Music for your dental practice, without Buma and Sena
Looking for background music for your dental practice? RadioMatic gives you your own station for the waiting room and the treatment rooms, for one amount per location. Because the music is made with AI, you pay nothing to Buma/Stemra and Sena.
With RadioMatic from € 29.99 per location per month, without Buma and Sena. News and your own announcements with Professional. See all plans
What do you pay now for music in your dental practice?
Three questions, and you see what you now spend on Buma/Stemra, Sena and your music service.
If you are a KNMT member, the KNMT says you pay nothing to Buma/Stemra and Sena. This calculator is for a practice outside that scheme.
How big is your business?
What else you get
No tension from the radio In a dentist’s waiting room there is always someone who would rather be somewhere else. The drill or the suction comes through the door, and that sound is exactly what makes the wait feel long. An ordinary radio station does not help. One advert for a health insurer, a news item about an accident or a presenter laughing loudly, and the tension is back. With RadioMatic no third-party advertising comes between the tracks, and you decide whether anyone speaks at all.
Your own messages in between What you do play, you type in yourself. For instance that the dental hygienist also works on Thursday evenings, how to move an appointment, or that December is the time to check your supplementary insurance. A presenter turns it into a DJ moment, and on the hour you can add national or local news. Your own announcements and the news come with Professional. There your announcements can also play in your own voice, and you make as many of your own jingles and promotions as you like.
Each room its own sound You and your team hear the music all day, five days a week. New music arrives every day in the same calm style, and the tracks that suit your practice come back as your own hits. Every track is checked with audio fingerprinting, the way Shazam works, and with our own software. You can create as many stations as you like, so the waiting room and the treatment rooms each get a sound that fits them.
What does music in your dental practice cost? Start with the KNMT arrangement
Arrangement for KNMT members If you are a member of the KNMT, the Royal Dutch Dental Association, then according to the KNMT you pay nothing to Buma/Stemra and Sena for music in your practice.
Agreements since 2018 In 2018 the KNMT reached an agreement with Sena for BIG-registered dentists who are members, and in 2021 a collective arrangement with Buma/Stemra, backdated to 1 January 2020. For members the choice is therefore not about the bill but about what plays between the tracks. What RadioMatic does differently there is set out above.
Two Sena bills for non-members If you are not a member, you get two Sena bills that run separately, plus one from Buma/Stemra. Sena charges the waiting room on floor area. The treatment rooms fall under the Sena table “Medische behandelruimte” (medical treatment room), which charges per room.
Every surgery room counts That table only applies if your profession is in the BIG register, and dentists are. Every room with music counts, so adding a fourth surgery raises the bill. In the calculator on mijnlicentie.nl, Buma/Stemra charges the waiting room and the treatment rooms separately, each in the lowest band.
No fees for AI-made music We checked the amount for the example in the calculator on mijnlicentie.nl, and our breakdown matches it to the cent. With RadioMatic that whole amount falls away, because the music is made entirely with AI. Buma/Stemra itself says that music made entirely by AI, without a creative contribution from a person, does not qualify for copyright or payment.
What the law and the court say The same applies to Sena. Sena can only collect for a recording that has been commercially released, and on that ground Sena lost in court in 2025. The full reasoning is in our legal memorandum.
| Sena, waiting room per m² | € 323 |
|---|---|
| Sena, three treatment rooms each | € 611 |
| Buma/Stemra, per type of room | € 569 |
| Together per year | € 1,504 |
Sources: KNMT, agreement with Sena of 15 February 2018 and KNMT, collective arrangement with Buma/Stemra of 14 December 2021. Sena, 2026 tariff overview, the table “Medische behandelruimte”, € 160.94 base per treatment room per year, with the RAAP-PPI surcharge of 26.6% on all Sena amounts. For the waiting room the calculator charges € 255.29 base up to and including 100 m². Buma/Stemra, mechanical background music, BUM.413.26/01, category B up to and including 100 m², € 284.54 a year, which names “wachtruimten zonder horecavoorziening” (waiting rooms without a hospitality facility). Dentist is a profession under article 3 of the BIG Act. On 24 September 2026 the calculator on mijnlicentie.nl gave a base tariff of € 1,503.53 per year for the example, € 1,002.40 after the discount of 33.33% and € 1,082.08 including VAT. Details of other providers from their own sites, consulted on 24 September 2026. Also used ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2025:6175.
