Why 38% of Calls Go Unanswered & Its Revenue Impact

Research spanning over a decade shows that dental practices fail to answer approximately 30–38% of incoming calls during business hours. Not after hours. During business hours — when the office is open, the front desk is staffed, and patients are calling to book.

That number comes from multiple independent studies across the dental industry. It's consistent across practice sizes, markets, and years. And it represents one of the largest hidden revenue leaks in dentistry — because most of those callers don't leave a voicemail. They call the next practice on Google.

Why the Calls Go Unanswered

The front desk isn't ignoring the phone. They're doing five other things when it rings.

The morning rush. Between 8 and 10 AM, front desk staff are checking in patients, confirming same-day appointments, handling insurance verifications, and answering questions from the clinical team. When two calls come in simultaneously, one goes to voicemail.

Lunch hour. Patients call during their own lunch break — which is exactly when your front desk takes theirs. Coverage gaps during 12–1 PM are one of the most consistent sources of missed calls.

Multi-tasking overload. The front desk is simultaneously a receptionist, a scheduler, a billing coordinator, an insurance verifier, and a patient greeter. When a patient is standing at the window and the phone rings, the patient at the window wins. The caller gets voicemail.

After-hours demand. This is the biggest category most practices don't even count. Patients search for dentists in the evening, on weekends, and during lunch breaks. If your office closes at 5 PM, every call after 5 PM is a missed call — and those calls are generated by the marketing you're paying for around the clock.

None of this is a failure of effort. It's a structural mismatch between when patients call and when your team can answer.

How many calls is your practice missing right now?Book a free DentalBase demo — we'll show you your current call answer rate and estimated missed-call revenue.

What Happens When a Call Goes Unanswered

Most practices assume the patient will leave a voicemail and call back. The data says otherwise.

Industry research shows only about 14% of new patients leave a voicemail when their call goes unanswered. The other 86% hang up and move on — usually to the next practice in the Google results. They're not loyal to you yet. They're in research mode. They called because they were ready to book, and when nobody answered, they booked somewhere else.

The math on that behavior is brutal:

That's $27,000/month in first-year revenue — from new patients alone — walking out the door because nobody picked up the phone. Over a year, that's $324,000.

The Existing Patient Cost Nobody Counts

New patients get all the attention in missed-call math. But the other 60% of your missed calls are existing patients — calling to schedule hygiene, ask about a treatment plan, reschedule an appointment, or handle an emergency.

When an existing patient calls and can't get through, they don't always leave. But their behavior changes. They postpone the hygiene visit. They delay the crown they were finally ready for. They stop thinking of your practice as responsive. Over time, some drift — they see another practice's ad, try them, and never come back.

The lifetime value of an existing dental patient runs $7,000–$10,000. You don't lose all of that from one missed call. But you chip away at it — one unanswered call, one postponed appointment, one "I'll call back later" that never happens. If even 5 existing patients per month quietly drift because they can't reach you, that's $35,000–$50,000 in lifetime value eroding annually.

For a deeper breakdown of how missed calls compound across your marketing funnel, see What a $3,000/Month Marketing Spend Actually Produces.

When the Calls Are Missing

Missed calls don't distribute evenly. They cluster around predictable windows:

The after-hours category is the most overlooked. Your Google Ads run 24/7. Your website is live 24/7. A patient Googles "dental implant consultation" at 8:30 PM, finds your site, and calls. Nobody answers. They call another practice tomorrow morning — one that answered tonight.

Every after-hours call is a call your marketing paid to generate and your practice failed to capture.

Your ads don't stop at 5 PM. Your phones shouldn't either.Book a free DentalBase demo →

Why Voicemail Doesn't Fix This

86% don't leave a message. The call is over. The patient is gone.

For the 14% who do: you call back hours later. They're at work. You leave a message. They call back during your lunch rush. You miss the call again. The conversion rate for voicemail callbacks is dramatically lower than for calls answered live.

Voicemail sends a message about your practice. A new patient calling for the first time reaches voicemail. Their first impression of your practice — before they've ever walked in — is "nobody answered." For most, it's the last.

