Kamal Ghorui
Dental care is undergoing a quiet but significant transformation. Patients are no longer viewing oral health as an occasional, appointment-driven interaction. Increasingly, they expect care to be continuous, responsive, and easy to access, like banking, travel or e-commerce industries today.
This expectation shift isn’t about “more technology.” It’s about a new definition of reliability.
This shift in expectations has pushed health care providers to rethink not just where care happens but also how it is delivered. One example of this emerging approach can be seen in Clove Dental, which has built a care ecosystem that unifies technology, physical clinics, and in-house clinical services into a single, seamless patient experience.
That model wasn’t created as a tech feature; it came from a real, repeated patient problem the team saw firsthand. Dr Puri Sr began with a single clinic in Los Angeles, built on a simple belief: great dentistry should feel trustworthy, consistent, and patient-first. During Covid, that belief took on new urgency and brought the Puri family together around a bigger idea, to expand the practice into a modern care platform that patients could rely on beyond the four walls of the clinic. With Dr Puri’s clinical foundation and his sons leading operations, strategy, and technology, they scaled from one location to nine in just a few years. Today, that same family-led mission continues to guide the next phase of growth and expansion.
From episodic visits to continuous care
Predominantly, dental care visits are irregular. Patients visit a clinic when a problem becomes painful or urgent with little visibility into treatment history, follow-ups or preventive planning. Administrative tasks like booking appointments, managing prescriptions or understanding procedures add friction to an already stressful experience.
What this model overlooks is a basic reality: dental concerns do not operate on fixed schedules. Pain, swelling, post-procedure questions or uncertainty often arise late at night or between visits, when clinics are closed and access to guidance is limited. For patients, such a gap frequently leads to anxiety, delays in care or unnecessary escalations.
Recognising this disconnect, Clove Dental has structured its care delivery around a simple principle: “Dental care should be available when patients need it, not only when clinics are open.”
Building a 24/7 dental care ecosystem
The 24/7 dental care approach centers on creating continuity between digital access and physical treatment. Rather than treating technology merely as a booking tool, app-based access is positioned as an extension of clinical care.
Through a single platform, patients can book appointments, track treatments, manage prescriptions and consult dental experts remotely. Crucially, this access is available around the clock, allowing patients to seek guidance even outside standard clinic hours.
Such availability does not replace in-person care. Instead, it acts as an additional support layer, helping patients understand whether or not a concern requires immediate attention, medication or a scheduled visit. In many cases, timely advice can prevent complications and reduce unnecessary stress.
Clinics that operate as part of the same system
While digital access is one pillar of the model, physical clinics remain central to patient care. Dental procedures require hands-on-expertise, diagnostics and infrastructure that cannot be virtualised.
What makes this approach different is the tight integration between app and clinic. Patient records, treatment histories and care plans move seamlessly across both digital and physical worlds, thereby ensuring that consultations (virtual or in-person) begin with a complete picture for the doctor.
This integrated system allows doctors to focus on their patients, the quality of care and refinement of their skills, rather than administrative and scheduling tasks. For patients, it creates a sense of continuity and the experience feels consistent regardless of where care is accessed.
Why keeping care in-house matters
Another element supporting 24/7 care is the decision to keep services in-house. Consultations, procedures, follow-ups and patient support are delivered within the ecosystem rather than fragmented across multiple providers.
This structure strengthens accountability. Patients interact with one brand, one system and one set of clinical standards. For the doctors, it enables consistent protocols and faster feedback loops, both essential for delivering reliable care at all hours.
Redefining access in dental care
The move toward always-on dental care reflects a broader shift in patient expectations. People increasingly expect health services to match the accessibility and responsiveness of other essential services in their daily lives.
Sustaining such a model requires tight alignment between clinical decision-making and organisational strategy, guided by leaders like Dr Anish Puri, who oversees clinical operations, and Ishan Puri, who leads strategy and technology. They also maintain the operational discipline to standardise workflows, maintain consistent documentation, integrate systems, and ensure after-hours support runs as smoothly as daytime care.
By combining 24/7 digital access with integrated clinics, this model reframes dentistry as an ongoing relationship rather than an occasional intervention. As dentistry adapts to a much more advanced world, the focus is moving beyond appointments and procedures. The question is no longer just where care happens but whether it is available when patients need it most.
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