The Missing Ingredient for Dental Team Cohesion

How Rondah AI Helped an Indiana Dental Team Find their Rhythm and Improve Productivity

Results with Rondah AI

In 2024, Rondah AI teamed up with Lakewood Family Dental, an exceptional dental practice with six locations in Indiana, to provide the automated, AI-driven service their team needed to come together and thrive. 

Partnered with Independence DSO, Lakewood Family Dental provides comprehensive dental care at six Indiana offices. Their teams of skilled dentists and specialists are dedicated to ensuring patients receive the best care in a one-stop shop for any dental procedure. Lakewood prioritizes attention to detail and a compassionate approach, ensuring that each patient receives personalized care.

Rondah sat down with Tabatha Rahn, Regional Manager of Operations at Independence DSO, to discuss why they chose Rondah AI for Lakewood Family Dental, how they implemented the platform, and the ways in which it made their team stronger and their practice more productive.

Finding the Missing Piece

After joining the Independence DSO team in November of 2024, Tabatha Rahn realized what Lakewood Family Dental needed to reach its full potential, explaining:

“We didn't have the right people where they needed to be. We had a great doctor who needed motivation, and a strong team.” 

The folks at Lakewood Family Dental needed a new approach for patient interaction, a system that could supercharge front-office operations and leave the invaluable human team members free to use their skills and improve the experience for medical professionals and patients alike. 

Fortunately, Rondah AI was already up-and-running at other dental practices in the Independence DSO family. Inspired by their success, Rahn quickly looked to follow suit at Lakewood.

“Rondah was operational and showing great results after being introduced in our Florida offices. When they did a pilot there, I paid attention to the results, as well as the feedback. Everything I heard made me think, ‘you know what? I want to try this in one of my practices. So I spoke up and got Rondah installed in the Anderson office,” Rahn says. 

Implementation

Even after seeing the success of Rondah AI at other Independence DSO practices, Rahn opted for a pilot program at the newest Lakewood Family Dental office, to field-test and then implement the new system gradually and safely. 

“We have one practice I like to call my ‘guinea pig office.’ Anytime I want to roll out a new tool like Rondah AI, or the AI-driven treatment plan system I’ll be introducing soon, I always start in the Anderson office because they're so new and open to feedback and experimenting. They're also hungry for business.”

Rahn also elected to limit Rondah AI to after-hours and overflow calls at first, saying,

“We started with the overflow and after-hours calls. It was great for keeping calls from going to a call center or voicemail, knowing patients were in good hands with Rondah AI. Then we could follow up in person to finish scheduling and answer questions. It was immediately so helpful with scheduling.”

It wasn’t long before Rahn had all the data necessary to implement Rondah AI across the entire Lakewood Family Dental portfolio.

“As soon as I got feedback from the Anderson office, we felt confident in going ahead and adding more practices,” she says. “From one clinic, we’ve now introduced Rondah AI to all six.”

Results

After its successful test-run, Rondah AI showed immediate positive results across all Lakewood Family Dental locations. Using Rondah AI over 60 days, Lakewood Family Dental registered 396 new patients, and booked 637 appointments. These new patients have generated an estimated New Patient Lifetime Value (LTV) of $1,188,000.

“Rondah AI has absolutely helped us in so many ways,” says Rahn. “ I love that I can set up each office based on its scheduling needs and Rondah naturally adapts to that. Our patients think Rondah AI is a real person! It helps with staffing, because if we’re short-staffed, we don’t really feel it with Rondah AI handling the phones. And Rondah AI will always answer the phone correctly, and will never be rude because of an off day.”

Rondah AI has been a hit with the Lakewood team.

“The staff hasn’t given me any negative feedback, which has been huge. Instead we’ve only seen suggestions for new opportunities to use the platform. They’ve been very exciting,” says Rahn. The AI platform handles scheduling and basic patient interactions, leaving staff time to handle their other key projects. “Team members still have tons of stuff to do — running insurance, confirmation calls, managing no-shows. 

Rahn sees significant potential in giving Rondah AI new tasks as the platform expands, for example by processing insurance information and reminding patients to bring their insurance cards to appointments, saying,

“I’m looking forward to updating Rondah AI to handle basic insurance tasks.”