How Health Care & Dental Practices Use AI

Dental practices and other health care businesses are tapping a range of AI tech to help improve operations and enhance patient care. Here's a snapshot of how AI tools are being used in clinical settings.

Ambient Listening 

The most common AI-powered applications for health care practitioners include those that incorporate ambient listening technology, which can automatically capture, process and document conversations, such as clinical notes.

"We have seen that become almost table stakes in our health care settings, where most organizations are using ambient listening in their health care environment, and our physicians are loving it," says Dr. Margaret Lozovatsky, vice president of digital health innovations at the American Medical Association, in a post shared by the AMA.

The adoption of AI applications in physician practices has been on the rise. A survey by the AMA shows AI use at physician practices nearly doubled from 2023 to 2024, with 66 percent reporting using AI in 2024, up from 38 percent the previous year.

Also, more physicians are acknowledging the advantages of using AI in their practice, with 68 percent reporting benefits of AI applications, slightly up from the 65 percent in 2023.

In the 2024 survey, three in five physicians say they use health care AI in their practice for tasks such as documentation of billing codes, medical charts, or visit notes; creation of discharge instructions, care plans, and/or progress notes; translation services, and assistive diagnosis.

Augmented intelligence — the term AMA uses vs. artificial intelligence — has the potential to present numerous pieces of data to physicians "in a way that enables them to make the clinical decisions they're trained to make," explains Lozovatsky, a pediatric hospitalist.

"I believe that AI can get us to a place where the information will be presented to the right person at the right time. They can use their clinical expertise and focus on patient care, which is what we all hope to do," she adds.

Dental Image Analysis 

AI-powered tools are helping dental care practices improve X-ray analyses, and provide predictive insight for personalized patient strategies, according to use cases and other reports.

This type of innovative AI software can help dentists identify tooth decay in patients up to five years earlier, according to Florian Hillen, founder and CEO of Videahealth, an AI dental imaging startup out of Boston. 

"AI goes beyond the naked eye, analyzing x-rays with unparalleled precision to identify subtle abnormalities that may be missed during traditional examinations," says an article in DE, a magazine that focuses on dental practice management.

"Dental AI technologies are trained to read x-rays and learn to distinguish areas of disease, such as decay, periapical lesions, and bone loss, with additional capabilities and operational efficiencies being learned every day."

Specialized AI 'Assistants'

Physicians and other health care practitioners can use HIPAA-compliant AI assistants to generate clinical notes, draft referral letters, and post-visit summaries, but also to answer questions through data retrieval.

Options for specialized health care AI assistants are widening, as startup firms join some of the largest software developers in the march to build on ambient listening technology and expand specialized applications in this sector.

In March, for example, Microsoft unveiled its new healthcare AI assistant called Dragon Copilot, which brings together proven ambient listening and natural voice dictation capabilities, fine-tuned generative AI, and healthcare-adapted safeguards.

The company says the latest offering, which combines the technology found in its DMO and DAX software, promotes clinician well-being, increases efficiency, improves patient experiences and drives financial impact."

AI applications in health care can help streamline administrative tasks, enhance care access, and enable faster clinical insights across care settings, Microsoft notes in its announcement.

"We have long believed that AI has the incredible potential to free clinicians from much of the administrative burden in healthcare and enable them to refocus on taking care of patients," says Joe Petro, corporate vice president of Microsoft Health and Life Sciences Solutions and Platforms.

Patient Communication & Billing Tasks

More physician and dental practices are using AI technology to send out appointment reminders to their patients, whether by voice calls, email or text.

Applications enabling automated reminders can help reduce the number of no-shows and improve scheduling efficiency.

Also, AI-powered applications are being accessed for administrative tasks in health care and dental practices for automating insurance coding and billing processes. 

These types of tools, which use AI algorithms, reportedly help reduce billing errors, speed up claim processing, and minimize denials.

For more, read how other small businesses are using AI and the many ways AI could help your business.