When you click on an open time slot in Schedule Analysis or Morning Huddle, Dental Intelligence suggests patients who may be a good fit to fill that time. If you see the message:
"Whoops! It looks like this provider doesn't have any unscheduled patients assigned to them."
This article explains why that happens and what you can do about it.
How Dental Intelligence Selects Suggested Patients
Dental Intelligence suggestions are designed to surface the most actionable patients — not every unscheduled patient at your practice.
To appear as a suggested patient for a specific provider, all four of the following criteria must be met:
Criteria | What It Means |
Primary provider match | The patient has that provider set as their primary provider |
No future hygiene or restorative appointments | The patient has no upcoming scheduled appointments |
Unscheduled treatment | The patient has treatment that has been diagnosed but not yet scheduled |
Active patient status | The patient is marked as active in your practice management system |
Important: A patient who is unscheduled but has no diagnosed unscheduled treatment on record will not appear in the suggested list — even if they are overdue for care.
Why a Provider May Show Zero Suggestions
The most common reason a provider shows no suggested patients — even when hundreds of patients are linked to them as primary provider — is that none of those patients have unscheduled restorative treatment recorded in your practice management software.
Dental Intelligence pulls treatment data directly from your practice management system. If treatment plans have not been entered or updated there, Dental Intelligence has no treatment data to use.
Tips for Finding Unscheduled Patients
The Suggested Patients list found in Schedule Analysis and Morning Huddle is a curated, filtered recommendation. It is intentionally narrower than other patient lists in Dental Intelligence.
If you're looking for a broader view of unscheduled patients use:
Patient Finder — filter by primary provider and scheduling status to see all unscheduled patients (including those without diagnosed treatment)
Outstanding Treatment Patient List — a comprehensive view of patients with outstanding unscheduled treatment
These tools will show a larger pool of patients that fall outside the suggested patient criteria.
What To Do If Suggestions Aren't Appearing
Verify treatment plans are entered in your practice management software for patients linked to this provider. Dental Intelligence can only suggest patients with unscheduled treatment on record.
Check patient status — confirm the patients you expect to see are marked as active with no future appointments scheduled.
Use Patient Finder as a backup — sort by primary provider and filter for "not scheduled" to find patients to contact manually.
Reach out to support if you believe treatment plans are entered correctly and patients still aren't appearing.
Dental Intelligence's Suggested Patients feature is a smart shortlist, not a complete patient roster. It reflects patients who are active, unscheduled, and have documented treatment waiting — giving your team the best candidates to fill open time. For a full view of unscheduled patients, Patient Finder and the Unscheduled Patient List are your best resources.