Best Dental Software UK: Top 10 For 2023

There’s a lot that goes into running a dental practice. Appointment scheduling, charting, treatment planning, keeping track of patient records, and ensuring effective patient communication are all crucial but time consuming and tedious tasks. Thankfully, the best UK dental software can help with all that and more, allowing you to focus on patient care and growing your practice.

However, there’s a lot of choice when it comes to dental practice management software and it can be hard to work out which is right for you. To help, we’ve selected and reviewed the top 10 options (including top-notch cloud-based dental software). Our top overall pick is Software4dentists, but the likes of Pearl Dental Software and iSmile also have plenty to offer. Read on for in-depth reviews of the top dental management tools in 2023.

Best Dental Software UK: Our Top Pick

Our thorough research process clearly identified Software4dentists as the best overall UK dental software. It’s a great fit for most dental practices, is reasonably priced and makes it much easier to run your dental business.

Best Dental Software UK: Top 10 For 2023

Before we dive into our in-depth dental software reviews, here’s our selection of the best dental management software in the UK:

1. Software4dentists: Best Overall Dental Software UK
2. Pearl Dental Software: Best Cloud-Based Dental Software
3. Dentally: Best Dental Software For Data Security
4. Systems For Dentists: Best Dental Software For Self-Check-Ins
5. iSmile: Best Dental Software With A Mobile App
6. Shire Dental: Best Dental Software For Automated Billing
7. Dental Plus: Best Dental Software For Free Updates
8. Software of Excellence: Best Dental Software For Integrations
9. Dentsys: Best Dental Software For Beginners
10. DenGro: Best Dental Software For CRM

Best Dental Practice Management Software: Reviewed

Eager to learn more about the best dental software programs? Our detailed reviews of each of the top 10 dental software tackle features, pricing, pros and cons so you can easily work out which tool is right for your practice.

1. Software4dentists: Best Overall Dental Software UK

Software4dentists has over 20 years of experience in UK dental software and created Bridge-IT to meet the needs of UK dental practices and help them operate in a smarter, more efficient way.

They offer a cloud-based system that allows you to access patient records from anywhere, a mobile app that lets your patients enter their info digitally at home or while traveling to the practice, and a virtual waiting room so you can effortlessly track how long each patient has been waiting.

You also get everything you’d expect from modern dental practice software, including an online appointment book, patient charting, treatment planning and an integrated billing system.

With tons of glowing customer reviews backing up its claims and a 60-day free trial, try Software4Dentists for yourself now and you’ll see why we think they’re the #1 UK dental software in 2023.

Best Features

Here is what we love about Software4dentists:

• Electronic Forms: One of the first requisites of going paperless is to digitize forms. Software4dentists helps you create electronic forms to record patient information securely in its server.
• Online Appointment Booking: Why make your patients come down to the clinic to book an appointment when you can have them do so from the comfort of their homes. You can also customize the online booking portal to match your brand’s theme.
• Appointment Diary: Creating the schedule for the day is extremely easy with Software4dentists’s appointment diary. Drag and drop appointment requests under the concerned dentists to plan your day quicker.
• Virtual Waiting Room: Find out which patients have been waiting and for how long using the green, amber, and red waiting room signal feature.

Pricing

Here are the plans offered by Software4dentists:

Local:

• Solo: £35/month (for a single surgery or reception desk)
• Startup: £45/surgery/month + £25/reception desk/month (for smaller practices, up to 2,500 patients)
• Standard: £55/surgery/month + £35/reception desk/month (for established practices, up to 5,o00 patients)
• Unlimited: £65/surgery/month + £45/reception desk/month (for large practices, unlimited number of patients)

Cloud:

• Solo: £40/month (for a single surgery or reception desk)
• Startup: £50/surgery/month + £30/reception desk (for smaller practices, up to 2,500 patients)
• Standard: £60/surgery/month + £40/reception desk (for established practices, up to 5,o00 patients)
• Unlimited: £70/surgery/month + £50/reception desk (for large practices, unlimited number of patients)

Pros

Cons

2. Pearl Dental Software: Best Cloud-Based Dental Software

Pearl Dental Software is specially designed for independent practitioners. Its features are flexible and adaptive yet powerful enough to help individuals, as well as small to medium-size clinics, improve their management. 

One of the best things about Pearl Dental Software is that it is compliant with all UK dental practice rules and laws, ensuring you never get into any legal trouble for using this tool.

