You blocked the week for the AAO Annual Session, booked the flights, and brought your treatment coordinator and front desk along for the CE and the exhibit hall. It's worth it — the clinical sessions and the technology you can only evaluate in person. But the phone at your practice doesn't pause while you're gone. A parent calls Tuesday about a loose bracket, hits voicemail, and the consult you spent marketing dollars to earn books with the ortho office across town. Every day your team is at the meeting, the schedule back home quietly leaks new-patient consults and active-treatment calls. The session fills your notebook; the silent front desk empties your calendar.
What the AAO Annual Session is
The Annual Session of the American Association of Orthodontists is the largest gathering of orthodontists in the country — a multi-day meeting built around clinical continuing education, hands-on courses, a large exhibit hall, and association programming for the orthodontic specialty. Orthodontists, treatment coordinators, clinical assistants, and office managers attend to earn CE, evaluate aligner systems, brackets, imaging, and practice technology, and connect with peers and specialists. (TODO: verify dates/venue.)
Because it's a destination event, ortho practices often send the people who normally answer the phones — the treatment coordinator and front-desk staff who handle new-patient consults, emergency bracket calls, and active-patient scheduling. That's the gap worth closing before you leave: while your team is at the AAO, nobody back home is picking up.
Keep every ortho call answered and booked while you're at the AAO
This is exactly what DentalReception AI for orthodontic practices is built to close. It answers every inbound call in under two rings and books, reschedules, cancels, or triages the appointment live — 24 hours a day, including the days your team is at the Annual Session. It isn't an answering service that takes a message for you to handle from your hotel. It writes the appointment directly into your schedule in Dentrix, Open Dental, Eaglesoft, Curve Dental, or CareStack while the caller is still on the line.
So the parent calling about a new Invisalign consult gets booked into a real open slot instead of voicemail. The active-treatment patient who needs to move an adjustment gets it moved. The after-hours bracket emergency gets captured and routed by the rules you set. You come home to a fuller consult book, not a stack of missed-call notifications.
| While your team is at the AAO | Without coverage | With DentalReception AI |
|---|---|---|
| New consult call during a session | Voicemail, often no callback | Answered and booked live into your schedule |
| Adjustment reschedule | Sits until you're back | Handled on the call, slot updated |
| After-hours bracket emergency | Generic recording | Captured and routed per your rules |
| Monday-spike call volume | Busy signal or hold | Answered in under two rings |
Industry studies put missed calls at roughly a quarter to a third of inbound volume on a normal week — and an ortho consult lost is high-value revenue gone. See how qualifying Invisalign leads works, or book a demo before you pack.
Setup before you travel
There's no new hardware and nothing to install at the booth. You forward your practice line to DentalReception AI, connect your scheduling system, and set the rules for how calls should be handled while you're out — which providers are bookable, how emergencies route, what to say about hours. It runs the same whether you have one location or twenty. Flat monthly pricing means no per-minute meter while you're away; see the pricing page. HIPAA compliant, with a signed BAA available (TODO: confirm).
Frequently asked questions
Will DentalReception AI book consults while my whole team is at the AAO?
Yes — that's the scenario it's built for. When your treatment coordinator and front desk are both at the Annual Session, DentalReception AI answers every call in under two rings and books, reschedules, or cancels live during the call. It writes directly into your schedule in Dentrix, Open Dental, Eaglesoft, Curve Dental, or CareStack, so you return to a real, updated consult book rather than a voicemail box. New-patient consult callers get booked into open slots the moment they call, instead of dialing the next ortho office.
How are bracket and appliance emergencies handled while we're away?
DentalReception AI captures the caller's situation — a loose bracket, a poking wire, lost aligners — and routes it according to the rules you set up in advance, such as flagging urgent calls or relaying details to your on-call provider. It does not diagnose or make clinical decisions; it gathers information and routes it to your team. For genuine medical emergencies, callers are always directed to call 911. You decide the routing logic before you travel, so emergency calls during the AAO follow your protocol, not a generic recording.
Do I need to set anything up at the conference?
No. All setup happens before you leave. You forward your main practice number to DentalReception AI, connect your scheduling system, and configure how calls should be handled — bookable providers, emergency routing, hours messaging. Once that's done, nothing needs your attention from the show floor. There's no hardware to bring and no app to babysit between sessions. You walk the exhibit hall knowing the phone is covered, then review a clean log of every call and booking when you're back.
Is this only worth it for the conference, or year-round?
Year-round. The AAO is a clear moment when coverage gaps spike, but ortho practices miss calls every week — at lunch, after hours, and during Monday surges. DentalReception AI answers all of those the same way it answers conference-week calls. Many practices start it for a specific event or staffing gap and keep it running because it pays for itself in recovered consults. Pricing is a flat monthly subscription, so the cost is the same whether you're at the meeting or at the office.