Open Dental stays your practice management system and your chart. Digital Fax uses the same real-time sync connection as the rest of Intake.Dental: Open Dental's published API, served by the eConnector on your own server. There is no direct database access and nothing to install on your workstations. A filed fax becomes an ordinary document in the patient's Imaging module, so it stays in Open Dental if you stop using us. We also keep an encrypted copy of every fax on our side.
Inbound faxes go to a fax number set up for your practice and land in the Digital Fax inbox in your dashboard. The PDF is stored, encrypted, before anything else happens, so even a fax the AI can't read is kept for your team. The office can get an email for each new fax with its type, a one-line summary and a link into the dashboard. The email never carries the PDF, and it names the patient only when the match was confirmed against your own records. Junk and broadcast faxes are archived and don't trigger an email.
Each fax is read as a document, including low-quality scans. It's given a type, a summary of who sent it and what it asks the office to do, and the patient it is about. The patient is matched automatically only when the last name and date of birth on the fax match exactly one patient in your records. Anything weaker stays a suggestion, and your team picks the patient. The AI is told never to guess a date of birth.
Your team confirms the patient and clicks File. The PDF is uploaded into that patient's Imaging module, in a folder chosen by fax type and found by name in your own Imaging setup: referrals and records requests go to Letters, insurance benefits and EOBs go to Insurance, medical clearances and prescriptions go to Medical History, lab slips go to Lab Slips, and invoices go to Financial. Each type has fallback folders such as Patient Information or Miscellaneous. If none of those folders exists in your office, the fax is not dropped into whatever folder comes first. It stays saved in Intake.Dental and the chart note says so. A commlog note is written to the same chart, for example: "Fax from (760) 555-0100 (referral) filed to Imaging > Letters", followed by the summary.
If you also use insurance verification: when a benefits check can't be settled electronically, verification asks the payer to fax the benefits breakdown. When that fax comes back, it's read into per-procedure coverage rows for the patient: coverage percentage, copay, whether the deductible applies, frequency, waiting period and age limits, where the payer printed them. When your team approves it, the PDF is filed into the patient's Imaging > Insurance folder, with a commlog note naming the payer and how many coverage rows were recorded. If two patient records share the same chart number, nothing is filed to either chart.
Turn on Digital Fax in the dashboard and we set up a fax number for your practice. If you want to keep your current fax number in use, have your phone carrier forward it to the new one. If your office is already connected to Open Dental through us (an API key pasted into Open Dental's API setup, with the eConnector running), filing into Imaging needs no extra setup. It uses the Imaging folder names your office already has, so check that folders like Letters, Insurance and Lab Slips exist. Digital Fax is a $99.99/month add-on, and it's included in Practice Autopilot and AI Dental Office. A BAA is signed before any patient data moves, and faxes are stored encrypted.
File them from the Digital Fax inbox. Faxes arrive as PDFs on your practice's fax number, AI sorts them and matches them to the patient, and one click uploads the PDF into that patient's Imaging module in the folder that matches the fax type. Nobody prints, scans or drags a file into the chart.
It depends on the fax type. Referrals and records requests go to Letters. Insurance benefits and EOBs go to Insurance. Medical clearances and prescriptions go to Medical History. Lab slips go to Lab Slips. Invoices and statements go to Financial. Anything else goes to Letters or Miscellaneous. Folders are found by name in your own Imaging setup, and each type has fallbacks. If none of them exists, the fax is not uploaded and stays in Intake.Dental, so it never lands in an unrelated folder.
Only when it's sure. A fax is matched automatically when the last name and date of birth printed on it match exactly one patient in your records. Otherwise the AI's reading of the name is shown as a hint, and your team picks the patient before filing. Nothing goes into a chart until someone on your team clicks File.
It says where the PDF is. A typical commlog reads "Fax from (760) 555-0100 (referral) filed to Imaging > Letters", then the one-line summary. If the upload failed, the note says the fax is saved in Intake.Dental and not yet in Imaging, so nobody goes looking for a document that isn't there.
The fax is still saved to the patient in Intake.Dental, and the note says it isn't in Imaging yet. There is no automatic retry. File the fax again once Open Dental is back to add it to Imaging. Filing again is safe.
No, as long as the document's description in Imaging still contains its fax reference, such as [fax 7a1b2c3d]. Before uploading, the whole chart is checked for that reference. If someone renames the document and removes it, a later re-file can add a second copy.
Yes. Send a PDF from the dashboard with a cover page and see whether it was delivered. Faxes go out from your practice's own fax number, so replies come back to your inbox. If the practice doesn't have a number of its own yet, the send is refused rather than going out under someone else's number.
When a payer faxes back a benefits breakdown that verification asked for, it's read into per-procedure coverage rows for that patient. After your team approves it, the PDF goes into the patient's Imaging > Insurance folder with a commlog note. The coverage rows live in Intake.Dental. Nothing is written to the plan's benefit grid in Open Dental.
No. Uploading into the chart is built for Open Dental only. On other practice software, the fax is saved to the patient's documents in Intake.Dental, and where your system accepts notes from us, a chart note points to it.
No. A fax often names a patient and a condition, so the notification email carries only the fax type, a one-line summary and a link into the dashboard, which needs a login. The patient is named only when the match was confirmed against your own records.
If your Open Dental office still prints faxes, scans them and drags them into Imaging, this removes those steps. Faxes arrive on your own number, AI sorts and summarizes them and matches the patient when it's sure, and one click files the PDF into the right Imaging folder with a commlog note. Insurance benefit faxes also fill in your coverage table. Open Dental stays your chart.
Open Dental is a trademark of Open Dental Software, Inc. Intake.Dental is an independent product and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Open Dental Software, Inc.
Your practice gets its own fax number, and every fax that comes in lands in an inbox in your dashboard instead of on the fax tray. AI reads each one, sorts it (referral, records request, insurance benefits, EOB, medical clearance, prescription, lab slip, invoice), writes a one-line summary, and matches it to the patient when the name and date of birth printed on the fax point to exactly one patient. Junk faxes are archived on arrival. When your team files a fax, the PDF is uploaded into that patient's Imaging module in Open Dental, in the folder that matches the fax type, and a commlog note says where it went. You can also send faxes from the dashboard and see whether they were delivered. Open Dental stays your chart and your system of record.
