Asking for a Friend: Can dental office online patient reviews be trusted?

Hearing “You did a good job” from a patient is always met with a polite thank you, knowing that this is a well-intended compliment. But isn’t it interesting to think about what constitutes “a good job” to the patient? Was it because I was on time? Entertaining? Gentle? Worked quickly? Worked slowly? Was I educational? Does insurance cover the dental visit? The patient can’t visualize the meticulous subgingival work I’m doing on the distal of no. 32 or appreciate the technicality of that!

What about when the office pushes for online reviews? The criteria a patient uses to judge provider care oftentimes can be irrelevant to the care provided, raising important questions: Does the number of excellent reviews measure merit? And should it?

Polished reviews?

Here’s a great example. A hygienist I worked with was left a review based on what was perceived as a “bad cleaning,” stating, “She didn't even clean my teeth.” Further investigation identified that the patient was referring to not having her teeth polished when her dentition consists of only stainless porcelain crowns, and the office implemented only rubber cup polishing with coarse paste. To the patient, the assessments, evaluation, oral hygiene instructions, Cavitron, and subgingival hand scaling were not considered; she thought of polishing as her “cleaning” and based value on that. Consequently, the hygienist worried this would happen again and abandoned her selective polishing training. She knew excessive polishing could be abrasive to restorative materials without the appropriate equipment.^1,2 Did the patient have the right to change the standards of the hygienist? No. Hygienists shouldn’t bend based on patient reviews.

Sugarcoating causes caries

This is health care—not customer service. In a world where the customer is always right, we must remember we are not seeing “customers.” Our responsibility is to keep our patients healthy. We may tailor treatment to accommodate reasonable requests, but we have every right to deny requests that compromise ethics or safety while still demonstrating veracity and benevolence. Truth can’t always be sugarcoated, especially in dentistry. I love the quote from this Yale editorial; “Good doctors may not necessarily make you happy.”³ Furthermore, discontented reviews (and even some stellar ones) use criteria that can make them unreliable and inaccurate, so why would we apply any value to them?

Reviews based on reviews

If your office is review-driven, this can be very dangerous for both the provider and the patient. If a clinician is concerned with a looming review, it may prevent them from recommending necessary treatment or having beneficial conversations. When you worry about making someone like you, discussing what’s in their best interest is more challenging. The fear of being seen as selling treatment, being too nice, too abrupt, talking too much—whatever it may be—is a serious barrier to providing the standard of care. Once left with a bad review from telling someone they should be flossing, running 10 minutes behind, or forgetting to give them a free toothbrush (yes, these things happen), it can make you hyperfocused on the wrong things every day. When your office is hyperfocused on unwarranted reviews over your judgment as a clinician, the effect is inherently worse.

Think of how many patients are suffering from periodontal disease without treatment, referral, or sometimes even awareness of their condition. Is this because of fear of backlash when initiating that course of care? This in dangerous for both patient and provider and can lead to tooth loss and license suspension. On the provider side, think of how quickly this can accelerate burnout, especially in offices that base raises off reviews. One medical survey concludes that 92% of respondents attributed burnout to negative reviews.⁴

Reviewing the system

Instead, implement reviews as an occasional tool to aid patients, not as an evaluation tool for providers. I don’t participate in asking for reviews after each visit. Instead, I may select a genuinely helpful situation. Some patients come to me for initial scaling and root planing on the verge of a panic attack after surfing the web and talking to others, only to end the visit in joy over how pleasant and straightforward it was. They may go on and on about how relieved and excited they are. This is an opportunity to say, “Hey, I am so happy to hear you had a good experience. So many people are afraid of XYZ, and I know it would really help anxious patients to get the care they need once they read about your experience. Would you mind leaving us a review of your experience with treatment for our other patients?”

Discuss this with your office and see if a compromise can be reached. Above all, if an office culture does not align with your standards of patient care, it’s not the environment you’ll thrive in. Applying our skills and knowledge while managing fear, anxiety, and a full range of personalities—on a time limit, with a multitude of other variables and challenges, on the hour every hour (or sooner)—is enough without worrying about whether someone liked the way we said hello. Place value on fueling yourself with your best personal review and continue treating patients in a health-care mindset.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in Clinical Insights newsletter, a publication of the Endeavor Business Media Dental Group. Read more articles and subscribe.

References

Tungare S, Paranjpe AG. Teeth Polishing. StatPearls Publishing; 2025. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK513328/
Sawai MA, Bhardwaj A, Jafri Z, Sultan N, Daing A. Tooth polishing: the current status. J Indian Soc Periodontol. 2015;19(4):375-380. doi:10.4103/0972-124X.154170
DeBroff B. Online reviews may be hazardous to your health. Adv Ophthalmol Vis Syst. 2017;7(3):00220. doi:15406/aovs.2017.07.00220
Khowaja AA. Online reviews: a growing threat to physician morale and patient care. Op-Med. Doximity Network. December 2, 2024. https://opmed.doximity.com/articles/online-reviews-a-growing-threat-to-physician-morale-and-patient-care