Voice perio charting at Heartland Dental: what a 27-office Bola AI pilot reported
Bola AI ran a three-month pilot of its voice perio charting in 27 Heartland Dental-supported offices and reports that hygienists saved about 18.5 minutes a day and needed much less help from assistants. Offices that got set up quickly used it far more, and hygienists online describe reliability as mixed.
Published 20 October 2026 · Last checked 20 October 2026 · Fact-checked against 6 sources · How we verify
- Practice
- DSO-supported offices
- Size
- 27-office pilot
- Location
- United States
- Tool
- Bola AI Voice Perio
- Cost
- Conflicting figures
- Source
- Mixed
Did it work? Results
- Bola's case study reports that hygienists saved an average of 18.5 minutes per day. The study says this figure assumes an even mix of new and re-care patients. Our reading is that it is partly an estimate, not a straight stopwatch measurement.
Source - In Bola's survey, the share of hygienists who said they usually or always relied on a second hygienist or assistant to record probe results fell from 47% before the pilot to 16% with Bola. These are self-reported survey answers.
Source - A practice manager quoted in Bola's case study said hygienists no longer needed a dental assistant present during perio charting. That let the office book new patients even when no assistant would be available.
Source - According to Bola, every office that was installed, trained and had its microphones in under 10 days (9.83 days on average) completed more than 100 voice perio charts during the pilot. One of these offices did 40 charts in the week after setup.
Source - Bola reports a 9x revenue-based return on investment and a total value of $36,000 per office in treatment revenue. It attributes this to more complete perio charts and more full-quadrant (rather than localized) treatment. Our reading is that these are Bola's modeled revenue figures, not collections reported by the offices.
Source
Who tried it, and why
Dental support organization (Heartland Dental) and its supported offices; hygiene teams did the charting. 27 offices in the pilot. Number of hygienists per office not disclosed.. United States. Office locations not listed; one pilot hygienist is quoted from Metairie, LA..
Recording probe readings during a perio exam usually takes a second person or interrupts the hygienist. Before the pilot, 47% of surveyed hygienists said they usually or always relied on a second hygienist or an assistant to record probe results. Bola's case study describes the alternatives: taking a glove off to type between readings, or writing readings on paper and entering them again later. Its narrative example is a hygienist who at times waited 10 to 15 minutes for help, which also took time from her co-workers.
What did they set up?
- The hygienist calls out pocket depths and other findings, and Bola's software enters them into the patient's chart in the practice management system as they speak. Per Bola's current product page, this is written directly and in real time, so no second person has to type.
- 27 practices supported by Heartland Dental used it for three months (September to November 2022). Bola says it gave the raw data to a third-party analyst, who compared those months with May to July 2022.
- Each office had to receive microphones, install the software and train staff. According to Bola, training and setup typically took 30 minutes or less once the microphones had arrived.
- Patients hear the readings called out loud. One pilot hygienist said patients became engaged and curious about the numbers.
Tools used
- Bola AI Voice Perio (voice-controlled periodontal charting)
- Bola microphones (delivered to each office as part of setup)
- The office's existing practice management system (Bola's current site lists Dentrix, Dentrix Ascend, Eaglesoft and Open Dental integrations)
What did it cost?
Bola's case study lists average setup costs at the time of the study of $140 for microphones, plus staff time it values at $100 for install and $200 for training. Its summary gives an annual cost of $2,268 and does not say what that covers. Bola's own September 2023 press release says a monthly cost of $2,500 instead, so the two documents disagree. The press release also says a special discounted rate was available to Heartland Dental offices. Current pricing is not disclosed: Bola's Voice Perio page lists no price and directs visitors to book a demo.
“I love my BOLA when it works … only like 50% of the time”
What didn't go well?
- Offices with slow rollouts used it much less. Offices that took more than 10 days to get installed, trained and equipped averaged 31.8 days, and only 5-10% of them passed 50 voice charts during the pilot (Bola's case study).
- Bola's own materials give conflicting cost and return figures. The case study PDF's summary gives $2,268 a year in cost against $22,500 a year in return, while a later page of the same PDF lists annual costs of $18,600 (present value). The press release says $2,500 a month in cost against $22,500 a month in return. Get your own price in writing.
- Bola's marketing figures have grown since the study. Its current Voice Perio page claims 20+ minutes saved per hygienist per day and 10-15 minutes per perio exam, while the same page still cites 18.5 minutes a day from the Heartland study.
- Our caveat: Bola ran and published the study. The analyst is not named and the analysis itself is not published. The data is from 2022. The press release says Heartland offices could get a special discounted rate.
- Reports from r/DentalHygiene commenters (January 2026) are mixed. A Bola user says it works only about half the time. A hygienist says accuracy depends on microphone quality and operatory noise, and that there is a learning curve. Another hygienist, describing a voice system used about four years earlier, forgot to disconnect it, and small talk was picked up as numbers, so the whole chart was wrong. A hygienist using a different product (Denti.AI) said its perio charting usually works fine, but mistakes have to be caught quickly.
- A different product: a clinical staff member at a practice that rolled out Avora (an AI scribe and voice perio tool) wrote on r/Dentistry (September 2026) that it costs them time instead of saving it, and that even its perio charting slows them down. According to the poster, nobody but the owner has bought into it, including the associate dentist.
What should your office take from this?
- Measure your own baseline before you buy. Time a few full-mouth charts and count how often a hygienist has to pull in an assistant. Bola links the 18.5 minutes a day to cutting out that wait, so if your hygienists already chart alone without delays, expect less.
- Plan to be live within 10 days of signing. Order the microphones, book the install and schedule training before the start date. In this pilot, offices that rolled out slowly used the tool far less.
- Treat the ROI as Bola's model, not a guarantee. Bola's own documents disagree on cost, so get the price per hygienist, microphone costs, contract length and cancellation terms in writing.
- Train for the known failure modes. Use good microphones, keep the operatory quiet, pause the tool during small talk, and have the hygienist watch the screen to catch wrong entries before saving.
Try it yourself
I'm the office manager at a dental practice with [number] hygienists using [practice management system]. We're evaluating a voice perio charting tool. Write me a 2-week trial plan I can run before signing a contract. Include: (1) a baseline log sheet to fill in the week before, covering minutes per full-mouth perio chart and how often a second team member is pulled in to type; (2) the same log for the trial weeks; (3) an accuracy spot-check where each hygienist compares 10 voice-entered charts with their own readings and notes any errors; (4) a setup timeline with dates so every hygienist is charting by day 10; (5) a list of questions for the vendor about price per hygienist, microphone costs, contract length, cancellation terms and how data is written into our practice management system. Give me a one-page checklist plus one simple table. Use no patient names, dates of birth or other identifiers anywhere.
Prompt written by us, not by the practice. Never paste names, dates of birth or other patient details into a general AI tool.
Sources
- Case Study with Heartland Dental: 9x Revenue-based Return On Investment (PDF)
- Heartland Dental Case Study Shows 9x ROI for Offices Using Bola AI Solution
- Voice Perio (product page)
- Anyone use voice activated perio charting?
- Why do I need 3 AI tools for dentistry now?
- Avora (company homepage)
How we checked this
Checked on 20 October 2026. We read all 6 sources listed above, and a second, independent check re-opened every one of them before publication. Anything we could not confirm was removed.
Forum posts that require a login were read through a public archive of the original posts.
Figures published by a vendor are reported as that vendor's claims, not as verified facts.
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