How a Two-Location Practice Finally Broke Free from 30 Years of Manual Work
Why DeChellis Family Dentistry made the switch to a modern, cloud-based practice management software and never looked back.
years on Dentrix
migrated to Archy
saved in IT infrastructure
Staff adoption
About DeChellis Family Dentistry:
DeChellis Family Dentistry has served patients in Ohio since the mid-1980s, now operating two general dentistry offices under Dr. Tom DeChellis, who has been in the practice since 2013. The practice carries deep roots in dental technology with Dr. DeChellis’s father as one of the first dental practices in the country to adopt Dentrix in the early 1990s.
The Challenge: A Legacy System Holding Them Back
After more than 30 years on Dentrix, the practice had outgrown the platform. What had once been cutting-edge felt increasingly like a liability. The team spent significant portions of their day on manual data entry, copying patient health histories from paper forms to charts by hand. Technology that should have enabled them was instead consuming the time they had wanted to spend on patient care.
The costs were mounting, too. In 2018, a single server and computer refresh cost the practice over $50,000. With aging infrastructure requiring another overhaul, the financial reality of staying on a server-based system was hard to ignore.
Dr.DeChellis identified three core needs driving the decision to switch:
- Reduce manual, time-consuming data entry and administrative labor
- Ability to manage the office remotely
- Lower long-term technology and IT infrastructure costs
Why Archy:
DeChellis Dentistry evaluated three of the top cloud-based dental practice management platforms. Archy stood out immediately, and the reason was the interface. Clean, modern, and nothing like what they’d been using. Dr. DeChellis described opening the old software recently after the switch:
Unlike legacy systems that pile up third-party integrations for imaging, communication, and billing, Archy brings everything together: scheduling, clinical charting, native imaging, patient engagement, e-prescribing, insurance claims, payments, and reporting, all in one login.
Still, Dr. DeChellis had one concern that no feature list could address on its own: his team. A staff ranging from 22 to 68 years old would need to get up to speed quickly, and he knew that a complicated onboarding process could derail everything.
Archy’s training resources, structured like an online university with video modules, made the transition approachable for everyone. The feared resistance never materialized. The team that Dr. DeChellis worried would push back the hardest was fully operational in days.
The Migration: Faster Than Anyone Expected
From first contact with Archy in April to both offices fully live on the platform in June, the migration took roughly two months. For a practice that had been on the same system for over 30 years, that pace surprised even Dr. DeChellis.
Patient images, clinical notes, charting, and documents all transferred cleanly into Archy. As for the financial ledger, Dr. DeChellis knew going in that it wouldn’t transfer directly, and that didn’t give him pause. He saw it as an opportunity to start fresh. At go-live, the team entered current outstanding balances for active patients and moved forward from there. It’s worked out exactly as he expected.
Life on Archy
Nearly half a year into the switch, the changes have touched every corner of the practice. Dr. DeChellis describes the impact as “hard to articulate.” The automation is so pervasive that quantifying all the saved hours is difficult. Here’s what it looks like in practice:
Archy automatically texts or emails patients a link to their intake forms before their appointment. Health histories and questionnaires arrive completed and upload directly into their charts. Previously, the practice mailed physical paperwork, patients wrote it out by hand, and staff scanned it in manually. That entire cycle is gone. Patients love it. They walk in, get checked in, and go straight back.
X-rays, intraoral photos, and historical images all live on the same screen as the patient chart — no more toggling between programs. The FDA-cleared Pearl AI imaging analysis has become a genuine patient engagement tool: patients see what Dr. DeChellis sees, ask questions, and leave impressed. “Patients are blown away and think it's really neat that we’ve got these services.”
DeChellis Dentistry had never used e-prescribing before Archy — prescriptions were printed and handed to patients. Now they go directly to the pharmacy enhancing the patient experience.
Built-in intra-office messaging means front desk staff can message hygiene or billing without leaving a patient at the window. The team moves faster and interrupts each other less.
Hygienists now manage much of their day from an iPad, bringing X-rays and patient charts directly to Dr. DeChellis for check-ins rather than hunting for a free computer or printing anything. The day flows faster, and patients notice the difference.
Upgrading all computers across both offices to Windows 11 cost over $45,000 less than the equivalent server-based refresh would have. No servers. No forced IT management contract. As long as there’s internet and a computer, the practice runs. Dr. DeChellis handled the hardware upgrade himself.
The Bottom Line:
For DeChellis Family Dentistry, Archy didn’t just replace a piece of software; it replaced a fragmented, server-dependent operating model that had accumulated over 30 years. Patient communication, clinical tools, imaging, scheduling, e-prescribing, and reporting are now unified in one platform, accessible from anywhere, with no IT overhead and a team that adopted it in two days.
When asked what he would say to another doctor considering the switch, Dr. DeChellis didn’t hesitate:
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