How an AI Dental Scribe Saves Us 1–2 Hours Every Day
Dr. John Persson, DDS
Co-Founder
If you're a dentist or a hygienist, you already know the feeling. You finish a full day of clinical work, and then the real work starts: catching up on documentation. Writing up every exam, every procedure, every conversation. By the time you're done, the day feels twice as long as it should.
That's why we built Sugarbot Notes. We didn't build it because we saw a market opportunity. We built it because we needed it ourselves.
The documentation problem is real
Doing notes between patients slows down the schedule and takes your head out of the clinical work. Doing them at the end of the day means you're trying to remember details from eight hours ago while running on fumes. Important details get missed or simplified.
What an AI dental scribe actually does
Sugarbot Notes listens in the background during your patient encounters. You don't change anything about the way you practice. Talk to your patient, do your exam, explain the treatment plan. When you're done, Sugarbot has a structured clinical note ready for you to review: history, findings, assessment, and plan.
You can also dictate to it after the fact. Walk out of the operatory, talk through what you did, and the note gets written up. Think of it like having a really good scribe who never calls in sick and never asks you to repeat yourself.
It also generates plain language after visit summaries for patients, which has been a nice bonus we didn't originally plan for. Patients actually read them.
We use it in our own practices
This is the part I think matters most. We're not a tech company that decided to build something for dentists. We're dentists who got frustrated enough to build something for ourselves. Chris and I both use Sugarbot Notes every single day in our own practices. When something doesn't work well, we feel it firsthand and fix it.
The notes come out the way a dentist would actually write them, because a dentist designed the output. No weird formatting. No unnecessary jargon that sounds like a textbook. Just clean, structured documentation that's ready to review and sign.
Privacy and setup
A lot of dentists ask us about HIPAA, and rightfully so. All data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Notes are stored locally on your device. We don't keep patient data on our servers.
Getting started is simple. Most people begin by recording with their phone during appointments. That's it. No integration with your practice management software required. When the note is ready, you copy and paste it into your existing system. Down the road, a USB microphone at your workstation gives you an even smoother experience, but it's not necessary to get going.
What 1–2 hours back looks like
For me, it meant being home earlier to spend time with my wife and son. For some of our users, it means fitting in a few more patients per day. For others, it's just less stress at the end of a long day knowing the notes are already done.
Sugarbot Notes is $99 a month. If you want to see what it looks like or try it for free, reach out and we'll walk you through it. No pressure, no sales pitch. Just dentists talking to dentists.