18 Best Dental EMR Systems for 2025 [My Reviews]

NextGen is a dental electronic health record and practice management platform designed to reduce documentation time and enhance operational performance through automation and AI. It supports both small dental clinics and large multi-specialty practices.

Why I Picked NextGen: I picked NextGen because of its ambient AI features that auto-generate SOAP notes from conversations, significantly reducing time spent charting. I was also drawn to its robust practice management tools, like billing, collections, and scheduling, all designed to minimize administrative workload. Its flexibility for both general and specialty dental workflows makes it a good fit for a wide range of clinics.

Standout Features and Integrations:

Features include customizable dental templates, real-time analytics, population health tools, and a mobile EHR app. The system also provides pre-built clinical content, ICD/CPT code support, and AI-guided charge capture.

Notable integrations include Relaymed, Surgimate, rater8, CallMyDoc, Medsender, Arcadia, and over 40 others for imaging, billing, referrals, and care coordination.

AthenaOne, developed by Athenahealth, is a comprehensive cloud-based healthcare software solution designed to enhance clinical effectiveness, patient experience, and financial performance for healthcare providers.

Why I Picked Athenahealth: I picked Athenahealth for its simplified documentation process, which includes best-practice templates, macros, and accelerators. These tools help reduce the time spent on documentation, allowing dental professionals to focus more on patient care. The platform also offers specialty-specific workflows and mobile documentation capabilities, enabling clinicians to access and update patient records in real time, even on mobile devices.

What do you get for free?

While Athenahealth doesn't offer a free tier or free trial, you can access a free demo.

Standout features & integrations:

Key features include revenue cycle management, communication and care tools for patient engagement, an easy-to-read summary of patient records, a patient portal, automated reminders, telehealth capabilities, and mobile accessibility. Integrations include NextPatient, DocResponse, Yosi Health, Secondwave, Recovery Plus, TSI, VaxCare, Fullscript, QueueDr, and CallMyDoc.

Carepatron is a comprehensive dental software that combines various functionalities, including practice management, EHR, and patient engagement, into a single solution. Its goal is to help dental clinics streamline operations, thus boosting their efficiency.

Why I Picked Carepatron: I picked Carepatron due to its all-encompassing approach to dental practice management. The tool uniquely combines multiple functions into a single platform, eliminating the need for multiple software. Its ability to enhance clinic efficiency by offering a one-stop solution makes it best for this use case.

What do you get for free?

While Carepatron doesn't have a completely free tier, they offer a free trial for clinics to experience the platform's capabilities before committing to a paid plan. The free trial allows access to most features, albeit for a limited time.

Standout features & integrations:

Carepatron provides robust features such as appointment scheduling, patient records management, and billing capabilities. It also has key integrations with popular health and dental software, thereby enhancing its functionality within a dental practice setting.

NexHealth is a patient experience management software designed to streamline appointment scheduling and enhance patient engagement. The tool offers a comprehensive approach to managing patient appointments, thereby playing a pivotal role in increasing patient engagement levels.

Why I Picked NexHealth: The reason I selected NexHealth is its distinct focus on patient engagement through effective appointment management. Compared to other dental software systems, NexHealth's patient-centered approach stands out. It's this emphasis on patient engagement through appointment management that makes it the best for this specific use case.

Standout features & integrations:

NexHealth offers numerous useful features, including online booking, appointment confirmation/reminders, and patient recalls. The tool integrates well with popular EMR and EHR systems, enhancing its interoperability with existing medical practice systems.

Sensei is an innovative dental EMR platform that places patient-centric care at the forefront of its design. It boasts an intuitive user interface and offers a range of features that help dental clinics provide excellent patient care.

Why I Picked Sensei: In my comparison of various dental EMR systems, Sensei stood out for its focus on patient-centered templates and simplicity of use. The intuitive user interface is what truly distinguishes Sensei, making it a delight for both staff and patients. Its ease of use and commitment to enhancing patient care aligns perfectly with its description as 'best for clinics seeking patient-centric software with intuitive design.'

Standout features & integrations:

Among Sensei's notable features is its personalized patient portal, which empowers patients to engage more actively in their own care. Its robust scheduling and billing systems also help streamline practice operations. Sensei integrates seamlessly with popular accounting software and imaging systems, enhancing its capability and functionality.

