About 20 minutes to set up · claude.ai only

Explain a treatment plan so the patient says yes

Today

You present four quadrants of scaling and root planing plus two crowns, the patient nods, and then calls back a week later to ask what any of it was for. The plan was clear to you and to nobody else in the room.

With Claude

You paste the plan in clinical shorthand with the identifiers stripped, and Claude returns a one page letter in everyday words that the front desk can hand over. You read it, correct anything off, and it goes out the same visit.

The prompt

Paste this into claude.ai and replace anything in brackets.

You are helping a dental practice explain a treatment plan to a patient in plain language. The dentist has already diagnosed and decided this plan. Do not second-guess the clinical decisions, and do not add or remove procedures.

Here is the plan in clinical shorthand, with all patient identifiers removed:
[paste the de-identified plan here: tooth numbers, procedure names or CDT codes, and any notes on urgency]

Here is the situation the patient is in, described generally:
[for example: mid forties, nervous about needles, PPO coverage with an annual maximum, works hourly so time off is a real cost]

Write a one page letter the front desk can hand over, at an eighth grade reading level, with these sections:
1. What we found, in everyday words
2. What we recommend and why, one short paragraph per tooth or area
3. What happens if we wait, stated factually and without pressure
4. The order we would do it in, and roughly how many visits
5. Questions you may want to ask us

Rules: no scare language, no statistics, and no dollar figures unless I gave them to you. Anywhere a number or a date is needed, write a bracketed blank for us to fill in. At the end, under a heading called Needs the dentist, list anything in the plan you could not explain clearly from what I gave you.

What to skip in dental practices

  • Anything with protected health information in it. Do not paste patient names, dates of birth, chart numbers, radiographs, or exports from your practice management software into claude.ai on a Free, Pro, Max, or Team plan. Anthropic's Business Associate Agreement covers HIPAA-ready services such as Claude Enterprise with HIPAA compliance activated by the Primary Owner, and the first-party API, and those consumer plans sit outside that coverage. Work from de-identified summaries and templates until a signed BAA is actually in place.
  • Clinical diagnosis and treatment decisions. Claude is not a medical device and is not cleared for diagnosis. Do not ask it to read a radiograph, stage periodontal disease, choose between restorative options, or decide whether a tooth is restorable. The dentist diagnoses and the dentist owns the plan. Claude only helps explain a plan a clinician already made.
  • Sending anything to a patient or a carrier unread. Post-op instructions, appeal narratives, and treatment explanations all carry professional liability, and a draft that reads well can still be wrong. A licensed clinician approves every word before it leaves the office.

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Or answer four questions and Claude writes three workflows for your specific business rather than the industry generally.

Before you try it

More for dental practices

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