner of SMC National, where we help offices just like yours level the playing field against the big guys out there so you can grow the way that you want. And today we got Dr. Shane, one of our clients, who's grown his practice. He's going to see close to 90 new patients with a 400% ROI. And he's taken his practice from 2 million to 3 million. Now he's closing in on $4 million collection. And today he's going to be giving you the AI prompts and tools that he uses for him, his team. And there's some really good stuff in here, some stuff I haven't heard about before. Also, he's going to give you a prompt on how to upgrade all of your documents, all of your uh internal processes inside of your company and keep them branded with your current logos and things like that. That is really cool and it's free. So stay tuned for this one. All right, we are live for another episode. And I got my friend Doc Shane here, and he's a client of ours. He's having a record new patient month and uh doing well as an office, but he agreed to come on today and talk about everybody's favorite subject. We talk about new patients all the time. Who cares? Let's talk about AI. Everybody loves talking about AI. Like AI, the if I talk about AI, the video flies. If I talk about anything else, no one cares. So let's talk about that. I know, Dr. Shane, in your life, you're just using more AI overall. And in your office, you're just using it more. I think most a lot of people are, but you're more low more on the aggressive side. So let's talk through the different ways you're using AI in the office.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

I'm all in on AI and automation uh these days. And there's so many different like avenues. Like you see things online of uh AI schedulers, AI charters, AI like uh x-rays and softwares and stuff. So we have several things in play at our office. The first one we implemented uh was with our x-rays. So we we're we use overjet in our office. What recently I have done and learned is that um obviously you can use that for calibration purposes, like when you look at the x-rays without the markers on it, and then you have people chart everything, whether that's uh in our office we have associates. So it's a good like calibration tool to make sure we're treatment planning the same. Um, and if we're not, we have conversations about that along with our photos and stuff that we take of patients. Um, so it's good for calibration with the team. Um, but most recently, I like I've I've been distracted in many different places in the office, and I can't always see if we're treatment planning all the same that we need to, uh if we're all on the same page, preaching the same message, and what treatment maybe are we letting walk out that we didn't talk about? Are we afraid to talk talk about treatment? Um, is the AI accurate? Like, or are we relying on it too much or not enough? Um, so I've built in Overjet. Now I get an email every Monday morning and Friday uh morning straight to my email of an audit. So it tells me per provider breakdown, the recommendations, what was treatment plan, the case acceptance, um, and all the other things uh that AI can can uh flag, like missing teeth. Did we treatment plan implants? Uh was it an appropriate implant case? You know, did we treatment plan the crown that was recommended by by AI? So I get all this data now. I honestly say that well, it can be a little overwhelming at times, but um, it's nice to kind of just pick and choose like a few top, a few things to see, okay, are we on the same page? Like, is our high is our hydrogen just talking about peria? Like, why did this patient not get perio treatment planned? Um, so that's one way for AI now is just kind of helping us uh audit, audit things.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

I love that. That's that's so huge. And it saves you so much time because otherwise you'd have to just pour into the PMS and look at every single case one by one. Instead, you can just see we're on track, we're off track. How did you get your doctors on board with this? Because I know a lot of times when doctors hear about AI and treatment planning, they almost feel it's almost offensive in my experience. What what what has been your uh secret to like getting everybody on board with it?

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Well, I think part of that is just our brand. Um, like that's like we have a lot of technology in our office um with printing and milling and scanners and uh photography and things like that. So it was just kind of like, hey, we're gonna be an adopter of AI x-rays now because this is this is becoming like uh a new standard, right? Like the case acceptance is is improving. Uh, patients patients are more involved with their treatment, which is like what we preach at our office. We took we take the photos and give them a tour of their mouth and stuff like that. So it was just kind of like, hey, this is our brand, this is what Carolina Pine stands for, is new technology. So this is a new new thing. What we also too was just like AI is great, but it does not replace the clinician. Like you still have to use your clinical judgment on things because there's definitely some things that I see on there, like it's not perfect, right? Like I don't take every recommendation for what it is and be like, yep, boom, that's a that's a crown, or uh, yep, they've got period. Like, you still have to use your own clinical judgment. But what I will tell you is that especially if you're like a solo provider and you're just like hustle bustle, like you're you're doing a crown in one room, you got a filling in another room, you got an emergency patient, you got two hygienists or three hygienists breathing down your neck, and you pop in there and they're like, We took bite wings today, and it's like, yep, yep, yep, looks good, go on. But AI, you know, will pop those little things up and say, Hey, slow down, like check this out.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

