Can a dental office leave a voicemail for a patient under HIPAA?

Yes. The HHS Office for Civil Rights says the Privacy Rule permits providers to communicate with patients about their care, including by phone at home, and does not prohibit leaving messages on an answering machine. The condition is that the practice should take care to limit the information in the message. HHS suggests leaving only the practice's name and number, what is necessary to confirm an appointment, or a request to call back.

What should a dental office say in a voicemail to a patient?

The practice name, the number to call, the patient's first name, that the call is about an appointment, and a request to call back. What stays out is anything the patient would not want a roommate to hear: what the appointment is for, a result, a balance. Write the sentence once so every coordinator leaves the same message, and keep it short.

Can the front desk leave a message with a family member who answers the phone?

HHS says a provider may leave a message with a family member or other person who answers when the patient is not home, because the Privacy Rule allows limited disclosures to family and friends involved in a person's care, even when the patient is not present. The practice should use professional judgment and limit what it says. In practice that means the same message as the voicemail: name, number, about an appointment, please have the patient call.

What if a patient asks not to be called at home or asks for no voicemail?

Under 45 CFR 164.522(b), a covered health care provider must permit patients to request communications by alternative means or at alternative locations and must accommodate reasonable requests. The practice may require the request in writing and may not require the patient to explain why. HHS gives calls at the office rather than at home as an example of a reasonable request. The answer to that box on your intake form has to be visible to whoever is dialing.

Does Laine leave voicemails for patients?

No. Laine is the patient-facing voice in AiroDental and it answers the calls coming toward the counter when the team cannot pick up: during a busy morning or after closing, in the caller's language, over 90 supported, booking or moving the appointment in Dentrix, Dentrix Ascend, Open Dental or CareStack. Every call going out from the counter, and the voicemail it leaves, belongs to your team.

The Voicemail You Leave

October 28, 2026 · 6 min read

There is an email that reaches every dental office inbox sooner or later. The subject line is some version of "Is your voicemail HIPAA compliant?" and the body is a few paragraphs of worry followed by a button. Most of us delete it. The thing the email never mentions is that the federal government answered the question in 2002, in plain language, and the answer fits on an index card.

What HHS actually said

The Office for Civil Rights keeps a FAQ on exactly this, created in December 2002 and last reviewed at the end of 2022. The question is whether a provider may leave messages for patients at home, on an answering machine or with a family member, to remind them of an appointment. The answer opens with one word: "Yes." Then: "The HIPAA Privacy Rule permits health care providers to communicate with patients regarding their health care," including "at their homes, whether through the mail or by phone or in some other manner," and "the Rule does not prohibit covered entities from leaving messages for patients on their answering machines."

The limit comes next, and it is the whole post: "to reasonably safeguard the individual's privacy, covered entities should take care to limit the amount of information disclosed on the answering machine." The FAQ even sketches the message. A practice "might want to consider leaving only its name and number and other information necessary to confirm an appointment, or ask the individual to call back."

Name, number, enough to say which appointment, please call back. That is the voicemail. Everything the email was worried about sits inside the word "limit," and the practice decides what limiting looks like, as long as it does it.

The person who answers instead

Sometimes a person answers instead of the machine, and it is not the patient. The FAQ covers that too. A practice "may leave a message with a family member or other person who answers the phone when the patient is not home," because the Privacy Rule lets a provider "disclose limited information to family members, friends, or other persons regarding an individual's care, even when the individual is not present." Then comes the sentence that keeps that from becoming a loophole: the practice "should use professional judgment to assure that such disclosures are in the best interest of the individual and limit the information disclosed."

So the message to the husband who picks up is the same message as the voicemail. The practice name, the number, that it is about an appointment, please have her call. Not what the appointment is for. Not the balance. Not the result on the biopsy.

The box on the registration form

There is one more paragraph in the FAQ, and it points at a box most practices already print. When a patient "has requested that the covered entity communicate with him in a confidential manner, such as by alternative means or at an alternative location, the covered entity must accommodate that request, if reasonable." The regulation behind that sentence, 45 CFR 164.522(b), says a provider "must permit individuals to request and must accommodate reasonable requests" to receive communications "by alternative means or at alternative locations." It may require the request in writing, and it "may not require an explanation from the individual as to the basis for the request."

That is the "May we leave a voicemail? May we call you at work?" box on your intake paperwork, and it is more than a courtesy. If a patient wrote "cell only, no voicemail," the coordinator who leaves a voicemail anyway has not broken the message rule. She has ignored a request the rule says the practice must accommodate. Which means the answer to that box has to be in front of whoever is dialing, on the screen where the number is, not in a drawer.

Listen before you speak

One more habit, from a different direction. The ADA's page on the rules for phoning patients is mostly about consent for automated calls and texts, which is a separate subject. But it names a warning sign that applies to every returned call: "getting a voice mail that doesn't give the patient's name" can mean the number has been reassigned to someone else. The habit that follows is small. The coordinator listens to the greeting before she speaks. If it names a stranger, or names nobody, she leaves nothing beyond the practice name and number, and the ADA's advice is to reach the patient another way and ask whether the number has changed.

