OrthoTrussYou hold the accounts. OrthoTruss is the software on top.
OrthoTruss is built so that, where a feature needs an outside service, the practice opens its own account with that provider, pays that provider directly at that provider's published rates, and pastes the credentials into Settings. The software is what OrthoTruss sells; the service underneath stays a contract between the practice and the vendor, not a line inside a bundled bill. OrthoTruss is a Windows desktop application; everything on this page describes that application.
This has consequences worth stating before the table, because they cut both ways.
The rate is the vendor's, not ours
OrthoTruss does not sit in the billing path for messages, card payments, or eligibility checks, and adds no per-message or per-transaction charge of its own. What the vendor charges is what the practice pays, on the vendor's own invoice.
The account is portable
Because the SMS provider, Stripe, clearinghouse, and email accounts are opened in the practice's name, they are the practice's to keep. Leaving OrthoTruss does not mean re-applying for a merchant account or renumbering a practice phone line.
It is setup work, not zero cost
This pattern trades a bundled monthly bill for several smaller accounts the practice opens and administers itself, including signing a business associate agreement with each vendor that handles patient information. That is real work, and it is the honest cost of the approach.
The categories, and what covers each one
Availability is labelled per row. Studio and the free Conductor tools are available now at no cost, with no expiry. Studio Advanced and Conductor Pro are already in the free download; a subscription will unlock them, at the prices published on the pricing page, when paid access resumes — paid access is currently paused and checkout is closed. Rows marked “with subscription” or “at launch” are paid-tier capabilities that unlock when paid access resumes; where something is not built at all, it is in the section after this one.
| Category a practice usually subscribes to | What that category commonly costs | What covers it in OrthoTruss | What the practice pays instead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patient texting and appointment reminders | Commonly a few hundred dollars a month, often bundled with reviews and forms. | Text Messages in Conductor Pro: two-way conversations, appointment reminders, opt-out handling, and a quiet-hours window.With subscription | Your own SMS provider account, billed by that provider per message sent and received. |
| Patient email | Usually folded into the same communications subscription. | Email reminders and messages, sent through the practice's own mail server.With subscription | Your existing practice email host. No additional vendor. |
| Online booking and self-scheduling | Typically a monthly add-on to the practice management subscription. | Open Slots and Booking Requests: the practice publishes availability, requests arrive for staff to accept or decline.At launch | No third-party account. |
| Patient portal | Commonly a per-month add-on, sometimes priced per active patient. | A patient portal served from the practice's own computer for forms, records, and secure messages. It is off unless the practice turns it on.Available now | No third-party account. |
| Card payments and in-office terminal | Processing rates, frequently bundled into the practice-management subscription. | Card Payments in Conductor Pro: payment links, an in-office reader, ACH, and autopay for treatment plans.With subscription | Your own Stripe account, at Stripe's published rates, invoiced by Stripe. |
| Insurance eligibility checks | Either a per-check fee or a monthly clearinghouse subscription. | Eligibility verification against the practice's clearinghouse, with coverage returned into the patient record.At launch | Your own clearinghouse account, on that clearinghouse's terms. |
| Imaging management software | Frequently a substantial one-time licence plus an annual support contract. | Photos, X-rays, cephalometrics, STL models, and a CBCT viewer. X-rays capture directly from a TWAIN-compatible sensor, or import automatically from a watched export folder for any other sensor.Available now | Included with Studio at no cost. |
| Ambient scribe and dictation | Usually billed per provider, per month. | Scribe records a visit and transcribes it on the practice's own computer, then drafts a note locally by default. A clinician reviews and edits every note before it is saved.With subscription | Included with either paid product. No account required for the default local setup. |
| Practice analytics and daily huddle | Typically a reporting add-on above the base subscription. | Practice Pulse and the Morning Huddle view, reading the practice's own schedule and ledger.With subscription | Included in Conductor Pro. |
| Bookkeeping re-entry | Either an accounting sync fee or the hours a bookkeeper spends re-keying. | Expense and production records export as a QuickBooks-importable CSV, and as a package for the practice's accountant.With subscription | No third-party account. This is a file export, not a live accounting sync. |
| Multi-workstation sync | Commonly a per-seat or per-month cloud storage charge. | Records sync between computers over the practice's own network. A folder on any drive, including one a cloud service already syncs, can be scanned on demand to import patient folders.Available now | No third-party account. |
| Referral and case sharing | Often a separate secure-sharing or referral portal subscription. | Share a case by link with a referring provider. The link's contents are encrypted before they leave the practice's computer.With subscription | Included with either paid product. Delivery uses an OrthoTruss-run relay: the case package is sealed on the practice's computer and the key travels only in the link, so the relay cannot read what it holds. It stores the sealed package, the recipient's email, and a case reference for up to 90 days, then purges them. |
The cost column describes categories, not any named product. Figures vary widely by vendor, practice size, and contract, and none of them is a quote for a specific competitor's software. The point of the column is the shape of a startup practice's software bill, not a price comparison against any one company.
