Automate Your Dental Office's Patient Intake and Consent Forms
AI agent systems automatically read scanned patient intake forms using OCR and extract key data. They then verify information, generate consent documents, and file everything into your patient management system.
The system's complexity depends on the number and variation of your forms and your specific Patient Management System (PMS). A practice using three standard, typed forms that connect to Eaglesoft via an API is a direct build. An office with ten different, often handwritten forms needing integration with a legacy on-premise Dentrix server requires a more involved setup.
We built a system for a 4-dentist practice with 2 front-desk staff handling 80 patients per day. Their manual data entry time dropped from over 6 minutes per patient to under 10 seconds. The complete system was designed, built, and deployed in 3 weeks, eliminating the data entry backlog entirely.
What Problem Does This Solve?
Dental front desks often start with digital form tools like Adobe Sign or patient portal add-ons for their PMS. These tools create a digital version of the paper clipboard but do not solve the core data entry bottleneck. The staff still has to manually copy-paste every field from the submitted PDF into the patient's record in Dentrix or Eaglesoft, which is prone to typos on critical fields like insurance policy numbers.
A busy 4-dentist practice can see over 30 new patients a week. If each patient's 3-form packet takes 6 minutes to manually enter, that's 3 hours of staff time spent on data entry. Generic online OCR tools fail because they cannot parse the specific structure of a dental intake form. They extract a wall of text, unable to distinguish the label 'Primary Insurance Carrier' from the patient's answer, 'Aetna'.
This workflow forces a choice between two bad options: make the current patient wait while you enter the previous patient's data, creating a bottleneck in the waiting room, or create a stack of forms to be entered later, risking data entry errors when done in a hurried batch at the end of the day. The core issue is the lack of a bridge between the completed form and the patient's record.
How Does It Work?
First, we digitize your existing patient forms. We set up a secure ingestion point, either a network scanner that saves to a specific folder or a dedicated email address where front desk staff can send scans. We use AWS Textract for OCR, which accurately reads both typed and handwritten text from these images, converting a 3-page form packet into machine-readable text in about 4 seconds.
The core of the system is an AI agent built in Python using the Claude API. This agent receives the raw text from AWS Textract and a JSON schema defining the fields in your PMS. It intelligently identifies and extracts the correct information for over 50 fields, including patient demographics, insurance details, and medical history, and structures it correctly. This extraction and validation process takes less than 4 seconds.
Once the data is structured as clean JSON, we push it directly into your Patient Management System. For cloud-based systems like Eaglesoft, we use their official API. For on-premise systems like Dentrix, we build a secure connector that writes to the database. The agent also pre-populates consent forms with the extracted data, ready for a digital signature on a tablet. The entire end-to-end process, from scan to record creation, completes in under 10 seconds.
We deploy the system on AWS Lambda, ensuring it's both HIPAA-compliant and cost-effective; a single patient intake process costs less than $0.05 in compute. A lightweight FastAPI dashboard allows staff to review any forms the AI flagged with a confidence score below 95%, displaying the original scan next to the extracted data for a 2-second human verification step. All actions are logged using structlog for a complete audit trail.
What Are the Key Benefits?
Patient Data Entered in 10 Seconds
Reduce manual data entry time from over 6 minutes per patient to under 10 seconds, eliminating front desk backlogs and data entry errors.
A Fixed Build Price, Not Per-Form Fees
We deliver a complete system for a one-time fixed price. Monthly hosting costs on AWS are typically under $30, not hundreds in SaaS fees.
You Own The Code and Data Pipeline
You receive the full Python source code in your private GitHub repository. There is no vendor lock-in and no proprietary platform.
Error Alerts for Human Review
The system flags illegible handwriting or ambiguous fields for human review. Your staff only ever looks at exceptions, not every single form.
Direct Integration with Dentrix & Eaglesoft
We build custom connectors that write data directly into your existing PMS. No more copying and pasting between different windows.
What Does the Process Look Like?
Week 1: Forms and Systems Audit
You provide samples of all intake and consent forms. We map every field to your PMS schema and deliver a detailed data mapping document for your approval.
Week 2: Core AI Agent Build
We build the OCR and data extraction pipeline using AWS Textract and the Claude API. You receive a video demonstrating the agent accurately processing 20 of your sample forms.
Week 3: Integration and Deployment
We connect the agent to your live PMS and deploy the system in your AWS account. You get access to the exception handling dashboard for testing.
Weeks 4-6: Monitoring and Handoff
We monitor the system's live performance, tune confidence thresholds, and resolve any issues. You receive the full source code and a runbook for future maintenance.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How much does a custom patient intake system cost?
- Pricing depends on the number of unique form layouts and the PMS integration method. A typical project for an office with 3-5 forms connecting to a modern, cloud-based PMS usually takes 3-4 weeks. After a 30-minute discovery call where we review your forms, we provide a fixed-price proposal. There are no recurring license fees.
- What happens if the AI misreads a patient's insurance ID?
- The system assigns a confidence score to every piece of extracted data. Critical fields like insurance IDs or medical alerts flagged below a 95% confidence threshold are sent to a simple review queue. Your front desk staff sees the scanned image next to the extracted data and can make a correction in two clicks. The system is designed to fail safely.
- How is this different from using a service like Docusign for forms?
- Docusign is excellent for capturing signatures on digital documents, but it does not automate data entry. You still need a person to transfer the patient's answers from the signed Docusign PDF into your PMS. Syntora builds an end-to-end pipeline that reads the form, extracts the data, and files it in your PMS automatically, eliminating that manual step.
- Is this system HIPAA compliant?
- Yes. We build and deploy the entire system within your own secure cloud environment (typically AWS). All patient data is encrypted in transit and at rest. We use HIPAA-eligible services like AWS Lambda and Textract and sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with you. Every action is logged for a clear audit trail, maintaining full compliance.
- How well does it handle messy handwriting?
- Modern OCR is highly effective, achieving over 90% character accuracy on legible print and cursive. The system is not designed to guess. If handwriting for a critical field like 'Medication Allergies' is truly illegible, the system will flag that specific field for mandatory human review rather than inputting potentially incorrect data.
- What if our office changes its intake forms next year?
- Because you own the source code, minor changes can be made by any Python developer. This includes updating field names or adding a new checkbox. We document the process in the runbook delivered at handoff. For major redesigns, we can scope a small follow-on project. Our optional maintenance plan covers one minor form layout update per quarter.
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