What happens when a patient calls your dental office after hours

What happens when a patient calls the dentist after hours?

Without a plan, the call goes to voicemail and waits until someone checks it. With Leap set up for after hours, an AI receptionist picks up, answers what it can from your office's facts, takes a request or message, and sends your team a summary.

Below is one example call, start to finish. The office and the patient are made up. The greeting, the steps and the summary format are what Leap actually does.

How do after-hours calls get to Leap?

Your phone line forwards them. Leap gives you its own phone line during setup, and you keep your office number. Patients dial the number they already know, and your phone system or carrier sends the call on to Leap.

Here is the part to know before you start: Leap does not run an after-hours schedule for your phone line. The schedule lives on your side. Most office phone systems have an after-hours or time-of-day rule that forwards calls once you close, and that is the cleanest way to do it. If you're on a cell line, you turn forwarding on with a dial code when you lock up and off when you open, because carrier dial codes can't run on a timer. Our guide to forwarding your office phone after hours has the codes and the settings for common phone systems.

Inside Leap you pick how forwarding behaves: Forward every call, where calls go straight to Leap, or Ring me first, where your phone rings and Leap answers when nobody picks up. Leap knows your office hours from setup. Turn on the after-hours greeting in your receptionist settings, and calls that come in after close get it.

What does the patient hear when they call?

A greeting that says who they reached. With the after-hours greeting turned on, it also says the office is closed and ends with "We're currently closed, but I can take a message. How can I help?" You can edit it, rename the receptionist (Sophie by default) and choose whether the opening mentions that it's an AI receptionist.

In our example it's 8:40 on a Tuesday night. A patient we'll call Dana calls Example Family Dental. She asks two things: whether the office sees patients on Saturdays, and whether she can come in for a cleaning next week.

What can the receptionist answer after hours?

Anything your office has approved. Leap builds its knowledge from your website, your Google listing and any documents you upload, and you review the facts as cards before it goes live. Hours, location, parking, insurance you accept, new-patient paperwork: if it's on a card, the receptionist can say it.

If Dana asks something that isn't on a card, the receptionist doesn't guess. It says it doesn't have that answer, takes her name and number, and saves the question. The next morning you see it in your inbox, answer it once, and the receptionist knows it from then on.

How does it take an appointment request?

It collects what your front desk needs to call back: the patient's name, the reason for the visit, the days and times that work, and a callback number, which defaults to the number they called from. Then it tells the patient it will pass the request to the team so they can confirm a time.

Leap does not connect to dental practice software, so it does not write into your schedule there. The request lands with your front desk, and your team confirms the slot. If your office has an online booking link, Leap can offer to text it to the patient instead. Offices that run their schedule in Google Calendar can connect it and let Leap book directly. More on that in appointment scheduling.

Dana gets a text confirming her request reached the office. The receptionist doesn't promise when someone will call back, because it can't know your morning.

What does it do when a caller says it's urgent?

It follows the instructions your office gives it and is instructed not to give dental or medical advice. If a caller describes something life-threatening, the receptionist tells them to call emergency services now and ends the call so they can. It does not dial 911 for them.

For urgent calls that aren't life-threatening, like a patient in pain or a broken crown, it gives the emergency contact your office approved, takes the details and marks the request urgent. It can also message your team during the call. Who gets that message, and how, is up to you: routing rules in plain English can send after-hours urgent calls to the dentist on call and everything else to the front desk. If the same patient calls back about a request nobody has handled yet, a separate urgent text goes out.

Live transfer to a person is an option the owner turns on, and it only transfers while the office is open. After hours, the receptionist takes a message.

What does the office get after the call?

A summary by text, by email, or both, depending on what each person on your team chooses. Each answered call also sits in the Leap inbox with the recording, the transcript, the summary and whether it's been followed up. Here is what Dana's call looks like, using made-up details.

If your practice turns on Leap's HIPAA setup, texts and emails leave out patient details. The text reads "New activity is available. Sign in to Leap to review it." with a link, and your team reads the full summary after signing in. See call summaries and transcripts for what the inbox shows.

Can a dental office use Leap under HIPAA?

Yes. We sign a Business Associate Addendum with your practice, and your calls run on a separate protected setup where patient information only goes to vendors covered for HIPAA. Ask us to turn it on.

How do you set it up, and what does it cost?

1. Go to /start and give Leap your website, or find your practice on Google by name if you don't have one.
2. Review what it built. It asks when you're open, what you offer, how patients book and what to say to common questions. Fix any card that's wrong.
3. Set your urgent-call instructions, turn on the after-hours greeting, and choose who on your team gets texts and emails.
4. Set your phone system's after-hours rule, or carrier forwarding, to send calls to your Leap line when you close.
5. Call your office number after hours from your own cell and listen.

Leap is $149 a month, first 100 calls included, then $0.99 a call. There's no setup fee, and you can cancel from the dashboard. Full details are on the pricing page. If you're still deciding between software and a live service, our dental answering service cost comparison prices both.