Before implementing AI in a dental practice, you must first document how your business actually operates today, identify workflow gaps, and understand your current processes. The key is to start where you are rather than rebuilding around AI, merging practical implementation with your existing structure while protecting patient data and focusing on low-risk administrative tasks initially.
- Document your actual practice workflows, patient intake processes, team communication, and billing connections before investing in AI technology.
- AI works best when implemented strategically on administrative tasks first, such as patient follow-up and SOP mapping, while clinical applications require more time.
- Merge AI implementation with your existing practice structure rather than completely rebuilding around. the technology to avoid disruption.
- Protect patient health information and prioritize cybersecurity as non-negotiable guardrails when adopting AI solutions.
Heather Porter has a simple test for any practice considering using AI: Do you know how your business actually runs today?
In this episode of The DrBicuspid.com Podcast, host Kevin Henry talks with Porter, a marketing operations consultant who runs Thrivology and helps business owners find what’s holding them back. Henry says he’s not sure dentistry has embraced AI the way it should and asks what practices must map out before investing.
Porter says AI is a powerful tool, but you have to know how to aim it. The first step is to document how the practice works in real life, not what’s in the SOP binder or in the owner’s head. That means looking at how patients come in, how the team follows up, how it communicates with patients, how clinical work connects with billing, and finding the exact gaps.
She describes two mindsets: Treat AI as the thing and rebuild around it, or patch it onto what you already do. Porter leans toward the first mindset, but she cautions, letting AI lead without structure leaves you somewhere that doesn’t fit your business.
Her answer is to merge the two, starting where you are instead of scrapping everything for “this new fandangled thing.” The goal, she says, is to take a practice where it has always wanted to go without hiring many more people or making big investments. Porter notes that some businesses are already worth billions by using AI in new ways.
Porter sees opportunity on both the administrative and clinical sides but says administrative use is available today, while the clinical side will take time. She is firm on guardrails: Practices must protect protected health information and put cybersecurity at the forefront, which she says is very doable.
As for AI filling an open position, Porter says it’s possible but not in 2027. In the near term, she sees AI helping people on the team do more of what they want to do. She doesn’t think the office manager role will ever disappear and calls it a choke point that AI can open up.
The biggest hurdle she hears about is fear, fed by stories of AI gone wrong. Her advice is to start with low-risk tasks, such as follow-up, mapping SOPs, or finding gaps you can’t see.
Porter is also offering a free Clarity Blueprint to one dental practice or dental-related business, with an application in the dental section of her website.
Watch the podcast below.
