How does an AI receptionist work for dental and aesthetic clinics in Miami?
In Miami, a new patient often reaches a practice through its website, a call or a text. An AI receptionist on the practice's website answers hours, services, prices and accepted insurance from information the practice approved, offers appointment times and hands the front desk anything that needs a person, with a summary. It gives no health advice; that stays with the staff.
It answers the question first and asks for a name and contact details only when the patient wants to book. The same answers can also run on WhatsApp or text if the practice wants; the website is usually the place to start.
The practice keeps its practice-management software; the assistant works beside it, booking into the schedule where the software allows it or sending the patient the practice's booking link. Betterlane sets it up and keeps it running: checking how it answers, fixing what breaks and updating the answers when the practice's information changes.
How it works here
Collect the practice's answers
Hours, address, services, new-patient information, self-pay prices the practice is happy to publish, accepted insurance and booking rules. The assistant only answers from that list.
Put it on the website
A chat window on the practice's own site. It does not ask for a phone number, a date of birth or medical details before answering a question.
Book or request the appointment
The assistant offers free slots, takes a name and contact details at that point, confirms the day and time and sends a reminder. If the practice prefers, it only records the request and the front desk confirms.
Hand over to the front desk
Pain, symptoms, test results, complaints or anything outside the list goes to the front desk with a one-line summary, and the patient gets a polite holding reply.
Check with the team
Before going live, the team tests it with real questions from the practice. Afterwards any answer can be changed without touching the rest.
What we measured here
Our own check in Miami, Saturday 26 September 2026, 2:58 to 3:06 pm Miami time: we looked at the website enquiry forms of ten practices (five dental, five aesthetic). A small sample; no practice is named.
- Five of ten forms required a phone number
- Two of those five accepted only a US-format number, and one also asked for a date of birth. A visitor has to hand over details before asking anything.
- We sent seven of the ten
- None of the seven had answered by 5 October 2026, nine days later: no email in the inbox we used, and no call or text. Seven forms is a small sample, so this says nothing about Miami practices in general.
- Answer first, ask for details at booking
- A form that demands a phone, a US format or a date of birth before a first question turns some people away. An assistant can answer the question first and ask for contact details only when the patient books.
What it costs to run here
On a website, the main running cost is the model that writes the replies, billed by its provider per token (a token is a small piece of a word); one example is below. If the practice adds WhatsApp, Meta charges per delivered message, and messages patients send are free. Hosting and the calendar the practice already uses are not included here.
| Item | List price | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 through the Anthropic API (a smaller, cheaper model) | US$1 per million input tokens, US$5 per million output tokens | Anthropic, Claude API Docs, PricingRead on Sep 28, 2026 |
| If WhatsApp is added: reply inside the 24-hour window (service message), patient with a US number | US$0.0034 per delivered message from 1 Oct 2026, after the first 1,000 a month on each WhatsApp number, which are free | Meta for Developers, WhatsApp rate card in USD effective 1 Oct 2026 (Pricing on the WhatsApp Business Platform)Read on Oct 1, 2026 |
| If WhatsApp is added: appointment reminder (utility message), patient with a US number | US$0.0034 per delivered message | Meta for Developers, WhatsApp rate card in USD effective 1 Oct 2026 (Pricing on the WhatsApp Business Platform)Read on Oct 1, 2026 |
| If WhatsApp is added: marketing message, patient with a US number | US$0.025 per delivered message | Meta for Developers, WhatsApp rate card in USD effective 1 Oct 2026 (Pricing on the WhatsApp Business Platform)Read on Oct 1, 2026 |
Third-party list prices, read on the date shown. They are not Betterlane prices.
When it is not worth it
- If the front desk already answers every form, call and text within minutes, including evenings and weekends, the gain is small.
- If services, prices and booking rules change every week and nobody updates them, the assistant will repeat old information. Put the list in order first.
Questions
Does the assistant give health advice?
No. Health questions go to the staff with a summary, and the assistant does not ask for medical details. It answers only administrative questions the practice approved.
What about HIPAA?
If a practice needs a HIPAA-covered setup, that decides which tools can be used, and it is checked before building. Either way, the assistant does not ask for medical details.
Is there a Miami office?
No. Betterlane is based in Dubai. For Miami, Thiago works remotely on US Eastern hours, 9 am to 5 pm, in English, Portuguese and Spanish.
What if our software or a chat tool already answers patients?
We tell you on the first call. Some practice software and chat tools already answer patients; where one of them is the better deal for the practice, we set that up instead.
How long until it works?
We build first, and the practice pays only if it works: its first assistant is free and live in a week; if it does not do what was scoped, the practice pays nothing. Running it after that is agreed before we start.
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