Dental AI Glossary

A plain-English glossary of the AI terms that come up when you evaluate dental documentation tools. No jargon, no hype.

Large Language Model (LLM)

The type of AI that reads and writes text. What powers AI scribes, chat tools, and coding assistants.

Grounding

Anchoring an AI output to a specific source — in dentistry, the encounter transcript. A grounded note traces every clinical statement back to what was actually said.

Hallucination

When an AI generates confident-sounding text that is factually wrong or made up. In a clinical note, a hallucinated finding could be a serious liability.

Citation

A link from a claim in an AI draft back to the source that supports it — usually a timestamp in the transcript.

HIPAA

The federal law governing the privacy and security of protected health information (PHI) in the US.

BAA (Business Associate Agreement)

A contract required by HIPAA between a covered entity and a vendor that handles PHI on your behalf.

CDT Codes

Current Dental Terminology — the standardized code set used to describe dental procedures on insurance claims.

ICD-10 Codes

International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision — medical diagnosis codes used alongside CDT codes on dental claims.