ABELDent is a dental practice management system that offers a high degree of customization to its workflows. It allows dental clinics of all sizes to tailor the system according to their unique requirements, from patient scheduling to billing.

Why I Picked ABELDent: The standout characteristic of ABELDent is the ability for users to customize workflows. As I examined different tools, this feature set it apart. Considering that dental clinics may have diverse operational needs, this ability to adapt to various workflows is a compelling factor for it being the best for diverse dental practice needs.

Standout features & integrations:

ABELDent boasts features such as customizable workflows, patient scheduling, and billing. Key integrations include insurance providers, accounting systems, and electronic health record systems, among others, making it a well-rounded tool for any dental practice.

Meditab is a multifaceted dental software solution that combines Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and practice management solutions. Its comprehensive design covers all areas of a dental practice, from scheduling and billing to clinical charting, with a particular focus on integrating robust EMR capabilities.

Why I Picked Meditab: Meditab made my list due to its integrated EMR and practice management capabilities, a combination that is not often found in other tools. This dual capability helps streamline operations, which is why I believe Meditab stands out for practices seeking robust EMR and practice management in one.

Standout features & integrations:

The key features of Meditab include appointment scheduling, billing, and integrated EMR, which allows practitioners to keep comprehensive patient dental records. Meditab also integrates smoothly with a range of other systems, enhancing its usability and helping it fit seamlessly into existing practice workflows.

Lighthouse360 is a dental management software designed to optimize patient communication and appointment scheduling. With this tool, dental practices can automate a variety of tasks like patient reminders, reviews, and confirmations, aligning with its positioning as best for streamlining communication and scheduling.

Why I Picked Lighthouse360: In the quest for dental management tools, I chose Lighthouse360 due to its commitment to improving patient communication while reducing administrative burden.

The tool's ability to automate communication-related tasks like appointment confirmations and reminders sets it apart from others. It fits perfectly for a practice that wants to enhance patient communication and optimize scheduling. Hence it stands as 'best for streamlining patient communication and scheduling.'

Standout features & integrations:

Key features of Lighthouse360 include automated patient communication, a digital patient portal, and an intelligent scheduling system. With these features, dental practices can maintain a seamless communication flow and manage appointments efficiently. For integrations, Lighthouse360 connects with a range of dental practice management systems, further improving workflow efficiency by allowing data sharing and synchronization.

Curve Dental offers a comprehensive, cloud-based dental EMR platform that prioritizes flexibility and accessibility. This software is specifically designed for practices seeking an efficient solution that can be accessed from anywhere at any time.

Why I Picked Curve Dental: Curve Dental caught my attention due to its robust cloud-based features, which provide unparalleled flexibility and accessibility. This aspect sets it apart, offering ease of use and convenience that few competitors can match. Thus, I believe Curve Dental is best suited for practices that highly value the ability to manage their operations from anywhere at any time.

Standout features & integrations:

Curve Dental's strengths lie in its robust appointment management, data backup, periodontal charting, e-prescribing, and billing capabilities. Additionally, its cloud-based platform allows users to access patient data, management tools from anywhere, customizable alerts and reminders, two-way conversational texting, and patient education. 

As for integrations, Curve Dental works well with popular imaging software and accounting tools, enhancing its usefulness within a dental practice's ecosystem.

Dentalemr is a dental practice management software that facilitates a smooth transition to a paperless clinic. Its user-friendly interface and functionality enable efficient patient management, scheduling, billing, and more. Given these factors, Dentalemr is especially suitable for practices seeking to go digital without a steep learning curve.

Why I Picked Dentalemr: When selecting tools for this list, I gravitated toward Dentalemr because of its easy-to-use interface and focused on helping practices become paperless. This simplicity of use and specific functionality make it a standout choice. It's my opinion that Dentalemr, with its straightforward digital approach, is ideal for those aiming to transition to a paperless practice.

What do you get for free?

Dentalemr does not offer a free tier of their software. They do, however, provide a free trial which allows prospective users to evaluate the platform's capabilities before opting for a paid plan.

Standout features & integrations:

Dentalemr's key features include efficient real-time appointment scheduling, built-in patient messaging and email appointment reminders, seamless billing, and the ability to track patient health records digitally. Regarding integrations, it plays well with a variety of insurance providers, accounting systems, and communication tools (Windows PCs, Macs, mobile devices) that help streamline the overall workflow.