Most dental practices don’t switch software because they want to — they switch because they’re tired of working around their software. If you’ve ever felt like Dentrix makes even simple tasks harder than they need to be, you’re not alone.
Server-based systems were fine 20 years ago, but today's practices need flexibility, mobility, and workflows that don’t eat up half the day. When those things start to break down, the cracks show fast.
Dr. Josh Berd, founder of The Dentist Group in San Francisco, knows this all too well. He used Dentrix for years. He tried to make it work. But eventually he stepped back and said, “This is slowing us down.”
Here are the pain points that finally pushed him — and that many practices feel every day.
1. The Staff Training Marathon Nobody Has Time For
Let’s start with the infamous Dentrix learning curve. If your team still needs to dig through a 999-page user manual to learn the basics, you don’t have a training process — you have a part-time job.
Dr. Berd summed it up perfectly: “Dentrix’s training model makes scaling nearly impossible. It took too long for staff to get comfortable, and that held us back.”
Onboarding should take days, not weeks. And definitely not 999 pages.
2. The “Nickel-and-Dime” Trap of Add-Ons
Want digital forms? Want integrated imaging? Want modern patient communication? With Dentrix, most of that requires extra vendors, extra fees, and extra logins.
Dr. Berd hit this wall early: “Every time we needed a basic function, we had to buy another add-on. For what we were paying, we should have gotten more.”
Legacy systems weren’t built to be all-in-one — and it shows.
3. Click-Heavy Workflows That Burn Out Your Team
Too many screens. Too many clicks. Too much friction. When simple documentation requires hopping between modules, your team loses time, energy, and focus. In the long run, inefficient workflows aren't just annoying — they cost real money.
Dr. Berd said it simply: “The workflows pulled staff away from the patient. That’s the opposite of what we want.”
4. Zero Mobility: Growth Stops When Your System Can’t Move
Server-based software ties your entire operation to one building. In a world where practices have multiple locations, remote team members, and on-the-go doctors, that model just doesn’t work anymore.
Dr. Berd felt it every day: “We couldn’t move freely between locations. The system kept us tethered to the office.”
If your team can’t work from anywhere, your practice can’t grow everywhere.
5. The Disaster-Recovery Risk No One Talks About
If a server goes down… your practice goes down with it. When disaster hits, cloud software isn’t a luxury — it’s a lifeline.
When Dr. Berd Switched to Curve in 2012, Everything Changed
Once the pain points became impossible to ignore, he started looking for something built for the future — not the past. Curve checked every box:
The daily grind disappeared. The team became more efficient. The patient experience improved overnight. His practice’s year-over-year financial results have been hard to ignore.
In 2022, The Dental Group’s building flooded. Water damage was everywhere. If they had still been on Dentrix, they would have lost hardware, local data, and years of patient records.
Instead, Dr. Berd remembers the relief: “Because we were already on the cloud, everything was protected. The data was safe even though the office wasn’t.”
Curve Constantly Makes Dental Practice Easier
For the past 13 years, since Dr. Berd chose Curve, the platform’s features have multiplied while remaining easy to use. With centralized data, one-click access to each patient’s record, and intelligent automation that empowers and energizes team members throughout every practice workflow, Dr. Berd knows he made the right choice.
Curve’s software updates occur overnight in the background. Another previous Dentrix user who switched to Curve, Dr. Kirk E. King, summarizes the difference between Dentrix and Curve updates best:
Anyone who has Dentrix or any other legacy program knows, when you do an update, you have to shut everything down. You have to update every workstation, and sometimes the updates don't work. I had many frustrating days of lost production over the years. Curve’s updates happen seamlessly behind the scenes. They are well tested, so you don’t experience glitches like we did with Dentrix. Curve regularly rolls out actionable feature improvements, and our system backups are automatically and immediately performed in the cloud.
Some of Curve’s Biggest Feature Improvements Occurred in 2025
In 2025, Curve Dental addressed the dental industry's administrative and financial pressures by focusing on transforming the Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) process through two major innovations:
- Eligibility+ with SmartSync technology: An AI-powered verification tool that verifies insurance in real-time and uses SmartSync to automatically detect and reconcile data discrepancies. This reduced manual verification time by up to 90-95% and improved clean claim rates.
- Curve Pay: An integrated payment solution offering next-day payouts, automatic reconciliation, and flexible payment options (including Affirm, Klarna, and digital wallets).
Are You Tired of Working Around Your Software?
Painful training. Endless add-ons. Clunky workflows. No mobility. Server risk. You don’t have to live with those frustrations — and you certainly don’t have to build your future on them. Dr. Berd made the switch from Dentrix to Curve because he wanted a smarter, faster, safer way to grow, and Curve was the future-ready choice.
A personalized demonstration of Curve will show you the Curve Difference in comparison with Dentrix. Learn about the cost savings of switching to Curve.
Start the new year with a shift to all-in-one Curve for optimal efficiency in administrative and clinical workflows. Curve makes data conversion from legacy systems seamless. Our training resources and 24/7 support are renowned.
Request a Demo: See How Curve Can Transform Your Practice
