Can you put Google reviews on your dental website in Australia?
Updated 7 min readSourced to Ahpra
The short answer
Only partly. A review that refers to a clinical aspect — a symptom, a diagnosis, a treatment or an outcome — is a testimonial and cannot be used in dental advertising. A review purely about customer service or communication style is not a testimonial and may be used. Editing reviews to remove the clinical parts is itself likely to be misleading.
On this page
This is the single most common compliance failure on Australian dental websites, and it is usually introduced by the web developer with the best of intentions: a tidy carousel of five-star Google reviews, pulled in automatically, right above the booking button.
The reason it fails is that section 133(1)(c) of the National Law prohibits using testimonials or purported testimonials to advertise a regulated health service — and most dental reviews are testimonials, because most patients write about their treatment.
What Ahpra actually counts as a testimonial
The advertising guidelines define a testimonial as recommendations or positive statements about the clinical aspects of a regulated health service used in advertising. Examples include patient stories, patient experiences or success stories.
The load-bearing words are clinical aspects. Ahpra spells out what makes an aspect clinical. One of these is enough:
- Symptom — the specific symptom, or the reason for seeking treatment.
- Diagnosis or treatment — the specific diagnosis or treatment the practitioner provided.
- Outcome — the specific outcome, or the skills or experience of the practitioner, either directly or by comparison.
And, just as importantly, the converse: not all reviews are testimonials. Ahpra states that comments about customer service or communication style that do not refer to clinical aspects are not testimonials for the purposes of the National Law, and may be used in advertising.
Worked examples
| Review | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| “I came in with terrible pain and left completely fixed. Dr Patel is the best dentist I’ve seen.” | Testimonial — cannot be used | Symptom, outcome, and a comparison of the practitioner’s skill. All three tests. |
| “My implant looks amazing, you’d never know it wasn’t a real tooth.” | Testimonial — cannot be used | Names the treatment and describes the outcome. |
| “Reception called me back within ten minutes and the parking was easy to find.” | Not a testimonial — may be used | Customer service only. No symptom, treatment or outcome. |
| “The team explained everything clearly and never made me feel rushed.” | Not a testimonial — may be used | Communication style. No clinical aspect. |
| “Great practice, highly recommend!” | Grey area — treat as unsafe | A bare recommendation with no clinical detail. Ahpra’s definition turns on clinical aspects, but “recommendations … about the clinical aspects” is doing work here and a five-star recommendation of a dental practice reads as a recommendation of its dentistry. Not worth the argument. |
Who is responsible for what
This is where practices get needlessly frightened. You are not responsible for the entire internet. Ahpra ties responsibility to control.
An advertiser has control of the advertising if they publish or authorise content, or direct someone else to publish or draft it — including a third party, a staff member or a marketing agency — or if there is a mechanism for them to modify or remove content published by an unrelated publisher.
| Where the review appears | Who is responsible |
|---|---|
| Your practice website, which republishes reviews | You. Whoever controls the website is responsible for compliance. |
| Your practice Facebook or Instagram page with the reviews function on | You. If the platform will not let you remove individual reviews, Ahpra’s stated option is to disable the reviews function. |
| A third-party booking site or review platform that advertises health services, where you cannot control the reviews function | The platform owner. You remain responsible for any other content on that page that you do control — your profile copy, for instance. |
| A third-party site or forum that does not advertise a regulated health service | Nobody, for s133 purposes. Ahpra states advertisers are not responsible for removing testimonials published on platforms they do not control. |
Why editing reviews makes it worse, not better
The obvious workaround — publish the reviews, but trim the clinical bits — is specifically called out. Selectively editing reviews or testimonials has the potential to be false, misleading or deceptive, which is a breach of a different limb of section 133. Ahpra gives three examples of misleading editing:
- editing a negative review to make it positive, which falsely presents the feedback
- editing a mixed review so only the positive comments are published, which falsely implies the reviewer only had positive feedback
- editing a review so it no longer accurately reflects all of the reviewer’s feedback.
Ahpra’s guidance is that only publishing complete and unedited reviews that are not testimonials will help avoid a breach. Note the second trap in that sentence: selectively including or excluding *whole* reviews also has the potential to mislead. A page that publishes only your five-star non-clinical reviews and quietly omits the rest is doing exactly what the guidance warns against.
So what can you actually put on the site?
There is a version of social proof that is both compliant and, in our experience, more persuasive than a wall of quotes — because a wall of five-star quotes on a dental website reads as marketing to patients anyway.
- Aggregate rating and review count, pulled live from Google. A star rating and a count are not statements about clinical aspects. “4.8 from 213 Google reviews”, linked to the profile so anyone can read the reviews themselves, is honest, verifiable and does not republish a single clinical claim.
- A link to your Google Business Profile. Send people to the reviews rather than reproducing them. The prohibition constrains what you use in advertising, not what patients can read.
- Complete, unedited non-clinical reviews, if you want quotes — chosen without cherry-picking, and about service rather than treatment.
- Facts that are not testimonials at all — years in the suburb, practitioner qualifications, health funds you accept, whether you take emergencies today, how quickly you answer the phone.
- Can I use a review that only says “5 stars, great service”?
- A comment purely about service, with no reference to a symptom, diagnosis, treatment or outcome, is not a testimonial under Ahpra’s definition and may be used. Publish it complete and unedited, and do not selectively publish only your best ones.
- Do I have to get Google reviews about my dentistry taken down?
- No. Ahpra states advertisers do not have to remove, or try to remove, reviews on a website or social media over which they have no control. The obligation is not to *use* them in your advertising.
- What about a Facebook page with reviews turned on?
- That page is advertising you control. If the platform will not let you remove individual testimonials, Ahpra’s stated approach is to disable the reviews or recommendations function on the page.
- Can I ask patients to leave reviews?
- Asking for reviews is not prohibited by section 133 — using clinical testimonials in advertising is. But there are two other rules in play: you cannot offer an inducement without stating its terms, and any SMS or email request needs Spam Act consent, sender identification and a working opt-out. See How to get more Google reviews without breaching the rules.
- Is a video patient story different from a written testimonial?
- No. Ahpra lists patient stories, patient journeys and anecdotes about personal benefit as a category that may create an unreasonable expectation of beneficial treatment. Format does not change the analysis.
Sources
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