About
About Ardent
Ardent is automated dental insurance verification software, built by Autochrome, Inc. It verifies every scheduled patient’s benefits with the payer, fills the breakdown sheet the practice already uses and files it in the practice management system before the visit. Two engineers build it, and dental practices across the San Francisco Bay Area run it every day.
- Co-founded by David Lee and Mason Zhang, who build it and run every demo themselves.
- Made by Autochrome, Inc., a Delaware corporation; a HIPAA Business Associate with a BAA for every practice.
- Fills the sheet the office already uses, keeps a source behind every value, and never guesses a blank.
- In production at dental practices in the San Francisco Bay Area; serves practices anywhere in the United States.
What we build
What is Ardent?
Ardent is automated dental insurance verification. Before each visit it verifies the scheduled patient’s eligibility and benefits with the payer, working the payer’s own channel in order: the provider portal first, a requested benefits fax where that is how the payer answers, and a recorded phone call for the required blanks still open. Then it fills out the benefit breakdown worksheet the practice already uses and files the PDF into the patient’s chart in the practice management system, unattended. One weekday email tells the front desk about anything it could not verify.
Point of view
Why the sheet, and not a dashboard?
Every dental office already has a sheet: the breakdown worksheet a coordinator fills in by hand, in a shorthand the whole team reads. We decided early that Ardent would fill that sheet rather than replace it with a screen of our own. It keeps the office’s notation, its order of questions and its habits, and it means nobody has to learn new software to trust the result. The rest of the design follows from that. Every value on the sheet keeps its source, whether a portal record and screenshot, the lines of a fax, or a quote from the rep on the call. A blank nobody stated stays blank, and a required one is flagged for a person rather than guessed. Results are informational, and the practice confirms coverage with the payer.
Who builds it
Two engineers, one product
Ardent is built by its two co-founders. There is no sales team between you and the people who wrote the software: the demo is with David, and the first supervised run on your schedule is watched by both of us.
David Lee
Co-founder
David was an engineer at Need, an AI cancer-detection startup, and previously worked on Google’s Material Design team. He runs every demo and every first supervised run with a practice, and his email is the one on the site.
Mason Zhang
Co-founder
Mason was an engineer at Ramp, where he built the company’s first AI agents. At Ardent he builds the payer playbooks: the portal automation, the fax transcription and the voice agent that phones a payer’s provider line.
Where it runs
Dental practices using Ardent today
Ardent runs every day at dental practices in the San Francisco Bay Area, on the sheets those offices already used. The payer playbooks and practice management system integrations are not tied to a region, and Ardent serves practices anywhere in the United States.
- Randhawa Dentistry, Emeryville and Alameda, on Eaglesoft
- Montclair Pediatric Dentistry, Oakland, on CareStack, with its own pediatric breakdown sheet
- Chestnut Square Dental, Concord
- Crossroads Dental Care, Vallejo
- Pinole Hills Dental, Pinole
The company
Autochrome, Inc.
Ardent is made by Autochrome, Inc., a Delaware corporation. Ardent is the product and the name that appears on the filed sheet and in the front desk’s morning email, which arrives from "Ardent Dental". Ardent operates as a HIPAA Business Associate and signs a Business Associate Agreement with every practice; how patient data is handled is set out on the security page and in the privacy policy.
Answers
Questions about Ardent and the company
Ardent was founded by David Lee and Mason Zhang, who build it together. David was an engineer at Need, an AI cancer-detection startup, and worked on Google’s Material Design team; Mason was an engineer at Ramp, where he built the company’s first AI agents.
Yes. Ardent is the product. "Ardent Dental" is how it signs the one-line notes it leaves on an appointment and the morning email to the front desk. Autochrome, Inc., a Delaware corporation, is the company that makes it and the party to the Business Associate Agreement.
Dental practices in the San Francisco Bay Area: Randhawa Dentistry in Emeryville and Alameda, Montclair Pediatric Dentistry in Oakland, Chestnut Square Dental in Concord, Crossroads Dental Care in Vallejo and Pinole Hills Dental in Pinole. Ardent serves practices anywhere in the United States.
Email david@ardentdental.co, or book a 30-minute demo on your own sheet, in your PMS. Bring your breakdown form and we will show it filled for a fictional patient.
No. Ardent handles protected health information only to provide the service, under a Business Associate Agreement with each practice; every subprocessor that touches PHI is under a BAA, and the site and app set no advertising or analytics cookies. The details are in the Privacy Policy.