Heidi Health for Dentists: Setup, Templates and Patient Consent

To set up Heidi in a dental practice, create a clinician account, choose Free or Clinician after a trial, edit a dental template so notes match your record headings, test on colleagues, then roll out. Tell patients before recording: say an AI scribe will draft the note, the dentist checks it, and they can decline.

Most of the effort is not the software. It is deciding who checks notes, how a patient declines without awkwardness, and how the finished note reaches your practice management system (PMS). Heidi's own guidance recommends seeking consent, so build that in from day one rather than after a patient asks.

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Pick the plan by what you need on day one

Heidi renamed and rearranged its plans in February 2026. As of November 2026 a solo dentist chooses between Free and Clinician; Practice adds team templates and sharing, and Enterprise is a custom quote. The older Scribe Plus and Scribe Team plans are still sold to new customers only in some regions. Plan line-ups and prices differ by region and currency: on the USD price list Clinician is $110 per user a month billed annually, with team plans quoted on request, while some other regional pages list a Practice price. Read the figure for your own region at checkout.

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What the pricing page does say is useful for a dentist deciding where to begin:

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My rule for a solo dentist: start on Free for the first fortnight, because transcription and standard templates are what you are testing. Move to Clinician only if the 10-action monthly pool runs out by the second week (each custom-template note or Ask Heidi edit uses one) or you want the paid evidence features, which are a separate benefit from scribing. A principal with three associates should look at the team plans straight away, because shared templates are what keep four people's notes consistent.

A first-week setup that takes about two hours

Here is the order that causes the fewest surprises. Times are rough and illustrative for one dentist.

1. Create the account (10 minutes). Use a work email, set the region to your own, and choose the language variant for your spelling. Switch on two-factor sign-in if offered.
2. Set the retention period (5 minutes). Heidi says users set transcript retention in account settings. Decide first, with your data protection lead if you have one: keep transcripts only until the note is signed off, or longer for auditing.
3. Write down what the scribe may and may not be used for (15 minutes). One page: clinical notes only, never for staff conversations, never in the waiting area.
4. Edit one template (30 minutes). See the next section.
5. Test with colleagues playing patients (30 minutes). Two scripted appointments, one with background noise.
6. Decide the path into your PMS (15 minutes). Copy-across or connector, covered below.
7. Print the consent sign and script (15 minutes). Wording below.

Only then book the first real patients, and start with a morning of check-ups rather than a full surgical list. Check-ups are short, predictable and low risk if a note needs fixing.

Choosing and editing a dental template

Heidi ships standard templates, and its template library includes dentist-specific items such as a dental consent form and a patient treatment consent form for dentists. You will mostly rely on a note template, though, and the useful edit is making its headings match how your record already reads. Our tutorial on dental note templates by visit type gives full layouts for hygiene, restorative and emergency visits; here is the setup logic.

Keep the template short. Six to eight headings is plenty. Each extra heading is one more place for the model to guess. A filled-in example of a restorative check-up template (illustrative):

Reason for attendance
Medical history changes (only if stated aloud)
Examination findings (soft tissue, periodontal, caries, restorations)
Radiographs taken and findings
Diagnosis discussed
Treatment options and risks explained (list each option offered)
Treatment agreed and consent confirmed
Plan for next visit and recall interval
Write in note form, past tense. Do not add findings, teeth or advice that were not said. If something is unclear, write [CHECK].

The last two lines matter. Telling the model to flag uncertainty with a visible marker such as [CHECK] gives you something to search for before signing, and it discourages quiet invention. Never ask the template to "complete" missing detail.

What the output looks like and what to fix

Say the dentist says aloud, "Upper right six has a mesial occlusal composite, margin looks stained, no sensitivity, bitewing shows no new decay". An illustrative draft might return:

Examination findings: UR6 MO composite, stained margin. No reported sensitivity.
Radiographs: Bitewing taken. No new caries identified.

That is accurate. A typical fault looks different: the tool writes "UR6 MOD composite" because that is a more common restoration, or turns "right six" into a lower tooth. Tooth numbering and surface letters are the first thing to check on every note, in any scribe. If you work in a different notation from the one the tool expects, say so once at the top of the template, for example "Use FDI two-digit tooth numbers only", and test it.