What OrthoTruss does not replace
A list of what software covers is only useful next to the list of what it does not. These are the gaps a practice would find in the first month, stated here rather than discovered later.
Electronic claim submission
OrthoTruss fills out a completed, standard-format dental claim as a PDF, with the patient, provider, and treatment fields populated from the record. That claim is submitted manually. It is not transmitted electronically to a clearinghouse from inside the software, and eligibility verification, which is a live feature, is a different thing from claim filing, which is not.
Every sensor's own capture software
OrthoTruss captures X-rays directly from a TWAIN-compatible sensor, through a built-in bridge that triggers the sensor and pulls the image straight into the patient record. For a sensor with no TWAIN driver, X-rays import automatically from a folder the sensor's own software exports to, so every sensor works one way or the other. What OrthoTruss does not replace is the sensor's own capture software itself: it reads from that software directly where the sensor supports TWAIN, and through the export folder where it does not.
The services underneath
Messaging, card processing, and eligibility checks are services with real costs, and this page does not claim they become free. It claims the practice buys them at the vendor's rate, in the practice's own name, instead of inside a bundle.
Each vendor that handles patient information also needs a business associate agreement in place with the practice before that integration is enabled. OrthoTruss asks the practice to confirm this before it will send anything.
One option is named here because its paperwork cannot be completed. Note drafting runs on the practice's own computer by default and can optionally be switched to Google's cloud AI under the practice's own API key; Google's consumer AI API does not offer a business associate agreement at all. The on-device default needs no such agreement, which is part of why it is the default. The practice assistant is different: it is a planned cloud-only feature (not currently available), designed to run on Anthropic under the practice's own API key, behind the same consent gate; Anthropic's API does offer a business associate agreement.
Telephone service and merchant underwriting
OrthoTruss does not act as a telephone carrier and does not underwrite merchant accounts. Voice service, if a practice wants it, is a separate account with a separate provider, and card acceptance depends on the practice's own approval by its payment processor.
What leaves the practice's computer, and when
Patient records, images, and the scheduling and financial ledgers are stored on the practice's own computer. Some features do reach outside it, and it would be inaccurate to say otherwise: licence checks and update checks; each integration the practice configures with its own account, such as messaging, payments, and eligibility; case-share delivery, which uses an OrthoTruss-run relay holding the sealed case package (sealed on the practice's computer, with the key travelling only in the link, so the relay cannot read it), the recipient's email, and a case reference for up to 90 days; note drafting, only if the practice switches it away from its on-device default, to Google's cloud AI under the practice's own API key; and the practice assistant, a planned cloud-only feature (not currently available) designed to run on Anthropic under the practice's own API key. Each integration is off until the practice turns it on.
The full account of which feature transmits what, and to whom, is published on the security page. OrthoTruss is designed to support a practice's HIPAA compliance obligations; compliance itself is a property of how a practice operates, not something software can confer on it.
Frugal is a design constraint, not a discount
OrthoTruss is written by a practising orthodontist, and the practice it is designed around is a new one: a clinician who has just signed a lease, is watching every recurring line item, and would rather learn one system than administer six. Building against that constraint is what produced the pattern on this page. A bundled subscription is easier to sell and easier to buy; the trade described here asks more setup of the practice, and leaves the practice holding its own accounts.
The prices for the paid products are published in full, alongside what happens the day a practice stops paying, on the pricing page.