Which side of the counter

Every call in this post so far has gone out from the counter. The hygiene coordinator returning a message from a patient who is due. The treatment coordinator calling about a plan the patient wanted to think over. The scheduling coordinator confirming a visit. Those calls are the team's, every one. They are the outbound rows in the call log this blog read earlier this month, and the voicemail they leave is the team's sentence to write.

The calls that come toward the counter are the other side. The mother in last week's post, calling to ask how the visit went. The patient who calls back after hearing the message, in the middle of a morning when both lines are already busy, or after the office has closed for the day. That is where Laine, the patient-facing voice in AiroDental, answers: in the caller's language, more than 90 of them, and it books or moves the appointment in Dentrix, Dentrix Ascend, Open Dental or CareStack. Laine does not make the outbound call. It makes sure the one coming back is answered. Going out, the counter is yours. Coming in, when nobody can pick up, it is Laine's.

The sentence, written once

The page the doctor writes is short. For a voicemail: the practice name, the number, the patient's first name, "about your appointment," and a request to call back. Something like: "This is [practice name] calling for [first name]. Please give us a call at [number] about your appointment. Thank you." For a person who is not the patient: the same, with "please have her call us." For a patient who filled in the confidential-communications box: whatever the box says, and nothing on a machine. And one line at the top: listen to the greeting first.

That page does two things. It gives the coordinator the words, so she is not deciding on the spot how much is too much. And it gives the practice something to point to, written before anyone asked.

If the voicemails leaving your office are whatever each coordinator says that day, the fix is a page written once. If the calls coming back are ringing out, there is no long-term contract and no onboarding fee. Hear Laine take the call that comes back.

General information, not legal advice. Confirm your patient communication policy with your attorney and malpractice carrier.

Deren Flesher, DDS. Founder, AiroDental.

Frequently asked questions

Can a dental office leave a voicemail for a patient under HIPAA?: Yes. The HHS Office for Civil Rights says the Privacy Rule permits providers to communicate with patients about their care, including by phone at home, and does not prohibit leaving messages on an answering machine. The condition is that the practice should take care to limit the information in the message. HHS suggests leaving only the practice's name and number, what is necessary to confirm an appointment, or a request to call back.
What should a dental office say in a voicemail to a patient?: The practice name, the number to call, the patient's first name, that the call is about an appointment, and a request to call back. What stays out is anything the patient would not want a roommate to hear: what the appointment is for, a result, a balance. Write the sentence once so every coordinator leaves the same message, and keep it short.
Can the front desk leave a message with a family member who answers the phone?: HHS says a provider may leave a message with a family member or other person who answers when the patient is not home, because the Privacy Rule allows limited disclosures to family and friends involved in a person's care, even when the patient is not present. The practice should use professional judgment and limit what it says. In practice that means the same message as the voicemail: name, number, about an appointment, please have the patient call.
What if a patient asks not to be called at home or asks for no voicemail?: Under 45 CFR 164.522(b), a covered health care provider must permit patients to request communications by alternative means or at alternative locations and must accommodate reasonable requests. The practice may require the request in writing and may not require the patient to explain why. HHS gives calls at the office rather than at home as an example of a reasonable request. The answer to that box on your intake form has to be visible to whoever is dialing.
Does Laine leave voicemails for patients?: No. Laine is the patient-facing voice in AiroDental and it answers the calls coming toward the counter when the team cannot pick up: during a busy morning or after closing, in the caller's language, over 90 supported, booking or moving the appointment in Dentrix, Dentrix Ascend, Open Dental or CareStack. Every call going out from the counter, and the voicemail it leaves, belongs to your team.

Lunch Is a Decision

Your employee policy manual has a page about lunch and a page about office hours, and nowhere between them is a sentence about the phone. So the phone over lunch is handled by whoever is nearest, which some days is the coordinator eating at her desk and some days is nobody. The ADA says to match your hours to when patients can reach you; a federal rule says an employee required to eat at her desk is working; your call log says how many people tried. Lunch is a decision. Write it down.

November 4, 2026 · 7 min read

The Financial Policy Nobody Signed

The ADA's sample financial policy ends with one signature line that reads "Patient, guardian or guarantor signature." For an adult, the three words name one person. For a sixteen-year-old in the chair, they name three, and the one holding the clipboard is the one who will never pay the bill. The fifth and last post in the series on the adolescent patient: what the financial policy for a minor has to say, who presents it, to whom, and before which visit.

November 2, 2026 · 7 min read

Abandoned Is Not Missed

A patient says she hung up without leaving a message. Ask five phone systems what that call was and you get a missed call, an abandoned call, both at once, or a call in a category of its own. None of them is wrong. That is why every "practices miss this many calls" figure is one vendor's customers under one vendor's definition, and why the first job is reading your own system's sentence.

October 30, 2026 · 6 min read