Best Features

Here is what we love about Pearl Dental Software:

• Cloud Access: Keep your data stored safely in the cloud and bid adieu to late nights at work. Access everything you need from the comfort of your home or anywhere else in the world.
• Automated Reminders: Need someone to set up reminders for your upcoming appointments? Take the burden off your assistant by setting automated reminders with Pearl Dental Software.
• Patient History: Every patient tags along tons of paperwork and medical history. Why stuff your desk with stacks of papers when you can store all patient records digitally.
• Tablet Integration: You cannot truly go digital if you still need a pen and paper to sign documents. That’s why Pearl Dental Software offers seamless tablet integration to simplify digital signatures. 

Pricing

Pearl Dental Software reveals its pricing only on request.

Pros

Cons

3. Dentally: Best Dental Software For Data Security

Dentally has been recognized as one of the leading dental practice management software. It helps you streamline your work, prioritize accordingly and free up your valuable time to focus on things that actually matter. The tool is trusted by over 18,000 dental practitioners all around the world. 

What we really like about Dentally is its versatility. The software works for independent dentists, NHS practitioners, mixed practice as well as clinics with multiple forms of dental practice.

Best Features

Here is what we love about Dentally:

• Data Security: Dentally is committed to maintaining the integrity of your patient’s information. That’s why it offers automated backups and full encryption for every piece of information you upload.
• Easy Integration: Seamlessly integrate with third-party apps for accounting or marketing using Dentally’s flexible API.
• Quick Search: Whethe you’re looking for information on your patient’s history, appointments, or accounts; find everything you need in a click with Dentally’s quick search technology.
• Patient Management: Dentally simplifies managing your patients with features like self-check-in, payment link generation, and digitized patient records. 

Pricing

Here are the plans offered by Dentally:

• Basic: £50/surgery/month
• Standard: £84/surgery/month
• Advanced: £108/surgery/month

Pros

Cons

4. Systems For Dentists: Best Dental Software For Self-Check-Ins

Systems For Dentists was launched in 1987, and the tool has been offering world-class dental management services to dentists across the United Kingdom and Ireland ever since.

From managing your patient information and experience to helping you run your team of dentists efficiently, Systems For Dentists takes care of everything a dental clinic can possibly need. 

Since the tool was developed in close consultation with dentists, nurses, and practitioners, you can be assured of getting flawless services at every stage.

Best Features

Here is what we love about Systems For Dentists:

• Online Back-Up: Don’t want to lose crucial patient information? Get regular back-ups with Systems For Dentists. Set your hours for daily backup at your own convenience.
• Self Check-in: Don’t take the additional responsibility of checking in your patients; use Systems For Dentists’ self-check-in kiosk feature instead. It will help your patients manage their own appointments.
• Postal Code Finder: Not sure about your patient’s address? Use Systems For Dentists’ postal code finder to quickly zero in on where they stay.
• SMS Reminders: Emailing is not always the best way to reach out to your patients. That’s why Systems For Dentists has integrated an SMS feature in their tool to simplify communication with patients.

Pricing 

Systems For Dentists does not reveal its pricing on its website. Get in touch with its sales team for a custom quote.

Pros

Cons

 

5. iSmile: Best Dental Software With A Mobile App

Managing patients, patient records, and the managerial side of a dental clinic might seem like an uphill task, but not with iSmile.

The tool is best known for its comprehensive dental management features that make it easy to manage a dental clinic, irrespective of whether you are an independent practitioner or a corporation. 

Unlike most tools, iSmile offers a discovery call feature wherein you get a free information pack on the tool. You can also book a free demo with the team to know the tool better. 

Best Features

Here is what we love about iSmile:

• Auto SMS & Email: Tired of sending countless messages and emails to your patients manually? Use iSmile’s automated SMS and email feature to send out appointment reminders automatically. 
• Responsive Mobile App: Don’t want to stick to your laptop screen all day long? Get your work done on the go using iSmile’s responsive mobile app.
• Diary Management: An updated online diary helps users check their responsibilities and upcoming events for the day, week, or even month in advance. After all, better planning leads to better execution.
• Surgery Live: Surgery Live is a unique feature under which you get notified anytime a patient reaches your practice and helps you track them throughout their appointment.