Getting the note into the PMS

Heidi's integrations collection lists dozens of practice systems, and two of them are dental. The first is Dental4Windows and Dental4Web, from Centaur Software. Heidi's help article says it needs a Practice or Enterprise plan, your Centaur organisation ID, and Centaur's authorisation for Heidi to access your practice, which you request through your Heidi account contact. Heidi also says it is limited to practices in one supported country, so a dentist elsewhere cannot use it at all.

If you do qualify, the setup is short: Settings, Connectors, pick the dental connector, enter the organisation ID, choose your name from the practitioner list. Heidi then imports your own appointments for the day you select (cancelled ones are left out). Two catches from the article are worth printing and taping up:

• Start each session from the appointment. A session started any other way cannot be sent back to that patient's record.
• The push goes into the treatment record's note column. Read it there once, because that is the version that counts.

The second is CareStack, a cloud dental practice system, and it runs the other way round. You open the patient's chart in CareStack, click +AI Scribe, and sign in to Heidi in the widget that opens. Heidi's article says you need AI Scribe access inside CareStack; a finished note then appears in that widget for you to insert into the chart. One catch: edits you make later in Heidi's own web or mobile app do not flow back to CareStack, so make corrections in CareStack, or re-insert the corrected note, never both.

For everyone else the route is copy and paste, and it is fine. In the worked example below the saving still comes mostly from not typing. Our tutorial on whether an AI scribe will write back to your software compares what different tools can do, and it is worth reading before you pay for a plan just to get a connector.

A worked example: a three-chair practice over one month

Illustrative figures only. A practice has two dentists and a hygienist. Before the scribe, each dentist spends about six minutes writing notes after a 30-minute appointment, and sees 12 patients a day.

That is 72 minutes of note-writing a day per dentist. In week one, they use Heidi on check-ups only, and the dentist spends about three minutes reading and correcting each note. The saving is three minutes times 12 patients, or 36 minutes a day, per dentist. Over 20 working days that is 12 hours each. Across two dentists, 24 hours a month.

Now the cost side. Say the Free plan is used by the hygienist only; the dentists take a paid plan after the trial. The monthly price is whatever checkout shows, multiplied by two seats, plus about two hours of one-off setup and an hour of staff briefing. At the USD list price of $110 per seat billed annually, two seats come to $220 a month, or a little over $9 for each of the 24 hours saved. If a paid seat costs less than an hour of a dentist's time, the sum works on time saved alone. If a fortnight shows only 10 minutes saved a day, because the dentists rewrite whole notes, the plan is the wrong shape or the template is too loose. Fix the template before concluding the tool is slow.

Three visit types that need their own instructions

One template rarely fits every chair. These are the three adjustments I would make first, each illustrative.

Hygiene visits

A hygienist talks continuously: pocket depths, bleeding scores, advice on technique. The scribe will not capture a six-point charting reading dictated at speed reliably, so keep charting in the PMS and use the scribe for the conversation only: oral hygiene advice given, products discussed, smoking or diet counselling, next recall. A line in the template such as "Do not record probing depths or bleeding scores; the chart holds those" prevents half-captured numbers that look authoritative.

Emergency and pain visits

Patients in pain talk in loops and the dentist often narrates while working. Here the risk is the model tidying a vague history into something definite, such as "pain for three days" when the patient said "a few days, maybe since the weekend". Add "Quote the patient's own timing words" to the template. For a swelling, trauma or suspected-infection visit, many practices prefer to write the first lines by hand and use the scribe for the advice and plan only.

Treatment-plan consultations

These are the visits where consent matters most, and the ones where a scribe earns its place, because the dentist explains options, risks and costs at length. Illustrative before and after for the "options explained" heading:

Before (typed from memory, 40 seconds): Options discussed incl. crown, filling, ext. Pt wants crown.
After (checked scribe draft): Options offered: (1) large composite filling, shorter lifespan, lower cost; (2) full-coverage crown, preferred given cusp loss, two visits; (3) extraction, not recommended. Risks explained: sensitivity, need for root treatment if the nerve is affected. Patient chose option 2. Estimate given in writing.

The second version is the one you would want to read in a complaint file. It only holds if the dentist really said those things, so check it against memory, and never let the scribe add a risk the dentist did not mention.

What patients need to be told

Heidi's help article says it recommends you seek consent and notes that some jurisdictions do not require it for a tool like this. It provides information sheets and written consent forms through its resource centre. It does not give sample wording or address verbal consent or opting out in that article. So the wording is yours. Ask your regulator, indemnity provider or the practice's data protection lead what counts as sufficient where you work, because that decides whether verbal consent noted in the record is enough.

