Flex vs NexHealth: 10,000 practices chose NexHealth
Flex is a set of add-ons for Open Dental. NexHealth does the work on Open Dental, and on every other practice management system.
Or call 866-522-1598
A set of add-on tools for Open Dental practices, sold in three tiers.
Their competition: Open Dental's own eServices and Weave.
A patient experience platform that keeps your calendar full and your patient balances collected.
Our competition: the hours your staff spend calling to fill a last-minute cancellation, manually posting payments, and checking insurance one patient at a time.
Actions speak louder than sales promises
What each company actually did over the past five years.
NexHealth over the past five years
100 releases a year
180 releases a year
260 releases a year
Flex over the past five years
Promises a Dentrix integration
- Announced Mar 2022
- Not on their site today
- All-features plan listed at $249 a month
Stays Open Dental only
- Certified Open Dental vendor, late 2024
- Full plan now $599 plus a $15 fee
- Membership plans through a partner
Payments launch, on a waitlist
- FlexPayments on Stripe, Mar 2026
- Current customers wait to be onboarded
- Nationwide outage, Jun 2026
A typical practice sees
What practices told us when they left Flex for NexHealth
Cancellations fill themselves. No one texts down the list.
On Flex, a 50-person waitlist meant picking through it by hand and deselecting patients one at a time before a text could go out. The office manager called the NexHealth waitlist hands down better and moved the practice over.
Office manager, four-provider dental practice
Payments post to the ledger. One account, not one per location.
On Flex, merchant fees ran higher and the patient saw a balance with no breakdown of what they were paying for. The same four-provider practice moved payments to NexHealth for statements that itemize and post on their own.
Office manager, four-provider dental practice
Forms write back to the chart. Every patient, every time.
On Flex, forms kept needing to be resent, and after a patient signed, Flex still said they had not. Patients got annoyed: I already signed this. The owner moved the practice to NexHealth for forms that reach the chart the first time.
Owner dentist, single-location dental practice
A local support team.
Practices missed the NexHealth team. NexHealth support is in Draper, Utah. And the onboarding team is in San Francisco, CA.
Office manager, three-location orthodontic group
Who does the job: software, or your staff
Buying Flex means your staff does the job, with a set of add-ons for Open Dental.
The job
With NexHealth
With Flex
Keeps your calendar full
With NexHealth
NexHealth, on its own
- Waitlist that fills cancellations on its own
- Online scheduling on your website, Google Maps and invisalign.com
- Tracks which bookings came from where
With Flex
Your staff, by hand
Flex sends reminders. Filling the opening is still on your staff. The ASAP list is a phone list. One office turned Flex's waitlist off because it did not work.
Gets patients ready before they walk in: forms done, insurance checked, card on file
With NexHealth
NexHealth, on its own
- Custom forms that sync to the patient chart
- Reads the insurance card from a photo
- Texts the patient when their insurance ID is wrong or expired
- Collects a card on file at booking or in the forms
With Flex
Your staff, by hand
Forms come in the base plan. Card holds need the $399 plan. Insurance checks need the $599 plan. Form links die when a patient pauses and health history updates go missing.
Collects your balances
With NexHealth
NexHealth, on its own
- Posts every payment to the ledger
- Works out the patient portion vs insurance on its own
- Text to pay, email, terminal and online portal
- Patient statements
- Surcharging
With Flex
Your staff, by hand
Flex's own payments launched in March 2026. Most Flex offices still run a separate processor and terminal. Two locations means two Flex accounts. Someone reconciles the ledger by hand.
Writes it all back to your practice management system
With NexHealth
NexHealth, on its own
Every feature works with your practice management system, because the connection is ours and not a third party's.
With Flex
Your staff, by hand
Flex works with Open Dental and nothing else. Add a location on Dentrix, Eaglesoft or Denticon, or a medical EHR, and Flex stops at the door.
Gets you live
With NexHealth
An onboarding manager, with you
A person in San Francisco installs the sync and sets up your reminders, forms and online booking. 7 days from signed to live.
With Flex
Your staff, with help articles
Flex installs on your server over a remote connection. Two hours of remote training, split in two. Flex says about two weeks from demo to live.
Picks up when you call
With NexHealth
A person in Draper, Utah
40 seconds to reach a person by phone.
With Flex
Your staff, left to their own
Support runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 8pm Eastern. A help center, a request form and a phone line. In June 2026 Flex went down for offices nationwide, one of them for a week.
A person in Draper picks up your call in 40 seconds. A person in San Francisco gets you live in 7 days.
Flex: a help center and a request form, weekdays 8 to 8 Eastern. Two weeks to live.
Questions practices ask us
Does Flex work with anything other than Open Dental?
No. Flex says it is built exclusively for Open Dental. In March 2022 Flex announced a Dentrix integration, but its site today lists Open Dental only. If you run Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Denticon or a medical EHR, Flex is not an option. NexHealth works with Open Dental and with the other practice management systems, dental and medical.
What does Flex cost?
Flex lists three plans per location per month: $299, $399 and $599. Online booking starts at the $399 plan. Insurance verification is only in the $599 plan. Flex also lists a $15 a month Open Dental integration fee on every plan. What looks like $299 is $599 plus the fee once you want booking and insurance checks.
Is Flex month to month?
Yes. Flex sells month to month with no installation fee and no cancellation fee. Two hours of remote training are included. Flex says most practices go live about two weeks after the demo.
Who owns Flex? Is it part of Open Dental?
No. Flex Dental Solutions is a private company based near Atlanta, founded in 2018 by a dentist and her husband. Open Dental does not own it. In December 2024 the two companies signed a formal partnership and Flex became a certified Open Dental vendor.
Does Flex do payments?
Flex launched FlexPayments powered by Stripe in March 2026. It is new, and existing customers join a waitlist to get it. Practices run Flex next to a separate processor, a separate terminal and a separate statement tool, and spend hours reconciling. NexHealth posts every payment to the ledger and works out the patient portion vs insurance on its own.
What happens to my forms if I leave Flex?
They do not come out as documents. When practices moved off Flex, their forms exported as data files, not PDFs or Word files, and only the first page could be copied. NexHealth's onboarding manager rebuilds your forms as part of setup, so your staff is not retyping them.
Can I keep Open Dental if I move to NexHealth?
Yes. NexHealth connects to Open Dental directly, with our own connection and not a third party's. Your schedule, chart and ledger stay in Open Dental. NexHealth does the work on top of it.
Who owns NexHealth?
Its founders, backed by Silicon Valley investors. The roadmap comes from what practices ask for, and new product updates ship most weeks: 880+ releases in the past five years.
How do I switch from Flex to NexHealth?
A NexHealth person installs the sync, sets up your reminders, forms and online booking, and walks your front desk through it. 7 days from signed to first feature live.
Does NexHealth work with my practice management system?
15 systems, dental and medical, cloud and on premise: Dentrix, Dentrix Ascend, Eaglesoft, Open Dental, Denticon, Curve, Cloud9, Dolphin, eClinicalWorks, athenahealth, NextGen, ModMed and more. The full list is at nexhealth.com/integrations.
Is NexHealth for medical practices too?
Yes. 19 specialties: dental, orthodontics, primary care, dermatology, physical therapy and more.
Flex is a set of Open Dental add-ons.
Keep Open Dental. Add the platform that keeps your calendar full and your patient balances collected, on Open Dental and on every system you run next.
Or call 866-522-1598
Already on Flex? You can be live on NexHealth in 7 days.
when you demo NexHealth in October