The other thing that I've seen really well too, like I've had doctors who were like, literally, I don't, the AI is whatever. It doesn't, it very rarely catches things that I don't miss. Um, but it works as a second opinion with the patients. Have you seen that yourself where you're like, hey, Mr. Patient, um, you know, this is what we recommend, this is what we saw. And here was the AI, and it actually flagged the same exact thing that we caught as well.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Yeah. Our our hygienists do a phenomenal job of that. Like if when they take the x-rays, they go ahead and pull average up on our TV screens and and explain to the patient like what these markings mean, like the little yellow spots are like, you know, baby cavities or starter cavities. Sometimes we can monitor, sometimes we need to treat, depending. The red is usually, you know, red's never really that great. So that's a that's a problem area that we want to look at and see. Um, you know, highlights tartar in between the teeth, and they'll point that out. And honestly, their conversation gets it's easier and less words because the patient should just like see it. They're like, oh, okay, well, that you know, that makes sense. Um, so yeah, we've we've definitely seen that um in our office.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

That's awesome. And how much is is that uh software to use for all your doctors?

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Honestly, I I can't tell you off the top of my head because we we went all in with that platform. So we actually use AI now for our uh Oberjet does our insurance as well. Oh wow, okay. So Oberjet does our insurance, does our x-rays, um, does voice period charting through AI and does our clinical notes.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Sheesh. Okay, so so you don't so you're just doing voice straight to clinical notes?

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Yep. So right now we only have it implemented with our consults and our hygienists. We have not done that, built our templates out for like clinical team. But obviously, it's very super helpful. Like our hygienist mics up, where's a little mic? Um, perhaps for patients, they pull it up, it integrates directly into our PMS, uh, but they just voice do it. It will do recession, bleeding, pocket depths, everything. Um, and then the clinical note as well too. And what's interesting about the clinical note is it's just like any other AI, like you have to train it and you have to work with the developers on like what's important to you. So you can build out your templates on what you want the AI to recognize, a keyword, and it will fill it out.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Oh, so you you can just say keyword, and that keyword will then fill in the whole notes on that thing to keep you all compliant.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Yep. Yeah. So we we follow a template of of um chief complaint, chief benefit, uh chief fit, those types of things. And overjet automatically recognizes like what the problem is, how that benefits the patient, and what their fit is, whether it's trust, fear, time, or money. Um, and we'll kind of put all that stuff in there. It'll put their next visit, what they what the hygiene is scheduled for, um, all of those, all of those things.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

That's so cool. And then what are you using it for as far as uh insurance goes? How do how are you using it that way?

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Um, so insurance, um, to right now, as far as my knowledge knows, it does all of our very verifications for us. And it will do within as as quick as five minutes, it'll verify. So if you have someone walk in, you can put in their card and then Overjet takes it from there. Uh it'll give you uh kind of a full breakdown of like what you want to see for all their services. Um, you can also uh schedule it to do, I believe it's I know it's out to at least seven days, maybe even further than that, maybe two weeks. Uh, don't quote me on that, but you can definitely like verify all next week's schedule with like a click of a button.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

That's so cool. And so that's an added on feature all in one. So you you it's it's has the treatment plan side, obviously, it's telling you what's going on in the mouth. You have the note side, and then you have the insurance verification. So it's three separate products, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Correct. Yep. And and they're releasing soon. They're gonna start AI with their 3D C B C Ts too. So we're excited to see that come out as well.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

That's really cool. Okay. And then are you using AI in any other facets in your office?

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Um, yeah, so uh from more from a I guess uh optimization and optimization standpoint. Um, and I've turned the team onto this too, and some of our leadership team is if we have a broken system uh or something, then we flag it, recognize it, and then we have a conversation. We like to use Claude. Um in the office we found that Claude will will build better SOPs. Um so you we have it integrated with like our brand and Canva and everything where you know if you if you need like a new patient intake form, like hey, these are the things we want to ask on the phone consistently, these are the things we need. Um create this, you know, sheet for us of patient name, date of birth, insurance, you know, their chief complaint, how long has it been, all those things, brand it with our logo and colors, and you know, within a few minutes, it's like boom, done. That's in our operation rate.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

That's so cool. So I'm gonna do this for the audience. Down below, we're gonna put the prompt that Dr. Shane is using for that, because I know it's probably a longer prompt that you built out. And uh make sure you check that out. And if you're not using that, it saves you so much time. And really, what you did, I don't know if the audience caught it or not. You've offloaded the responsibility of SOPs from your plate, moved it onto the team's plate, and now they can go through and actually just optimize it and make it better, but with rails on it that you've created inside of Claude.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Yep. Uh, one of the cool things we're trying right now, it's and it's it's a man, I mean, you start talking about Claude and chat and and Notion and like all these MTPs, and like you can get in the weeds, but we're trying to set it up to where um it automatically responds to our Google reviews. So we're getting you know 50, 60 Google reviews a month right now, and we like to respond to those actively, but that takes up a lot of my team members' time. So now we're trying to build the prompt in in Claude that triggers once we get a Google review. It automatically responds with those guardrails on how we want to sound. And then all our front desk has to do is just approve the message and it posts it like right off the bat.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