Waiting room, chair and front desk each need something different
A blanket over the drill In the waiting room music works like a blanket over the sounds of the practice. The drill, the suction and the beeping of equipment come through a door, and anyone who walked in tense hears every one of them. Even music without jumps in volume covers that. Calm in tempo, without lyrics that demand attention and without silences between tracks, because a silence is exactly when the drill stands out.
Softer at the chair In the chair someone lies with their mouth open and cannot say anything back. Music gives them something to listen to other than the sound inside their own mouth. It should be softer than in the waiting room, so you and your colleague at the chair can still hear each other, and without any spoken word. If you run a children’s clinic on Wednesday afternoons, you switch to a lighter, more cheerful station for that afternoon. It changes by time of day on its own.
Conversations at the front desk At the front desk the talk is about things the waiting room does not need to hear. An unpaid bill, a referral to the oral surgeon, what the insurance does and does not cover. Music at a soft, even level makes such a conversation harder for the rest of the waiting room to follow. A chart playlist with changing volume and silences between tracks does exactly the opposite.
It runs on the speakers already in your practice
Ceiling speakers stay in place You do not have to buy anything. RadioMatic plays on a Sonos, through Chromecast, in a browser on the computer at the front desk or through line-in on the amplifier already there. If your treatment rooms have ceiling speakers, they stay where they are and only what comes out of them changes. If each room has a small speaker, that is enough.
Waiting room and surgery apart You set a different sound per room in the same dashboard. For instance the waiting room with your announcements, the treatment rooms with music only and the children’s afternoon with a lighter station. You hear back on your request within one working day, and after that your station is live in under ten minutes.
What you can choose from today
Suppliers for healthcare Look for music for your dental practice and you find suppliers that serve healthcare separately. Synerplay has a healthcare page that names dental practices. Soundtrack has a Dutch page for dental practices. With both you play music by human creators.
Licences with or without KNMT If you are a KNMT member, that music falls under the collective arrangements with Buma/Stemra and Sena, according to the KNMT. If you are not, you arrange the licences yourself. Synerplay says itself that you take out those two licences directly with the rights organisations. What that costs is set out above. What applies to every kind of healthcare practice is on music for your practice.
With RadioMatic your waiting room gets even music that pushes the drill into the background and dampens conversations at the desk, with your own announcements in between, such as when the dental hygienist is in. In the treatment room only calm music remains, soft enough to hear each other at the chair. No third-party advertising comes in between, and if you have more than one practice, you run them all from one account.
Why RadioMatic is something other than a playlist or the radio
A business owner who wants music on the premises usually picks from three things. A playlist from a streaming service, an ordinary radio station, or a royalty-free music package. This is where they differ.
| Playlist | Ordinary radio | Royalty-free | RadioMatic | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New music | Fixed list | Yes, but not your choice | Limited catalogue | New every day |
| Music that is yours alone | No | No | No | Yes, your own hits |
| Fits the time of day | Switch it yourself | No | Switch it yourself | Automatic |
| Names your business | No | No | No | Yes |
| Your own offers | No | Only if you buy advertising | No | Yes, with Professional, no studio |
| Local news and weather | No | Yes, the station’s | No | Yes, with Professional, your town |
| Other people’s adverts | No | Yes | No | No |
| Several locations | Set up per location | No | Set up per location | Yes, from one place, each with its own mood |
| Buma/Stemra and Sena | Payable | Payable | See the terms | Not payable |
Frequently asked questions about music in your dental practice
Other kinds of business
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- Music for your physiotherapy practice, without Buma and SenaFor physiotherapy practices
- Background music for your pharmacy, without Buma and SenaPharmacies and health centres
Background music for business. What is allowed, what does it cost and what are your options?
Ready to hear it for yourself?
Try RadioMatic free for 14 days. Your own station for your business, without Buma/Stemra and Sena, and cancel monthly if you pay monthly.
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