X18 + Dentrix: how the integration works for general dental practice
Dentrix is the most-used dental practice management software in North America and a meaningful share of the Australian general-dentistry market. The X18 integration uses Dentrix's appointment-export pipeline to drive cohort-aware review requests without touching clinical records.
What flows between Dentrix and X18
The integration is intentionally minimal — appointment metadata only, no clinical data, no patient health information:
- Patient first name (for personalised message wording — "Hi [name], this is [practice principal]...")
- Patient mobile number (the SMS destination)
- Appointment timestamp (drives the post-appointment timing window)
- Appointment type code (drives the cohort routing — standard check-up vs restoration vs orthodontic vs etc.)
- Practitioner ID (so the message reads as if from the practitioner the patient actually saw)
Clinical notes, x-rays, treatment plans, billing data, and insurance details are not pulled. The integration sits in the appointment-management layer of Dentrix and doesn't touch clinical record APIs.
Cohort routing per appointment type
Different appointment types have different emotional peaks. The integration maps Dentrix appointment-type codes to review-ask windows during onboarding:
- Standard check-up → next-day ask. Patient remembers the visit, response rate high.
- Restoration / filling → 5-day ask. Patient has had time to confirm the restoration feels right.
- Orthodontic adjustment → 2-week ask. Adjustment discomfort has resolved.
- Cosmetic / whitening → 10-day ask. Result settled, patient has seen themselves in different lighting.
- Emergency / pain consult → 3-day ask. Relief confirmed.
- New-patient consult → typically excluded; review request goes after the follow-up treatment visit.
- Paediatric routine → excluded by default; many practices prefer not to ask parents on routine paediatric visits.
Exclusions you control
Patient-level flags in Dentrix propagate to X18 automatically. A patient marked "do not contact", "complaint resolution active", "vulnerable", or similar in Dentrix is excluded from review requests at the appointment level. You can also configure cohort-level exclusions (all paediatric, all emergency, specific practitioners who prefer not to participate).
Setup and time-to-first-request
Typical setup is 7–14 days from sign-off:
- Days 1–3: integration credentials, appointment-type code mapping, message templates drafted in the practice's voice.
- Days 4–7: cohort routing configured, exclusions applied, internal review.
- Days 8–14: first review requests go live in shadow mode for 2–3 days, then activate fully.
First reviews typically land within hours of activation. Sustained velocity of 50–100 new reviews per month is the typical baseline for an established general dental practice.
What happens if you migrate from Dentrix later
Voice tuning, message templates, exclusion rules, and historical review data move with you to the new PMS. The integration mechanism switches (Dentrix → Eaglesoft, Open Dental, Praktika, Best Practice, etc.). The engine's behaviour to patients stays identical.
On Dentrix? Let's wire it up.
Fifteen minutes. We walk through your Dentrix configuration, your appointment-type mapping, and the 90-day picture.
Book a 15-minute strategy call →
Leeor Meirovitz
Leeor's spent the last few years inside hundreds of independent vet clinics across the AU, NZ, UK, US, CA, TH, and PH markets — what actually moves Google ranking, what corporate chains can't replicate at the per-location level, and how the silent 99% of happy clients become the practice's loudest reviewers. He writes the way he talks at strategy calls: friendly, specific, and slightly opinionated.