Hidden value
Busy isn't growing. A full book can still hide empty value: unfinished plans, overdue recalls and patients who never rebook.
Guesswork, extracted.
Build a practice that grows from the inside out.
Proto Dental is an evidence-backed system for diagnosing and growing your practice, so you can fill your chairs, keep your patients, back your team, decide with numbers and grow without guesswork.
Your marketing is bringing patients in - but acquisition is only one part of growth. Recall, rebooking, treatment acceptance, referrals and patient value are often running as separate motions, with no clear view of which is making the biggest difference.
Proto Dental brings them together, applying commercial rigour across the entire patient journey to show you where growth is being won, where it’s being lost and what to focus on next.
Eight drivers. Sixteen measures. Three priorities. Every Quarter.
Get your SnapshotSee How It Works- Revenue in 12 months at Nest Dental
- +40%
- Revenue in 12 months at Nest Dental
- Rebooking rate at Nest Dental
- 75% → 95%
- Rebooking rate at Nest Dental
- Customer projects across 35 industries
- 200+
- Customer projects across 35 industries
- Dental reviews from 50+ practices
- 5,000+
- Dental reviews from 50+ practices
Nest figures are whole-program results, not credited to any single change.
You'd never fit a crown by eye.
Yet most practices grow by guesswork: more ads, more leads, more ideas and no way of knowing which one matters.
Proto Dental is the diagnosis your business never had. We measure what your patients say, what your team knows and what your numbers show, then tell you exactly what to fix first and what it's worth.
Same standard. Different chair.
Practice intelligence in action
Freedom From What Holds You Back.Freedom To Become More.
Proto Dental helps you and your practice move beyond what's holding you back and develop the capacity to achieve more of what you and your practice are capable of.
BeforeAfter
Busy every day, revenue flat
Three levers, each priced in dollars
Overdue list printed, never called
Recall worked every morning
Patients leave without their next visit
Rebooking at every checkout
Treatment explained, never accepted
Written plans, followed up
Twenty ideas, no idea which matters
One priority list
Advice from people who've never run a practice
Playbooks tested in our own
Proto Dental
Unlock your next level of practice growth.
Growth
- Break through the busy-but-flat plateau
- Know what each fix is worth before you start
- Make fast, clean decisions with numbers, not gut feel
Patients
- Fill the book from patients you already have
- Every plan written, followed up and finished
- More reviews and better ones, than the practice down the road
Team
- A front desk that rebooks, not just takes payment
- Every huddle action owned and done
- Good people who stay
You
- Run the practice, not just the chair
- Know your numbers without chasing them
- Invest with confidence, knowing the return first
Practice performance is a system
Get to the root of it.
Growth problems rarely live where they show up. Fewer bookings might be a recall problem, a phone problem or a trust problem. Every driver affects the others, so growth has to be diagnosed before anything is prescribed.
INPUT 01Clinical Quality & Care
INPUT 02Team Performance & Retention
INPUT 03Operational Efficiency
INPUT 04New Patient Conversion
Diagnose16measures
OUTPUT 01Treatment Acceptance
OUTPUT 02Patient Trust & Loyalty
OUTPUT 03Referral & Reputation
OUTPUT 04Revenue & Patient Value
Eight drivers. Sixteen measures. Three priorities. Every Quarter.
See all eight drivers →Evidence
It feels like magic.
It's backed by evidence.
Proto Dental is built on two decades of customer research, 5,000+ dental reviews and one working practice, brought together in a system that's personalised, practical and measurable.
Built on 5,000+ dental reviews from 50+ practices
Root cause
The leak is rarely where you look. Fewer bookings can start at the phone, the front desk or the chair. We find which.
Patient voice
Your patients have already told you. Your Google reviews hold the clues. We code every one against what patients care about.
Measurement
What gets measured gets booked. One number per lever, checked every Monday.
Diagnose. Prioritise. Run. Repeat.
1Diagnose
See your practice clearly.
XRAi, our AI discovery tool, reads your reviews, your team and your numbers to show where you stand and what's holding you back.
REVIEW SIGNALSPROTO DENTAL
★★★★★
“The team made it easy to book my next visit.”
Coded · Rebooking2Prioritise
Fix what matters most.
All sixteen measures ranked and priced in dollars. Three levers this quarter, each with an owner.
Priority List · This quarter
01Recall & reactivation$[X]
02Rebook at checkout$[X]
03Treatment follow-up$[X]
3Run
Playbooks your team can follow on Monday.
Scripts, routines and one number to watch, built to fit a full book.
Playbook · Recall
Monday morning
1.Open the overdue list
2.Call patients due
3.Book the next visit
4Repeat
Every quarter, the next three.
Track what's shifting every week, then rank the next three levers.
GROWTH DASHBOARDWEEK [X]
[X]%
Week 1Week 6Week 12
Why Proto Dental
Proto Dental is two decades in the making.
