Getting reviews is the easy half of this in a dental practice. The hard half is that every public reply you write is a public statement about somebody's health care, so the wording that is fine for a contractor is a problem for you. Below: how the request reaches every patient, what stays out of a reply, and the sites besides Google where patients rate a dentist.
Book a free consultation →Choosing a dentist is not like choosing a roofer. The person reading your reviews is deciding who gets to put their hands in their mouth, and they read with that in mind.
Two worries tend to do most of the filtering, and neither is clinical skill. One is fear: will this hurt, will somebody lecture me for waiting four years, will I be rushed. The other is money: whether the estimate holds and whether the plan on file is the plan that ends up billed. A profile full of five stars that speaks to neither still loses to a shorter one that does.
The general case for this service, what it is and what it is not, sits on the reputation management page. This one is about what changes when the customer is a patient.
Asking is not where practices get in trouble. It is where they stall. Somebody at the desk means to ask, the schedule runs long, and a month goes by with nobody asked.
The rule we build around is not negotiable: every patient gets asked, in the same words and on the same timing, with nothing offered in exchange. No shortlist of patients who seemed happy, and no hand-picking by the hygienist. Sorting patients first and pointing only the pleased ones at your profile is gating, which Google's policy prohibits and the FTC has acted against. Incentives are the other trap: Google bars offering anything for a review, and the FTC's 2024 rule outlaws rewards that depend on the review being positive, so a whitening credit or a gift card has no place in the request. Dentistry adds one layer on the publishing side: several state dental boards write patient testimonials into their advertising rules, and what one state allows the next may restrict, so check with your board before reviews get quoted on the site or in a post.
What that looks like once it is built:
The request tool itself is a custom tool, coded for your practice, wired to your profile, and yours to keep.
A reviewer can post whatever they like about their own care. The practice cannot answer in kind, because the privacy rules bind the office and not the patient, and that is why the reply gets more of our attention than the review does.
Four things stay out of a reply from a dental practice, no matter how the review is worded:
Say a patient posts a one star review that names the procedure and says the final bill came in well over the estimate. The reply that works is short and general: it thanks them for the feedback, says in plain terms how the practice handles billing questions, and gives a name and a phone number. It says nothing about them at all. It reads a little flat, and that is fine, because its audience is the next person comparing three practices, not the reviewer.
Positive reviews carry the identical rule and get it wrong more often, because a warm thank you feels harmless. "So glad the implant went well" confirms two protected things in six words.
We draft replies, you approve every one, and clinical judgment stays with the dentist. Nothing posts under your name that nobody in the practice has read. More of the field-specific thinking behind this is in our dental marketing guide.
Google carries most of the weight for a dental office, but a patient checking the practice out by name can land on several other pages first.
Monitoring here means one place that shows what came in and from which of those surfaces, checked on a schedule somebody in the office owns, so nobody discovers a three week old one star review while looking for something else. The listing mechanics underneath, categories, hours, photos, duplicate profiles, are Google Business Profile work for dentists and run alongside it.
Then there is your own site, where reviews do more good on a service page than on a testimonials page nothing links to. Ours get filtered first: a review naming a condition or a procedure stays off the page, because republishing it makes the practice the publisher. The markup that lets search engines and answer tools read what does go up, and where reviews sit on a page, are both part of how we build dental practice websites.
Nothing here starts before the list exists. We look at which pieces a practice actually needs, which is usually fewer than a vendor would sell, price those pieces, and you approve that list before anything gets built. There is no monthly reputation fee on this site because there is no month of unnamed work sitting behind one. What you approve lands in one of two budgets, and both use numbers already published here.
Anything outside those two shapes gets its own flat quote after a free consult. Everything ongoing is month to month, and the tool, the profile, the site and the review history sit in accounts with the practice name on them. If the search engagement is the budget question, how much SEO costs walks through the range.
No practice is named on this page and none will be. A patient list is not a portfolio, and a dental office's reviews are not raw material for somebody else's marketing.
Four things we will not do at any price: write a review, pay for one, decide which patients get asked in public, or tell you an honest one star is coming down. We also will not name a star rating or a review count you will reach by a date, because what a patient writes is theirs to decide. To find out where the practice stands today, start with a free concept mockup and consult, or send the details through the quote form.
Yes, and it slips past people more often. A warm reply saying you are glad the implant went well confirms both that the person is a patient and what was done, which is the same disclosure a defensive reply makes, just in a friendlier voice. Keep the good ones short and general: thanks for the kind words, we appreciate it. No procedure, no visit, no detail they did not already own.
No. Google bars anything of value offered for a review, the FTC's 2024 rule outlaws rewards that depend on a positive review, and a state dental board may have its own rules on paid testimonials. There is a practical problem too. An incentive changes who bothers to write, and readers are good at spotting a stack of reviews that all arrived the same week saying roughly the same thing. Ask everyone, offer nothing.
Carefully, and without a single clinical word. Defending the treatment plan in public means confirming the person is a patient and describing what is in their chart. A reply that works states, in general terms, how the practice handles questions about treatment plans and second opinions, then gives a name and a phone number. The clinical conversation happens privately, with the dentist, if the patient wants one.
No. A reply naming the child, the visit or anything done in the chair confirms that a minor is a patient of the practice, which is the same disclosure as for an adult and reads worse. Thank the parent for the feedback in general terms, say how the office handles questions from families, and offer a direct number. Keep the warmth for the family and the detail for the phone.
Maybe not, and we will say so. If it already sends the same request to every patient, offers nothing in exchange, and does not name the procedure in the message, that part is handled. What those systems usually leave uncovered is the reply side, monitoring anywhere other than Google, and getting real reviews onto your own site. Also worth asking who owns that review data if you ever switch vendors.
No, but a practice that replies to none reads as absent, and one that replies only to complaints reads as defensive. A workable habit is a brief general thank you on the good ones and a careful reply on anything critical, both written for the next reader. Replies carry a date, so a stretch of silence is visible to anyone who scrolls. Consistency matters more than speed.
Reputation Management services · Dentists and dental practices: industry overview · SEO for dentists and dental practices · Local SEO for dentists and dental practices · Websites for dentists and dental practices · Google Business Profile for dentists and dental practices · Social media for dentists and dental practices · What should you pay? (free tool)
A free consult opens with your listings on screen: what the newest reviews say, which ones never got an answer, and whether anything already posted under the practice name needs a second look. Call or text (407) 694-2055, or email [email protected].
Book a free consultation → Or call/text directly: (407) 694-2055Tell us a little about the business and we will come back with an honest read: what we would fix first, what it costs, and whether you need us at all. Prefer to see work before you talk numbers? Get a free homepage mockup, built for your business, yours to keep either way.
Brandon reads every one of these himself. You will hear back shortly with an honest read on what we would do first, what it costs, and whether it is worth it for you.