Industry
Dental
New patient forms filled in at home and a front desk queue of appointment requests: the site and the back office of a dental practice.
Updated September 24, 2026
In short
A dental practice website should let a new patient request a visit and fill in their forms on a phone before they arrive. Behind it, the front desk needs one queue of requests to confirm, and each finished form filed with the patient instead of printed and typed in again.
A dental practice website: A dental practice website is the front desk's first conversation with a new patient. It explains the treatments the practice offers and the insurance it takes, and it lets a patient request a visit and complete the new patient forms at home. The answers should reach the practice ready to use, attached to the patient rather than retyped from a clipboard. The same site can send recall reminders, so a patient can book the next cleaning from a text.
What a dental practice needs from its site
Someone choosing a dentist in Los Angeles usually wants two answers before anything else: does the practice take their insurance, and can they get in soon. The site should answer the first in plain words and turn the second into an appointment request that reaches the front desk with the reason for the visit.
New patient forms belong online as well, so the paperwork is done on the couch at home instead of on a clipboard in the waiting room. A practice with a focus, such as implants or children's dentistry, can ask its own intake questions for that work.
- New patient forms that patients fill in on a phone before the visit
- Appointment requests that reach the front desk with the reason for the visit
- A day view that flags patients who have not finished their forms
- Treatment estimates that patients can read and accept online
What the back office needs
In a dental office, most of this work lands on the front desk. Requests should arrive in one queue the team works through, each marked confirmed or waiting, and finished forms should be filed with the patient wherever the practice software can take them. Recall reminders go out when a cleaning comes due, and written estimates are tracked until the patient accepts.
Forms that carry health details need care about who can open them and how long they are kept. The practice confirms its own obligations with its advisers, and the build follows the rules the practice sets where its tools allow it; the written plan says where they do not.
- Finished forms filed with the patient, not printed and typed in again
- One queue of appointment requests, each marked confirmed or waiting
- Recall reminders when a cleaning comes due
- Intake questions of your own for the treatments you offer
- Estimates tracked from sent to accepted
Tools most dental practices already use
Nearly every practice keeps its schedule and charts in practice management software, and many add a separate service for reminders and patient texts. The site can connect to those systems where the vendor provides a connection; where it does not, forms can arrive as a clean file the team attaches to the chart. These names come up in many practices; the list is for reference and endorses none of them.
- Dentrix
- Eaglesoft
- Open Dental
- Curve Dental
- Weave
- NexHealth
- Google Business Profile
Common choices, not endorsements.
A vendor page or a template site, or a site of your own
Many practices start with the booking page their software vendor provides, or with a template site from a company that builds for dentists, and both get a practice online quickly. A site of your own makes sense when the forms need your own questions, or when the practice wants its patients' details to flow into one place it controls.
| A vendor page or a template site | A site and forms of your own | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | A monthly fee, often bundled with other services | A build fee, then a care plan if you want one |
| Forms | A standard form set, with little room for your own questions | Forms with the questions your practice asks, in your order |
| Booking | Open slots from the schedule, where the vendor supports it | Requests or live slots, whichever your software allows |
| Pages | A template that other practices also use | Pages written for the treatments you focus on |
| Ownership | The vendor holds the site and its accounts | The code and every account are in the practice's name |
Swipe sideways to see every column
A worked example (hypothetical)
Picture a two-dentist family practice with a full hygiene schedule. New patients call to book and fill in a clipboard of forms in the waiting room. Someone types the answers into the practice software later that day.
The site comes first. At the Growth tier, $11,900, it would carry a page for each treatment and an appointment request form, with each request sent to the tool the front desk already checks.
Online new patient forms that are filed with the patient, plus a day view that flags missing ones, would be a custom app from $15,300. Nothing has to happen at once: the site can go up first and the forms can move online in a second stage. Once the site is live, the Keep plan at $169 a month would look after its updates and backups.
The concept app
Chairside is the concept drawn for this page, below. Its screens follow the parts of a new patient's first visit that the front desk handles: the forms, the request, the day's schedule and the estimate. It is a sketch of an idea rather than a product on the market, and none of the patients or schedules in it are real.
Chairside
A new patient's forms, filled in on a phone at home before the first visit.
An appointment request with the reason for the visit and the times that suit the patient.
The day's schedule chair by chair, with any patient still missing forms flagged.
A treatment estimate the patient reads at home, each procedure listed with its cost.
Common questions
Can new patients fill in their forms online before the visit?
Yes. The forms work on a phone and save as the patient goes, so a half-finished form is not lost. Finished forms reach the practice before the visit, filed with the patient where the practice software allows it.
Will online booking show real open times from our schedule?
That depends on your practice software. Some systems let a site read open slots and book into them, while others only take a request the front desk confirms. We find out which kind yours is at the start.
Do we have to change our practice management software?
No. The site and forms work alongside the software you run and connect to it wherever the vendor makes that possible. Changing practice software is a large decision of its own, and nothing here depends on it.
Why not keep the template site our marketing company set up?
If it answers patients' questions and the forms fit your practice, keep it. A site of your own is worth the cost when the forms need your own questions, or when the practice wants the code and the accounts in its own name.
Are the online forms private?
The forms are sent over an encrypted connection, and only the staff roles the practice names can open the answers. What the practice's privacy obligations require is for the practice to confirm with its own advisers; the plan then says which of those rules the build and its tools can carry out.
Can the site send recall and appointment reminders?
Yes, by text or email, when a cleaning comes due or the day before a visit. If a reminder service already does this for you, the site leaves that job to it rather than sending a second message.
Start with a written plan
Tell us about the business and what you need. We reply with questions, then a written plan that lists the work and its price, and nothing starts until you have read it.