How DentiVoice Eliminates the 38%

DentiVoice is an AI receptionist built specifically for this problem. It answers every call your front desk can't — during the morning rush, lunch hour, end of day, after hours, and weekends. Not voicemail. Not an answering service. An AI receptionist that knows your schedule, your providers, and your appointment types.

Here's what changes:

Answer rate goes from 62% to near 100%. Every call reaches either your front desk or DentiVoice. No more voicemail. No more hang-ups. No more patients lost to the next Google result.

Calls convert to booked appointments in real time. DentiVoice doesn't take a message and promise a callback. It checks your PMS for availability, offers specific time slots, and books the appointment — Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Open Dental, or Curve. The patient hangs up with a confirmed appointment and a text confirmation.

The source is tagged automatically. Every call DentiVoice handles is logged with the campaign source — Google Ads, organic search, recall text, or direct. No intake form. No "how did you hear about us?" Just automatic attribution written to the patient record.

Your front desk isn't replaced. DentiVoice handles overflow and after-hours. During business hours, your team answers the phone as usual. DentiVoice catches what falls through — the second simultaneous call, the lunch-break caller, the 5:15 PM inquiry.

Here's what that looks like on a typical Tuesday:

9:14 AM — Two calls arrive simultaneously. Front desk takes one, DentiVoice takes the other. DentiVoice books a hygiene appointment for an existing patient and sends a confirmation text. The front desk never knew the second call happened.

12:35 PM — Front desk is at lunch. A new patient calls after clicking a Google Ad for teeth whitening. DentiVoice answers, explains the whitening consultation process, checks the PMS for Thursday availability, and books the appointment. Tags the source as Google Ads – whitening campaign.

8:47 PM — A patient who's been thinking about implants for months finally decides to call. Office is closed. DentiVoice answers, books an implant consultation for next Wednesday, and sends a text confirmation. Without DentiVoice, that patient hits voicemail, doesn't leave a message, and calls another practice tomorrow morning.

Three calls. Three booked appointments. Zero involvement from the front desk. Total revenue impact: one hygiene visit ($200), one whitening consultation ($350), one implant consultation ($4,200). All from calls that would have gone to voicemail.

Same phone number. Same marketing budget. Same front desk team. The only change is that every call gets answered.

"Practice owners don't realize the size of the leak until they see the before-and-after numbers," says Jordan, DentalBase's Head of Sales. "When you go from missing a third of your calls to missing zero, the revenue impact is immediate and obvious."

Calculate Your Own Missed Call Cost

Plug in your practice's actual numbers. If you don't know your call volume, your phone system or PMS can provide it — or ask us during a demo and we'll pull it for you.

The formula:

Monthly inbound calls
× Miss rate (%)
= Missed calls per month

Missed calls per month
× % that are new patients (est. 30–40%)
= Missed new patient calls

Missed new patient calls
× (1 – voicemail return rate of 14%)
= New patients lost

New patients lost
× Average first-year patient value
= Monthly revenue lost from missed calls

Example with your numbers filled in:

Now run the same numbers with DentiVoice answering every missed call:

DentiVoice subscription pays for itself with the first few booked calls each month. Everything after that is recovered revenue.

Want us to run these numbers for your practice?Book a free DentalBase demo — we'll pull your actual call volume, calculate your missed-call cost, and show you the projected recovery with DentiVoice.

The Unanswered 38% Is a Choice

Every practice has this leak. The question is whether you measure it or ignore it.

The 38% isn't caused by bad employees or lazy front desks. It's caused by a structural mismatch: patients call when they're ready, not when your team is available. Morning rush, lunch hour, after hours, weekends — these are the windows when demand peaks and coverage gaps are widest. Voicemail doesn't close the gap. It just makes the leak invisible.

DentiVoice makes it visible and eliminates it. Every call answered. Every appointment booked in real time. Every source tagged.

The practices that fix this don't spend more on marketing. They don't hire more staff. They just stop letting the phone ring into voicemail.