What is done, stated plainly

What is stored

The plan you attach to a link: items, stages, timing, and fees if you included them. Your note to the patient. The conversation between the patient and the assistant, after de-identification. The flags raised on each conversation. Practice settings, the pages you have edited, and who signed in.

What is removed

Before a conversation is stored, names, dates of birth, phone numbers, email addresses and street addresses are removed. Appointment dates are kept, because they matter to the plan. The patient is asked not to type personal details in the first place.

Who can read what

A practice sees conversations for its own patients and nobody else's. Sign-in needs a username, a password and a code from an authenticator app. Accounts are created by invitation. Roles exist for dentists, hygienists, practice managers and front desk, and one login can belong to more than one practice.

A practice can choose whether de-identified conversations are shared with Chairside to improve the tool. When sharing is on, the patient's page and the assistant both say so. When it is off, they are not shared.

What the patient is told

That nobody reads the chat as it happens. That it is not a way to contact the clinic and cannot book, reschedule or pass on a message. That their dentist may read the conversation later to improve the tool. That they should not type personal details. These are stated on the page, not buried in terms.

What happens in an emergency

The assistant is not monitored, and it says so. If a patient describes pain, swelling, bleeding, trauma or distress, the reply points them to the clinic, an after-hours service, the emergency department, or 000 and Lifeline, early in the reply and before any other content.

The conversation is flagged for the practice to see when it next looks. No one at the practice or at Chairside is notified in real time, and the assistant never says otherwise.

What the assistant will not say

It answers from your practice's published patient information and the patient's plan, and from nothing else. It does not diagnose. It does not propose treatment that is not in the plan. It does not quote or estimate a cost that is not written in the plan. It does not draft messages or emails for the patient to send. When it has nothing on a topic, it says so and the conversation is flagged "no answer".

How content is controlled

Every page the assistant answers from is editable by the practice, one paragraph at a time. A practice's wording outranks the shipped wording. When Chairside changes a default page, the practice's edits stay and the practice is told what changed.

How long links last

A link closes after 90 days without use and is removed 90 days after that. A practice can close or reissue a link at any time. Five wrong codes lock a link.