How to get more Google reviews for a dental practice — without breaching the rules

Reviews matter more for a dental practice than for almost any other local business, because the decision is high-anxiety and the alternatives are indistinguishable from the outside. Two clinics on the same street, both with a tidy website; the one with 180 reviews at 4.8 wins.

The good news is that asking is allowed. The confusion comes from collapsing two separate questions into one.

Three rules that govern the ask

1. No incentives, or full terms if you insist

Section 133(1)(b) prohibits offering a gift, discount or other inducement unless the advertisement also states the terms and conditions of the offer. A “$50 off your next visit if you leave us a review” message is an inducement, and it is also almost certainly a breach of Google’s own review policies, which prohibit incentivised reviews.

Our advice is simpler than the compliance analysis: do not incentivise at all. An incentivised review base is worth less anyway, because it correlates with nothing.

2. Spam Act consent, identification and opt-out

A review request sent by SMS or email is a commercial electronic message. Three obligations apply, and they are not optional:

1. 1.Consent — express or inferred. A message to a patient who has just attended, using the number they gave you for that purpose, is the strongest position. Bulk-messaging a patient list exported from your practice software five years ago is the weakest.
2. 2.Sender identification — the message must clearly identify the practice and include accurate contact details.
3. 3.A working unsubscribe — functional, honoured promptly, and still working for at least 30 days after sending.

3. No sentiment gating

Sentiment gating — asking “how did we do?” first, then routing happy patients to Google and unhappy ones to a private feedback form — is sold by a number of review platforms as a feature. Avoid it.

• Google prohibits it. Review gating is against Google’s policies, and profiles have been penalised for it.
• It manufactures a misleading rating, which engages the false-or-misleading limb of section 133 and the Australian Consumer Law independently.
• It is the same logic Ahpra rejects on editing. Selectively including or excluding whole reviews has the potential to mislead. A gate is that, automated.

Ask everybody. A practice with a genuine 4.7 and forty reviews is more credible to a nervous patient than a suspicious 5.0 with twelve.

What actually works

1. 1

   Ask every patient, not the ones you expect to say something nice

   Consistency is both the compliance position and the thing that produces a review base a patient believes.

2. 2

   Send it the same day, while it is still specific

   Review intent decays fast. Same-day, or next morning for an evening appointment.

3. 3

   Use SMS, not email

   SMS open rates for a same-day practice message are far higher than email, and the review is being written on the phone that received the message.

4. 4

   Send one message and one reminder — then stop

   A third message converts almost nobody and annoys everybody. It also increases the chance of an opt-out complaint.

5. 5

   Link straight to the review box

   Use your Google review link so the patient lands on the writing form, not on your profile. Every extra tap costs you reviews.

6. 6

   Keep the message plain and non-directive

   “Thanks for coming in today. If you have a minute, a Google review helps other locals find us: [link]. Reply STOP to opt out. — [Practice], [phone]” covers the ask, the identification and the opt-out in four lines. Do not ask for five stars.

7. 7

   Reply to every review, briefly and non-clinically

   Thank them for the feedback. Do not restate what treatment they had — Ahpra warns that engaging with reviews can amount to using a testimonial in advertising.

8. 8

   Handle negative reviews offline

   Reply once, publicly, without confirming the person is a patient — privacy applies — and move the conversation to a phone number. Never argue clinical detail in public.

What to do with the reviews once you have them

This is where the two halves reconnect. You can collect all the reviews you like; what you may publish in your own advertising is narrower.

The uncomfortable part

The main reason Australian dental practices have fewer reviews than they should is not compliance nerves. It is that nobody asks, because asking is a manual job that sits on top of a receptionist’s actual day and gets dropped by 10am on any busy morning.

Whatever you use to solve that — a paid tool, a portal, a recurring reminder and a saved SMS template — the important part is that it happens for every patient without anyone having to remember. Compliance and consistency turn out to be the same problem.

Can I put a “review us” card in reception?

Yes. A QR code or card asking all patients for a review is not an inducement, is not a testimonial, and is not a commercial electronic message. It is also far less effective than a same-day SMS, so use both.

Can I offer a charity donation instead of a discount?

It is still an inducement to leave a review, and still against Google’s policies on incentivised reviews. The safer answer is no incentive at all.

Can I ask a patient to take down a bad review?

You can respond publicly and offer to resolve it offline. Pressuring a patient to remove a review is a poor idea for reasons well beyond advertising law, and any response must not disclose that someone is a patient or reveal their health information.

What about reviews on Facebook?

A clinic Facebook page with recommendations enabled is advertising you control. If it collects testimonials you cannot remove, Ahpra’s stated option is to disable the function. Concentrate the effort on Google, which is where patients look anyway.