The problem
The front desk answers the same twenty questions all day, and each person answers a little differently. The website says one thing about insurance, the phone script another, and the new-patient email a third. Patients notice, and staff lose time looking things up.
Keep out of the AI
- Questions or messages from real patients
- Anything about a specific patient's coverage or balance
- Clinical advice; FAQ answers stay administrative
Every dental and medical idea here is designed so no protected health information (PHI) ever goes into Claude. Anthropic offers HIPAA only on Enterprise plans; Team plans can’t enable it. Under the HIPAA configuration, Cowork runs in local mode on a desktop and Cowork in the cloud (including cloud scheduled tasks) isn’t available. Anthropic’s documentation says connectors and MCP servers aren’t covered by its BAA. Nothing here makes a practice HIPAA compliant; ask your privacy officer before you start.
What Cowork does
- The office manager writes or records the real answers once: insurance networks, cancellation policy, payment plans, what to bring, parking, languages spoken.
- Cowork drafts three versions from that source: a short phone guide for the front desk, FAQ copy for the website, and email reply templates.
- It flags conflicts with the current website text so they can be fixed.
- Every quarter it asks the manager what changed (new insurance, new hours) and updates all three.
Where the draft lands
A phone guide, website FAQ copy and reply templates in Drive.
What stays with you
Approving the copy, publishing it, and answering anything clinical, which always goes to clinical staff.
Do you take my insurance? We're in network with the plans listed on our insurance page and can file claims with most others as an out-of-network office. Call us with your plan name and we'll check before your visit.
What should I bring to my first visit? A photo ID, your insurance card, and a list of current medications. You can fill out forms ahead of time through our patient portal.
Watch-outs
- HIPAA note: the FAQ is written from the practice's own policies. Don't paste real patient questions in to 'train' it.
- Insurance participation changes. Put a 'last updated' date on the website FAQ.
- Medical and dental advertising rules apply to website claims. Keep copy factual.
Questions owners ask
Can this be a chatbot on our site?
Not in this idea. A chatbot would talk to patients directly, which raises PHI questions. This produces copy and templates people use.
Will it help with Spanish-speaking patients?
Claude can draft Spanish versions. Have a fluent staff member check them.