A good disclosure covers five things: that audio is being recorded or listened to, who handles it, what it is used for, what happens to the recording, and that the patient can say no without it affecting their care. Illustrative wording for the dentist to say:

"Before we start: I use an AI tool that listens to our appointment and drafts my notes. I check and sign every note myself. The audio isn't kept once the note is written, and the notes are stored in our normal records. You're welcome to say no, and it won't change anything about your treatment. Are you happy for me to use it today?"

A line like "the audio isn't kept" must reflect what you have checked. Heidi's data article says live sessions are transcribed in real time and the audio is never stored, but transcripts can be kept, and you choose the retention period. Uploading a recorded appointment is a different route, where you can opt to keep the recording, so decide whether your practice allows uploads at all. If you set a long retention period, say so: "the typed transcript is kept for 30 days". Never promise more than your own settings deliver.

Five consent situations to rehearse

1. A patient says no. Switch the scribe off, write the note by hand, and record "declined AI scribe" in the record. Do not ask twice.
2. A parent attends with a child. Ask the parent. Do not rely on the child's agreement.
3. A relative or interpreter is in the room. Their voice will be captured too, so ask them as well.
4. The patient is anxious or in pain. Defer the question until after the emergency treatment, or skip the scribe for that visit.
5. A patient asks for the recording. Be honest: if audio is not stored, there is none; the transcript and the note are what exist.

Our guide to implied or explicit consent for AI scribes goes deeper on when a sign is enough, and it applies to dental practices as much as GP surgeries.

Briefing the nurses and reception team

Consent usually fails at the front desk, not in the surgery. Give the team a 15-minute briefing and three scripted answers. If a patient asks "Who hears this?", the answer is "Only the dentist's note-writing tool, and the dentist checks the note." If they ask "Can I say no?", it is "Yes, just tell the dentist or us." If they ask "Is it kept?", the team should say only what the practice has written down about retention, and otherwise offer to ask the dentist.

Add the AI scribe to the new-patient form as one tick-box line with a "prefer not" option, and give the surgery nurse a quick way to flag declined patients on the day list, so the dentist knows before the patient sits down. A practice that logs declines also learns how often it happens: if more than one patient in ten says no, your wording or timing is probably the problem rather than the tool.

Heidi's dental consent form is not an AI consent

A trap worth naming. Heidi's template library has a "Dental Consent Form" and a "Patient Treatment Consent Form (Liability) for Dentists". These are treatment consents: extractions, crowns, dentures, root canal treatment and similar. Heidi's own page describes the first as a single baseline treatment form written for one jurisdiction, and it lists the form's gaps: the risk of altered sensation after an extraction is not quantified, and the denture section gives a relining timeline without saying that relining costs extra.

Two lessons. First, a treatment consent form is not consent to an AI scribe, and the two should be recorded separately. Second, check any imported form against your own regulator's rules before it goes in front of a patient. A template from a vendor library is a starting draft, not legal wording. Auto-filling such a form from a clinical note is a nice shortcut, but you still read what it filled.

Data handling: the questions to answer in writing

Heidi's data article names several national health-privacy laws, including GDPR, and says it has data localisation in several regions, without saying where other customers' data lives. It also says it never sells patient or clinician data, and a separate help article on how Heidi protects your data says it does not use consultation data, session transcriptions or generated notes to train its AI model. Vendor statements change, so write the answers down with the date you read them:

If an answer is not on a page, ask Heidi support in writing and keep the reply. A data protection regulator will ask what you checked, not whether you read marketing copy.

A mistake that happens in week two

Illustrative failure. A dentist, comfortable after a week, stops reading the full note and skims the headings. The scribe writes "patient advised to avoid hot drinks for 24 hours" because the dentist said it to the previous patient in the same room with the session still running. Nothing in the record warns of it. Two safeguards fix this: end the session between patients, always, and read the note while the patient's image is still in your mind, not at 6 pm. The same discipline protects you whichever tool you pick.

A short checklist before the first real patient

• Plan chosen, and the price at checkout recorded.
• Retention period set and written down.
• One template edited, with a [CHECK] instruction.
• Tooth numbering notation tested on five sample statements.
• PMS route decided: connector or copy across.
• Consent script printed; a sign in reception; a note field for "declined".
• One named person owns the data questions in the table above.
• Each session ends before the next patient sits down.

