Every practice gets negative reviews. A few honest critical reviews among many good ones make a profile more believable, not less. What matters is how you respond, and whether you fix what caused them.
Resolve it offline
Post the short, general public reply from the replies chapter, then deal with the person directly. If you can identify the patient from your records, the office manager can call them; a private phone conversation is a normal patient communication, unlike a public reply.
- Listen first. Most complaints are about waiting, billing surprises, feeling rushed or a front-desk interaction, not clinical care.
- Acknowledge, don’t argue. “I’m sorry that happened” costs nothing.
- Fix what you can, such as explaining a bill or correcting an insurance error, and tell the dentist about anything clinical.
- Write down what you learned. If the same complaint keeps appearing, it’s a process problem.
For clinical complaints or anything that sounds like a potential claim, call your malpractice carrier before saying much. Many carriers have specific guidance on what to say.
Never trade anything for removal
Don’t offer a refund, discount, free treatment or anything else on the condition that the patient deletes or changes a review. It looks like buying a review, it breaks platform rules, and the FTC’s rule on consumer reviews targets businesses that suppress negative reviews. If a patient decides on their own to update a review after you solve the problem, that’s their choice. You can resolve the problem; you can’t buy the silence.
When a review can be reported
Google and Yelp won’t remove a review because it’s negative or because you disagree with it. They may remove reviews that break their content policies, for example:
- Spam or fake reviews, including reviews from people who were never at the practice.
- Reviews posted by a competitor or a former employee with a conflict of interest.
- Harassment, hate speech, threats or obscene content.
- Reviews about a different business, or off-topic rants about something unrelated to the practice.
- Reviews that post someone’s private information.
Report through each platform’s own tools, cite the specific policy, and check the current policies first since they change. Report once, clearly. If the review stays up, a calm, general reply is your best remaining option.
Legal threats are a bad idea
Threatening to sue a reviewer rarely removes the review and often makes things worse: the reviewer posts the threat, and the story spreads. Federal law generally makes clauses in standard patient agreements that bar or penalize honest reviews unenforceable, and the FTC rule treats unfounded legal threats meant to suppress reviews as prohibited. Many states also have laws that make it easier for reviewers to get defamation suits dismissed. If a review contains false statements of fact that genuinely harm the practice, talk to a healthcare attorney before you do anything.