That's really cool. If you figure that out, let me know and just watch it. I've played with Claude and OpenClaw and those kind of things. You just got to be careful that Google doesn't know that you're using AI to do that because then it it could ban your Google My Business or market them as spam or something like that. Probably won't happen, but just be just keep an eye on it as you do it and keep me in the loop on that one. That one's really cool. The other thing, I know you guys are using our AI agent, and I just pulled up the stats on it. So since January, January, February, March, April, May, so five months, you guys actually do a really good job. So this isn't as heavy as a lift as most practices, but during those uh five months, you've missed 28 new patient calls, meaning your team was just busy. They were doing other stuff, taking care of patients, and they missed a new patient call before last year, 2025, those would have just gone to voicemail, and more than likely the new patient would have gone on to the next practice. But your but you guys added the AI agents $299 a month. It takes the call as the AI agent, and of those 28, 19 scheduled. So it's 68% of them scheduled, which is awesome because you would have had zero. You know what I mean? So it's like a lot better than than than zero. That's been pretty cool to watch because that's new. This is newer technology. Any thoughts on that or anything that you've seen around that?

SPEAKER_01 13:38

I mean, I know when we finally launched it, I can remember a patient that scheduled um himself he scheduled himself over the weekend, I think, or a Friday or something. The AI agent scheduled scheduled him. He came in and the treatment he needed was nothing fancy, but you know, just some some tune-up type things, and it pretty much paid for itself for the rest of the year off of that one one page. I remember that specifically because I was like, Well, that's solid. So every everything else is gravy. Um, and then he ended up scheduling his entire family after the at the end of that appointment. So it was like You're in the black for forever on the product. Right. So it's just like, yeah, why would you not? Why would you not do that? Um, so yeah, it's been the girls have loved it too, just from a steam uh team standpoint, because they know they have that support as well too. Like if they can't get to someone, they know we we have her name as Allie. So Allie will pick up the phone and um handle it from there.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

That's awesome. Any other things that you're using for AI? Those so far has been a really good list.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Again, back to the team. They've they've started using AI more to build things for our patients. So we just had a hygiene team meeting today, and they used AI, I think they used Chat GPT for this one, but they built out like a whole post op form for SRPs um to get to their patients afterwards. So they put the key things on there like what to expect, what to eat, um, their recall plan. Um, we're using it to, we've we've used it to build like a comfort menu for our practice. Um the next thing I really want to tackle is is Claude will actually work with Flex Dental. So we use Flex for our patient forms and and things like that. Um, just a massive rehaul to make sure that everything is up to par as far as like for HR or HIPAA compliant and things like that, but also just branding it more towards like us because when you sign up for those softwares and things like you can customize it, it just takes us so much time to do that.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

It does, and it's usually just your logo right up in the corner.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Right. Yeah. So now we can brand it, make it sound like us, use our language and stuff. So just um I'm we're gonna be interested to to kind of do that overhaul in the practice. Um, from a personal standpoint, I use AI every day. So a couple different things is one, I've I've been journaling a lot. So using the the chat GPT and memory function and stuff to journal has been really, really nice, like kind of on the way to work, just to uh whether it's all kinds of things, whether it's practice stuff, whether it's life or personal things. Um, you know, I've got a busy, busy life and a busy practice, but I'm blessed and uh it's nice just to kind of put your thoughts out and get some feedback. It's like a personal coach in a way. Um, so it really brings a lot of clarity for things. So I've I've loved it for that. I'm using Claude now too for kind of my personal brand on Instagram. So I created uh like a watermark on some of my uh uh images with it, um you know, lots of different hooks and captions and stuff. Like you can give it the prompt to be like a social media expert and growth strategist and stuff and give you carousel ideas and and things, and then we store I store all that stuff in Notion to keep it organized and then scheduling it with AI to like post. So like I have posts going out for like the next two months that I don't have to worry about just because with with AI's built it and and everything, it's a lot less time consuming.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

That's so cool. Yeah, I see your Dr. Shane, and then it has your social media handle right there in the middle. That's really cool because you post all your work. So make go check out uh uh Dr. Shane. Um uh let's see, it's K-W-I-N-G-L-E-R-D-D-S on Instagram. So make sure to go check them out, give him a follow. He posts a lot of his uh dental work on there. I see you're kind of ramping that up, so that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Yeah. Yeah, it's been it's been really cool. Uh you can spend a lot of time on it or a little time on it. You know, there's all kinds of possibilities with uh with it that you can that you can do.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Great. Well, this is a this was a really, really fun episode. I appreciate you coming on and sharing all this stuff. And especially your office is exploding and growing and um you're you're busy. So thank you for just sharing your awesome thoughts and ideas with the with the world out there.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Absolutely, man. It's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

All right, peace.