Google review management for a dental practice
A dental practice lives on its local reputation. Asterias follows your Google reviews live, writes an answer that picks up what the customer actually mentioned (the wait for an appointment, the pain they dreaded, the quote explained before treatment), and leaves every decision below four stars to you.
Why it’s different for a dental practice
A dental practice does not get the reviews a shop gets. What triggers a low rating almost always comes down to four things, and none of them is handled the way a bad meal is.
The four recurring complaints
Waiting past the appointment time
The first cause of low ratings, and the least deserved: the emergency seen before you is the reason you will be seen as an emergency one day. The reply says so, without hollow apology and without detailing what held the practice up. What defuses it is explaining how the day works, not promising it will never happen again.
Fees, and the estimate nobody re-read
The complaint is almost always about the gap between the expected reimbursement and the actual one, not about the amount itself. The reply points out that an estimate is given and signed before any treatment outside routine care, and invites the person back to go through it. It never argues an amount in public, which would amount to saying what was done.
Pain, during or afterwards
This is where a technical reply does the most damage: justifying a procedure in public confirms it happened. The reply acknowledges that the days after were hard, says that pain which persists needs to be looked at, and gives a fast way back in. Nothing more.
An emergency turned away, or delayed
Usually left by someone who is not a patient of the practice, on a Sunday, after a phone call. The reply explains what the practice is and what the out-of-hours service is, with the number to call. It is useful to the next reader, who is in the same position.
Two replies, in full
Appointment at 2pm, seen at 3.10pm. No explanation, no apology. They have no respect for people.
Hello, and thank you for taking the time to write. An hour is a long wait, and the frustration is understandable. The practice keeps slots free every day for emergencies, and an emergency seen in the morning can push the whole afternoon back; that is also what lets us see our own patients quickly when they are in pain. We should have told you about the delay when you arrived rather than leaving you waiting with no news, and that is what we are going to fix. Reception is there for you on [phone].
The reply never says this person is a patient of the practice, nor what they came in for. It acknowledges the fact complained about, the wait, which is the only thing the author made public themselves.
Pleasant team and careful work, but I expected to pay a lot less. The amount left to pay stings.
Hello, thank you for this, and for what you say about the team. What is left to pay is a real difficulty and we would much rather it be understood beforehand than discovered afterwards: a detailed estimate is given and signed before any treatment outside routine care, and it can be sent to your insurer to get their exact contribution. If yours is worth going through together, call the practice on [phone] and we will take the time.
No amount, no procedure, no confirmation of an appointment. The reply moves the conversation to the only place it can legally happen, which is the practice.
When the reviews arrive
December is the busiest month, because annual insurance allowances reset on 1 January and treatment planned for months gets compressed into four weeks. It is also the month when the amount left to pay gets argued about most.
August produces few patient reviews and many emergency ones, left by people passing through who could not find an open practice. Those weigh heaviest on a listing, because they are rarely measured.
September brings back annual check-ups and orthodontic reviews, so a steady and generally favourable volume.
What a public reply must never do
Medical confidentiality covers the very fact that a person is a patient of the practice, not only what was done to them. A reply that opens with "we are sorry your scale and polish ran late" publicly confirms both an appointment and its purpose, including when the reviewer has already named them: they may disclose it, the practice may not.
This is the most common mistake, and the reason many practices prefer never to answer at all. A silent listing, though, reads as a practice that does not listen, which is a different problem.
Asterias writes these answers without ever confirming an appointment or naming a procedure. They pick up only what the review makes public by itself, they send anything touching a record back to the practice, and on a dental practice no reply is published without your approval whatever the setting: the low bands come to you by default, and a review raising a clinical concern or a legal threat comes to you in every case.
On top of that sits the profession’s non-commercial principle: a reply does not promote the practice, does not compare, and does not quote an attractive price. It informs, and it points back to the practice.
Every rating, its own treatment
4 and 5 stars
Answered automatically
A personal thank-you that picks up what the customer liked, published after a natural delay. Nothing for you to do.
3 stars
You approve
Asterias drafts an answer that acknowledges the problem and gives a reason to come back. It lands on WhatsApp or Telegram: one button to publish, one to rewrite.
1 and 2 stars
Nothing without you
Never published automatically by default. You get the review and a suggested reply. Send it, rewrite it, or let it go.
Common questions
Does answering a review breach medical confidentiality?
Answering, no. Confirming the person is a patient, yes. That is where the line runs, and it is a fine one: "thank you for your visit" is already a confirmation. Replies written for a dental practice pick up the complaint without ever acknowledging treatment, and point back to the practice as soon as a record is involved.
A patient disputes their fees in public. What do you answer?
Never the detail, never the amount, never the procedure. The reply notes that an estimate is given and signed before any treatment outside routine care, that it can be sent to their insurer, and offers to go through it at the practice. Arguing an amount in public amounts to publishing what was done.
A review is clearly about someone else, or a same-named practice. What now?
Report it to Google before answering, and do not report what is not a policy matter: an unpleasant but sincere review will not be removed, and reporting it spends a remedy. Our guide on fraudulent reviews sets out what Google removes itself and what belongs in a court, because confusing the two costs weeks.
Does the professional body regulate replies to reviews?
The profession’s non-commercial principle applies to what the practice publishes on its listing too. In practice a reply informs, it does not promote, compare or quote a price. The replies proposed here stay inside that, and you approve them before publication.
Try it on your own reviews
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