If the practice has no one with time for this, our guide to AI tools for dentists with no IT team lists easier first steps, and a scribe can be added later. If you would rather map it with someone, that is what my AI implementation consultation covers; get in touch and we can look at your appointment types together.

Heidi in a dental practice: questions that come up

Does Heidi store the audio of a dental appointment?

Heidi's help centre says live sessions are transcribed in real time and the audio is not stored or accessible later. If you upload a recording instead, you can choose to have it kept for review. Transcripts can be kept for auditing, and you set how long in account settings. Check the current wording before you tell patients anything specific.

Can I start on the Free plan with real patients?

Free includes unlimited transcription and standard templates, so many dentists trial it there. The real test is your own governance: whichever plan you use, patient consent, a written data-handling decision and a clinician checking every note come first. Read the plan terms for your account type before relying on it.

Will Heidi write notes straight into my practice software?

Only if your system has a connector. Heidi lists two dental ones: Dental4Windows and Dental4Web, which needs a Practice or Enterprise plan and is limited to one country, and CareStack, which works through an AI Scribe widget inside CareStack. Everyone else copies the note across by hand, which is perfectly workable.

Do patients have to sign a form?

Heidi recommends seeking consent and supplies information sheets and written consent forms. Whether verbal consent is enough depends on your regulator and indemnity provider, so ask them. A short verbal explanation logged in the record, plus a sign in reception, is a common minimum.

Can the dentist skip reading the note afterwards?

No. The note carries your name and your clinical judgement. Read every note, check tooth numbers, quadrants, anaesthetic and advice given, and edit before it goes into the record.

Further reads

• AI Scribe for Counsellors: A Safe Trial Plan With Consent and Opt-Out — A safe trial plan with consent and opt-out, from another clinic type.
• Is an AI Scribe HIPAA Compliant? A BAA and Consent Checklist Before Go-Live — A BAA and consent checklist if you serve US patients.
• AI Receptionist for Dentists in Ireland: GDPR, Disclosure and Cost — Disclosure and GDPR points for a dental front desk.
• AI Scribe for Psychologists: Notes, Reports and Consent Checks — A parallel consent and checking routine for another clinic type.
• AI Chatbot for Dentists: Fee, Emergency and Booking Rules to Set — Rules for a front-desk chatbot, separate from the scribe.
• AI Automation Agency for Dentists: What to Check Before You Hire — What to check before paying anyone to set this up.
• AI Scribe Consent Form: US Wording and State Recording Laws — Template wording for an AI scribe consent form, a plain map of one-party and all-party recording states, and an opt-out that still gets the patient seen.
• AI Scribe for Physiotherapists in the UK: A Consent and GDPR Checklist — A twelve-step checklist for a UK physio clinic adopting an AI scribe: consent, DPIA, vendor contract, data location, retention and HCPC standards.
• Dental Sterilisation Log: A Daily Template and AI Reminder Routine — A daily sterilisation log template for a dental practice, plus an AI reminder routine that chases sign-offs but never approves a cycle.
• Dental Treatment Plan Follow-Up: A Message Sequence With AI — A four-message follow-up sequence for unaccepted dental treatment plans, with timing, a finance mention and a stop rule, drafted with AI.
• Heidi Health for Veterinarians: Notes, Consent and PIMS Fit — What Heidi offers vets, what it costs, the consent wording for recorded consults, and how to test whether notes fit your practice system.
• Orthodontic Payment Plan Template: Fee Scripts Drafted With AI — A fillable orthodontic payment plan layout, three parent fee scripts and the checks that stop AI drafts quoting the wrong numbers.
• Orthodontic Referral Form Template and an AI Completeness Check — A field-by-field orthodontic referral form, a radiograph and consent checklist and a rule-based AI check for missing details.
• Patient Intake Automation in a Small Practice: Forms, AI Summaries — How a small practice sets up digital intake forms, consent capture and a clinician-checked AI summary, with retention and privacy rules.
• GDPR in a Dental Practice: Which AI Tools Staff May Use — Which AI uses are fine for dental staff, which need a contract and a DPIA first, and which to ban, with an approved-tools list you can copy.
• AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.

Sources: Heidi pricing page; Heidi help centre articles on pricing plans, plan changes, changing your subscription, obtaining patient consent, data security, how Heidi protects your data, and the Dental4Windows and Dental4Web and CareStack integrations; Heidi dental consent form template page; CareStack home page (all read 4 November 2026).