Reviews are the most confusing part of dental marketing, because two true statements sit awkwardly together: review volume and recency are among the strongest local ranking signals, and testimonials about clinical services cannot be used in advertising by a registered health practitioner. Practices resolve this in two wrong ways, either ignoring reviews entirely or plastering them across the website. This is the workable middle.
What the rule actually says
Section 133 of the National Law prohibits advertising a regulated health service in a way that uses testimonials or purported testimonials about the service or the business. It also prohibits false or misleading advertising, claims that create an unreasonable expectation of beneficial treatment, offers without their terms, and encouraging the unnecessary use of health services. Responsibility sits with the registered practitioner, not with the agency or the web developer who published the page.
The important word is advertising. A review a patient chooses to leave on a public platform is not you advertising. The same review copied onto your homepage is.
What you can do
You can invite patients to leave a review on your Google Business Profile or another public platform. You can build volume and recency there deliberately, because that is where local ranking signals are read. You can link to your profile from your website so people can read reviews on Google's platform. You can respond to reviews, positively and negatively. And you can use non-clinical feedback about the experience of dealing with your practice, such as comments on parking, wait times or the booking process, with far less exposure, provided it does not stray into treatment outcomes.
You can also publish everything you can substantiate: qualifications, registration, association memberships, technology in use, languages spoken, what a treatment involves and what it costs with the required qualifying information.
What you cannot do
You cannot reproduce clinical testimonials on your website, in ads, in email marketing, on printed material or in social posts. You cannot embed a review widget that pulls clinical testimonials onto the site, which catches a lot of practices who assumed automation changed the analysis. You cannot quote a review in a Google Ads asset or a Facebook ad. You cannot offer a reward, discount or entry into a prize draw in exchange for a review, which is both an advertising problem and a platform policy breach. And you cannot selectively solicit only patients you expect to be positive, which is review gating.
If you are unsure whether a specific line crosses the boundary, run it through our free AHPRA advertising compliance checker before it is published.
Request wording that stays inside the rules
Keep the ask neutral and unconditioned. Something close to: we would appreciate your feedback about your experience with our practice, and if you have a moment you can leave a review on our Google listing. Do not ask for a positive review, do not describe what a good review would say, and do not attach anything of value to it. Send the request to everyone who attends, not a filtered subset. Timing matters more than wording: shortly after the appointment, while the experience is fresh, and by whichever channel that patient normally uses.
Build it into the practice workflow rather than running it as a campaign. A process that requests consistently after every visit produces steadier volume and recency than a burst every six months, and steadiness is what the ranking signals reward.
Responding without confirming clinical details
Responses are public, and privacy obligations do not lapse because a patient posted first. The safe pattern is to thank the person for the feedback, avoid confirming that they attended the practice, avoid any reference to their treatment, and invite them to contact the practice directly to discuss anything specific. That reads as professional to the next reader, which is the actual audience.
For a negative review, resist correcting the record publicly. Explaining what really happened confirms the person was a patient and discloses clinical information, and it never reads well. A short, calm acknowledgement plus an offer to speak offline is both compliant and more persuasive than a rebuttal. Where a review breaches platform policy, such as one that is fabricated or contains abuse, report it through the platform rather than arguing in the thread.
What to do when reviews mention treatment
Patients write what they like, and many of them describe their treatment in detail. That is their choice and it is not a breach by you, because you did not publish it as advertising. Where it becomes a problem is if you then amplify it, by sharing the review to social media, quoting it in a newsletter or pinning it somewhere on your own channels. The safe position is simple: leave it where the patient put it, respond in general terms, and do not repurpose it anywhere you control.
Occasionally a review contains a clinical claim that is factually wrong and potentially damaging. The instinct to correct it publicly is strong and should still be resisted, because a public correction discloses information about a patient. Respond briefly, invite contact offline, document the matter internally, and take advice if the content is defamatory or appears fabricated.
Managing the team and the workflow
A review process only survives if it belongs to someone. Assign it, put it in the daily routine, and review the numbers monthly alongside the rest of your marketing reporting.
Reception staff need a script they are comfortable with, and they need to know what not to say. The two rules that matter: never make the request conditional on the patient being happy, and never offer anything in return. Practitioners should not be asking patients directly in the chair, because the power imbalance makes a genuine choice harder and the request harder to decline.
Keep a simple record of when requests go out and how many reviews arrive, so you can see whether the process is running rather than assuming. If volume stalls, the cause is almost always that the request stopped being sent, not that patients stopped being satisfied.
How reviews fit the rest of the search programme
Reviews feed the map pack, and the map pack sits above organic results for proximity searches, so this work is directly commercial rather than reputational housekeeping. It pairs with the profile checklist in Google Business Profile for dentists and with the acquisition channels ranked in how to get more dental patients. The technical and content side sits in dental SEO services, and the full programme, including how compliance is built into the publishing workflow rather than checked after a complaint, is on our dental marketing agency page and explained further under AHPRA-compliant marketing.