Pricing 

Here are the plans offered by iSmile:

• 1 User: Year 1 @ £160+vat per month| Year 2+ @ £60+vat per month
• 2 User: Year 1 @ £190+vat per month| Year 2+ @ £90+vat per month
• 3 User: Year 1 @ £220+vat per month| Year 2+ @ £120+vat per month
• 4 User: Year 1 @ £250+vat per month| Year 2+ @ £150+vat per month
• 5+ User: Year 1 @ £280+vat per month| Year 2+ @ £180+vat per month

Pros

Cons

6. Shire Dental: Best Dental Software For Automated Billing

Shire Dental stands out from its peers, particularly due to the expertise of its founders; the creative minds behind Shire Dental have been dealing with dental management since 1987.

The tool is usually available in a computer system wherein the company takes care of the installation and setup. For independent dentists, they also offer software that can easily integrate with your existing system.

Best Features

Here is what we love about Shire Dental:

• Automatic Billing: Don’t have an accountant to look after the bills? Use Shire Dental’s automated billing feature to generate patient bills in a jiffy. 
• Treatment Plans: One of the biggest issues dentists face is finding a system to store long-term treatment plans. After all, you cannot afford to compromise the treatment timeline of a patient. Shire Dental is your best bet if you are keen on securely storing treatment plans. 
• Email or SMS Booking: If you want to make booking appointments easier for your patients, Shire Dental’s SMS or email booking feature will be your friend.
• E-signature: If you want to genuinely go paperless, Shire Dental can help you with document management and authentication through e-signatures. 

Pricing

Shire Dental offers flat pricing at £36 + VAT per month for one surgery; additional surgeries come at £18 + VAT per month.

Pros

Cons

7. Dental Plus: Best Dental Software For Free Updates

If you are looking for an affordable solution to be in total control of your dental practice 24×7, try Dental Plus. The tool was designed for dentists by dentists, which makes it capable of serving any need you might have in your day-to-day clinic duties. 

One of the best things about Dental Plus is that it helps you get acquainted with the tool through a comprehensive training session. Not only that, but you will also get all the help you need from their friendly customer support team.

Best Features

Here is what we love about Dental Plus:

• Free Updates: Dental Plus has a flat licensing fee which remains constant throughout and its updates are always automatic and free.
• Appointment Maintenance: Dental Plus allows you to color-code your appointments and choose your own style to make keeping records of books easier and fun.
• Online Payments: Make appointment bookings simpler by using Dental Plus’s online booking and payment feature. Let your patients fill in all the details and make payments online. 
• Customizable: Want your dental management solution to match your personal tone? Admins on Dental Plus get the privilege to customize the entire tool interface as per their needs. 

Pricing

Dental Plus does not reveal its pricing upfront. Get in touch with its sales team to request a quote.

Pros

Cons

8. Software Of Excellence: Best Dental Software For Integrations

If you are looking for a reliable dental management software that is trusted by thousands and has an impeccable service record, try Software of Excellence.

The tool has been helping countless dentists manage their workflow for the past 30 years. The best part? You can also get on a discovery call with one of their experts before opting for a paid plan. 

Best Features

Here is what we love about Software of Excellence:

• Patient Portal: Patients love to have control over services concerning them. Give them 100% freedom through a dedicated patient portal powered by Software of Excellence.
• Patient Record Capture: Want to streamline your reception work? Integrate Software of Excellence with CliniPad to capture patient information instantly.
• Business Insights: Software of Excellence also integrates with MyPractice Cloud to give you real-time insights into your clinic’s business and make the right decisions.
• Excellent Integrations: Software of Excellence offers great integration capacities to turn it into a one-stop solution for dental management. Some of the most popular integrations allowed by Software of Excellence include Examine Pro, CliniPad, and MyPractice Cloud.

Pricing

Software of Excellence reveals its pricing only on request.

Pros

Cons

9. Dentsys: Best Dental Software For Beginners

Dentsys has been helping dentists all around the UK for the last 25 years with its flawless dental management software: Edge. The tool is designed for independent dentists as well as dental clinics of varying sizes.

They have also partnered with the NHS to expand the scope of their management solutions. 

One of the best things about Dentsys is that it is designed keeping both patient and employee needs in mind. This means it looks after your patient-centric processes as well as team management needs. 

Best Features

Here is what we love about Dentsys:

• No Binding Contract: Dentsys does not bind you to their tool; there is no contract to lock you in. Use the tool as long as you want and leave if you want to.
• Free Training: Want a little help to help your team understand the tool better? Dentsys will provide you with free training both online and over the phone.
• Cloud Backups: Get instant offline backups to never lose a single piece of data. The best part is that Dentsys will contact you if the backup is not saved properly. 
• System Purchase: Dentsys is one of the few tools that offer an optional system purchase option in case you don’t have a computer. They can also help you buy the best imaging and x-ray systems for your clinic.

