A dental appointment is everything said, and everything seen.
Almost none of it gets written down.
All of this is said, and seen, every day, in every practice.
The problem
of dental insurance claims are denied on first submission — and weak documentation is a leading, fixable cause. Clerri, US 2025
per week that dentists spend on clinical documentation — charting, perio measurements, treatment narratives. Time that competes directly with care. vendor estimate
of US outpatient medicine already uses ambient AI documentation. Dentistry hasn’t had its moment — partly because a dental operatory is a harder room to listen to. Becker’s, 2026
We think the recording should never leave the room it was made in.
05 · the consultation
A scripted appointment from our test corpus — a composite restoration on the lower left first molar. Drag through it. Words surface from the sound, and at the moments that matter a precise still is kept. Both are what a note is made of — and both stay in the practice.
stills kept at the moments that matter —
they stay in the practice
That audio never left your device. Neither does a patient’s.
Opt-in only. Your microphone drives the waveform above via a local analyser — no recording, no storage, no network. Revoke any time.
06 · the procedure
As the restoration proceeds — anaesthetic, rubber dam, caries removal, composite in layers, occlusion check — the system listens continuously and keeps precise schematic stills at the moments that matter. Everything captured stays in the practice.
this is how everyone else does it.
The recording never leaves the room.
1 · in the room
Sound and imagery exist only inside the practice. Both are processed on a device in the room.
2 · at the boundary
The audio is destroyed here. It never crosses. Only text continues.
3 · the cloud
Receives words, never sound. Drafts a note a clinician must sign.
08 · what crossed: text
The same appointment, now on the cool side of the line. Hover any line — the highlighting is the real extraction lexicon from our proof-of-concept, not a mock-up.
S
Attended for planned restoration of the 36; caries diagnosed at previous examination. Asked about discomfort; reassured. No spontaneous pain reported.
O
Two-surface occluso-mesial caries, 36. Caries deeper than radiograph suggested; close to, but clear of, the pulp. 37 sound — not treated.
A
Deep occluso-mesial caries 36, pulp not exposed. Restorable.
P
Local anaesthetic (lignocaine). Rubber dam. Caries removal complete. Etch, bond, composite resin shade A3 placed in layers and cured. Occlusion checked and adjusted. Post-op: transient thermal sensitivity expected; lingering ache is the review trigger. No chewing on that side until numbness resolves (2–3 hours).
FDI odontogram
Nothing becomes the record until a clinician signs it. Not a preference — the reason this is documentation software and not a medical device.
the page will not continue until this is signed — that is the point
11 · the audit trail
Everything that happened to that note, in order, forever. Try to change one.
append-only.
Clinical text is processed and stored in Australia. That isn’t an advantage we claim — it’s the table stakes for practising here, and we treat it that way.
13 · the architecture
Optilic
Clinical documentation for dentistry, built so the recording never leaves the practice.
We’re early — researching, not selling. If that boundary matters to
your practice, write to us:
operations@optilic.com