Damian Kernahan started in brand marketing at Foster's, ran marketing in New York and led the Telstra account before becoming Managing Director of Y&R Melbourne. For 18 years his consultancy, Proto Partners, has researched customers and redesigned services for organisations like Sydney Metro, Western Sydney International Airport, Laser Clinics Australia and Westpac. Then he bought a dental practice.
Each step built a part of Proto Dental. It couldn't exist without all of them.
- 01
Foster's / CUB
Why people choose one brand over another.
- 02
New York and Y&R
How to reach people at scale and what advertising can't fix.
- 03
Proto Partners, 18 years
How to research customers and redesign a service end to end. The method behind our seven steps and XRAi.
- 04
3 years in dental
Two years advising practices, plus research into what the best-run ones in the USA and Europe do differently.
- 05
Nest Dental
What it takes inside a real practice, with a real team.
20+ yearsin brands and customers
200+projects across 35 industries
100,000+customers researched
1,000+interviews
5,000+dental reviews
Proven at Nest Dental, St Leonards
Practice makes profit.
Advisers tell you what to do. We bought a practice and did it. Recall routines, front desk scripts, written treatment plans, a daily huddle and a new practice system, all tested at Nest before they reach yours.
See what it means for your practice →+40%
revenue in 12 months
6 → 8
team members in 6 months
Practice Intelligence has changed the way we grow Nest. We're making faster, more confident decisions because we know where the opportunities are, what they're worth and what to focus on first. It's taken a lot of the guesswork out of running the practice, accelerated our growth and significantly improved the return on the time and money we invest.
Kara WeavingDirector · Nest Dental, St Leonards
The Proto Dental system
Growth with teeth.
A complete growth system, personalised to your practice.
Get clarity on where you are, what's holding you back and where to focus next. Proto Dental brings XRAi assessments, personalised playbooks, AI-powered guidance and ongoing measurement together in one system that adapts as your practice grows.
Practice Profile
See what's working, what's getting in your way and what to fix next.
Growth Blueprint
Turn your Profile into a personalised growth plan built around your practice, goals and team.
Daily Playbooks
Structured and practical routines designed to fit into a full book.
XRAi Coach
Personalised guidance that understands your practice, your numbers and your goals.
Progress Tracking
Track your progress to see what's shifting and where to focus next.
Plus
Group Coaching - Weekly live calls with other practice owners working on the same problems, so you're never figuring it out alone.
Member Hub - Every playbook, call recording and result in one place, alongside a community of owners who get it.
PROTO DENTAL
Coach
Priority List
Playbooks
Progress
Reports
PRACTICE PROFILE
Welcome back, [Practice name]
Week [X] of 12 · Lever 1: Recall
Recall & reactivation[X]
Rebooking[X]
Treatment follow-up[X]
What should we fix this week?
XRAi Coach
Based on your Priority List, keep it simple: work the recall list for 30 minutes each morning and book every patient before they leave. Watch one number: patients due in 30 days with no booking.
Recall & Reactivation
[X]%
Week 1Week 6Week 12
What you get
One score. Three priorities. Five days.
The Snapshot Assessment gives you a Practice Optimisation Score: how well your chairs are earning, against an ideal week. Then it names the three things to fix first.
- Fill
- How much of your chair time is booked.
- Mix
- How much of it goes to higher-value work.
- Rate
- What you produce for each hour.
Illustrative example.
Ways to start
Treatment, not advice.
Most owners come to us after agencies, coaches and courses. This is where it gets measured.
Practice Snapshot
A check-up for your practice.
$199 once
- Your Google reviews coded against 12 patient needs
- Benchmarked against 5,000+ reviews from 50+ practices
- Your Practice Optimisation Score
- Your top three priorities, in plain English
- No access to your systems needed
Your $199 comes off your first month if you join the Growth Program within 30 days.
Best for: Seeing where you stand before you commit.
Get your SnapshotMost popular
Growth Program
Treatment, not advice.
$1,000 a month
3-month minimum, then cancel at the end of any quarter with 30 days' notice.
- Everything in the Snapshot
- XRAi discovery with your team
- Your Priority List, priced in dollars
- A playbook for each lever
- 90-day roadmap
- Growth Dashboard: your Practice Optimisation Score, re-scored each quarter
- Weekly call
- Member hub
Best for: Owners ready to fix three things a quarter.
Start the ProgramWork with Damian
The specialist referral.
By application
- One-to-one with Damian throughout
- A full practice diagnosis, led personally
- Quarterly strategy sessions
- A direct line between sessions
Best for: Complex cases that need a senior hand.
Apply to work with Damian
Discover what's holding your practice back.
And what it's worth.
Start with the Practice Snapshot. We code your Google reviews against 12 patient needs, benchmark them against 5,000+ reviews from 50+ practices and show you your three biggest signals in plain English.
Results in [X] days · Your three biggest signals · $199
Get your SnapshotCheckout link coming soon
Your $199 comes off your first month if you join the Growth Program within 30 days. No access to your systems needed.