Pricing

Book a free demo or reach out to their sales team to get a custom quote. 

Pros

Cons

10. DenGro: Best Dental Software For CRM

If you are looking for a dedicated CRM tool for your dental business in the UK, DenGro is a must-try. One of the most unique features of DenGro is its marketing automation.

The tool not only looks after your existing patients but also helps you find more patients and book them for treatment. 

This simple yet effective system is perfect for clinics of all sizes. And considering the stellar reviews it has received from existing customers, it will certainly be worth a look.

Best Features

Here is what we love about DenGro:

• Lead Identification: Don’t waste your time sifting through multiple inboxes. Let DenGro pull out leads from your website, social media handles, and emails instantly.
• Lead Notification: Keeping your leads waiting can drive them away. DenGro will send you a notification anytime you get a new lead, or a lead tries to reach out to you.
• Instant Contact: DenGro puts your patient and their needs first. Let them decide the perfect time and date to book their consultations.
• Integrations: Although DenGro has some patient management features, it makes up for its shortcomings by allowing you to integrate tools like Dentally and EXACT.

Pricing

Here are the plans offered by DenGro:

• Growth: £199.00/month/practice
• Pro: £249.00/month/practice 

Pros

Cons

What is Dental Software?

Dental software, or dental practice management software, refers to sophisticated tools dentists use to manage their daily operations at healthcare centers. These tools offer a comprehensive set of relevant features, including scheduling appointments, creating contact databases, storing and sharing documents, reporting, taking patient notes, charting the dental history, and setting treatment plans. 

Besides, these tools can also double up as effective communication platforms for the employees in a dentistry clinic. Some of the advanced tools are even capable of filing insurance claims and tracking them.

Dental professionals and receptionists use these software to manage operations, store information, and carry out administrative tasks. This boosts the overall productivity of the organization. The best dental software comes integrated with accounting or billing tools, ensuring that you can sync your accounts department with the operational one.

To maintain productivity, dental clinics opt for tools that can optimize their processes, reduce time on manual work, and minimize wait time. Powerful dental tools help in centralizing all the information with their comprehensive features. Some of these tools also come with marketing features like optimizing SEO and dispatching newsletters to patients.

Why Should You Use Dental Software?

If you are a dental professional or run a dental clinic, you must reap the benefits of dental practice management software. Here is how these tools can make your life easier:

1. Scheduling Appointments

An organized approach to scheduling appointments with patients and sending them reminders turn out to be productive for dental organizations. Dental tools ensure that you book the right number of appointments and schedule them at the right time. 

The last thing you would want is to find the schedule of multiple patients clashing. Along the same lines, dental clinics would want to accommodate maximum appointments within the available timeframe. Using a powerful dental practice management tool, you can reduce the patients’ wait time, delivering optimal satisfaction to them.

The system will also automate the process of sending reminders to the patients. So, your staff won’t be engaged in performing these time-consuming and repetitive tasks.

2. Planning Patient Treatments

Planning treatment for your patients forms the core of dental practice. With a comprehensive treatment plan, you can mitigate the patients’ discomfort. Besides, it helps you educate the patients too. Unless you educate your patients on the right treatment path, you will experience lower treatment acceptance rates. At times, patients simply discontinue the treatment with a specific clinic as they fail to understand the doctor’s approach.

So, with an effective dental practice management software, you get the opportunity of integrating patient education along with treatment planning. This will result in long-term revenue growth and the credibility of your clinic.

3. Taking Notes and Charting

For dentists, notetaking has always been a challenging pursuit, not to mention that they also need to update them to the respective patients’ charts. It’s imperative to include information under several heads like patient satisfaction, patient education, treatment consent, noncompliance of patients, and charting phone calls.

With a robust dental software, you can keep track of these aspects. These tools can automatically record the patients’ names when the staff signs their charts. Also, you can trace back the information included in the system to its source. The software also updates you about the date and time when it was recorded, keeping the system well-organized and easy to comprehend.

4. Integrating Payments and Billing

As you expand your dental clinic, you will have lots of invoicing and billing tasks to take care of. The accuracy of payment and billing ensures that you can keep track of your accounts. Dentists can focus solely on their core tasks without worrying about the related administrative work. If it were not for dental software, you might face issues such as missed payment reminders, late payments, wrong insurance billing, and wrong auto drafts. 

