01 / Booking
Patients book the openings you actually have.
Not a request form someone has to work through in the morning. Molar reads your live OpenDental schedule and offers only slots that fit the provider, the operatory, and the appointment length.
What booking looks like without it.
- A patient calls at 11:40, gets voicemail, and calls the practice down the street.
- A “request an appointment” form that someone has to read, then call back about, then call back again.
- Double-bookings, because the website widget didn't know about the block someone added this morning.
- After-hours requests that sit until Monday, by which time the patient has booked elsewhere.
What it does instead.
Real availability, not a wish list
The slot engine intersects your scheduling rules, operatories, providers, and existing appointments. If Molar offers it, it can be booked.
It lands on the grid
A booking writes an appointment into OpenDental. Your team sees it where they already look, without anyone retyping it.
New patients and returning patients
New patients get a short intake before they finish. Returning patients are matched to their existing chart, not duplicated into a second one.
One widget per location
Each location gets its own booking link with its own hours, providers, and rules. Multi-location practices don't share a schedule by accident.
How it syncs.
Booking is a write into OpenDental, and Molar treats writes as claims to be verified rather than assumed.
- Every appointment write is read back from OpenDental before Molar reports success.
- Availability is computed against your live schedule at request time, never a nightly cache that goes stale by lunch.
- The public booking flow is scoped to one location, so a missing or wrong link is a dead end, not a booking on the wrong schedule.
Questions we get asked.
Do we have to change practice-management software?
No. Molar connects to the OpenDental you already run. There's no migration and no second chart.
Can patients book any slot they want?
Only what you allow. You set which appointment types are bookable online, which providers and operatories they can use, and how far ahead patients can book.
What happens if two patients try for the same slot?
The first write wins and the second patient is offered the next available time. Availability is re-checked at the moment of booking, not just when the page loaded.
Where does the booking widget live?
On your own website, as an embed. Patients stay on your site the whole time.