The most popular dental tools seamlessly integrate with accounting and billing systems. As a result, your administrative staff can take care of the billing tasks professionally. Whether it’s submitting insurance claims or programming automatic systems for payments, they can manage the responsibilities efficiently.

5. Tracking Inventory and Supplies

If you run a dental clinic, you must be aware of the need for disposable and reusable instruments. Dentists and their associates need these instruments in large numbers. These include prescription pads, medicines, pens, stationery, and other accessories. Unless you have a proper system to track these supplies, you may often run into shortages that will only harm your clinic’s reputation.

A reliable dental practice management tool doubles up as a system to track your supplies and inventory, lowering the workload on your staff as the software will take the burden of updating you about the inventory requirements on time.

6. Scheduling Staff

As a dentist clinic owner, you also need to optimize staff availability. This ensures that you have the necessary human resources to treat the patients. With dependable dental software, you can carry out this task with ease. 

Most of these tools come with unique color codes that help segregate the different professionals’ responsibilities. Besides, the tool ensures that you have all the information well-organized to facilitate the treatment of patients.

7. Maintaining Patient Records

A robust dental practice management software goes a long way in streamlining clinical documentation. Maintaining electronic health records in secure cloud systems enhances the accessibility to information. Your staff will be able to access and retrieve the necessary data from the systems, regardless of their location. With remote access to bills, prescriptions, and patient records, you can strengthen your operational processes and maintain transparency.

How to Choose Dental Software?

With hundreds of dental practice management tools claiming to be the best, dental clinics might find it extremely difficult to choose the right software for their needs. Here are some criteria that a tool must fulfill before you give it the green light:

1. Ease of Use

Choose a dental practice management software with an easy interface. This ensures that your staff will be able to use all its features effortlessly. Besides, the software should be accessible on both mobile phones and computers. 

A fast and reliable software will significantly boost your operational system. The staff will be able to carry out the administrative tasks quickly. Moreover, your staff should be able to grasp the software’s features easily. This will ensure that you invest the minimum amount of time and money in training them.

2.  Automation

Most popular dental management tools automate tasks to lower human intervention. When you have several repetitive and mundane tasks on your table, chances are that you might end up compromising your productivity. Automating such tasks will help you focus on other priorities.

For instance, your dental practice management software should be able to accept payments, send payment reminders automatically to patients, flag due payments, and organize patient data. It should also be able to automate information exchange with the insurance department.

3. Data Analytics

With technologies like big data and predictive analytics at your disposal, you can harvest valuable patient data to predict trends. Your dental practice management software should be capable of generating relevant reports and providing you with intelligent insights. This will help you make important decisions when it comes to treating patients.

For instance, a reliable tool will provide you with reports on case acceptance rates, the growth in the number of patients each month, patient retention rates, etc. By evaluating these trends and reports, you can take the necessary measures to strengthen your organization.

4. Intuitive Dashboards

Make sure that your dental tool comes with easy-to-understand and intuitive dashboards. When the administrative staff works under pressure, the last thing they would like is difficulty accessing the system. An intuitive dashboard comes with bright colors, making it easy for your staff to locate different options and features, not to mention that it will also help them understand the data better.

5. Easy Integration

We have already discussed the benefits of integrating your accounting and invoicing systems with your dental software. Therefore, ensure that the dental software you choose for your organization makes it easy to sync these systems. Having the corresponding systems like billing, accounting, and invoicing integrated with the scheduling and administrative tasks ensures that you have a comprehensive platform providing all the necessary data.

6. Reasonable Charges

While it’s true that you need to shell out a sizable amount of money as a subscription fee to access all the features in a reliable dental software, make sure that such charges are worth it. Shortlist the top dental practice management software and scan through their pricing plans. Pick a software with a reasonable fee structure, one that’s within the purview of your clinic’s budget.

Conclusion: What is the Best Dental Software in the UK?

Of all the tools we have discussed and reviewed, we find Software4dentists to be the best dental software in the UK for 2023.

It comes with electronic forms that allow you to record and store patient information on the cloud.

A standout feature of Software4dentists is its 60-day free trial, which is enough time for you to gauge the suitability of the software for your business needs.

Other features include a virtual waiting room, a digital appointment diary, online appointment booking, etc.

FAQs