For a dental office in North York, your online reputation is your second waiting room. By the time a new patient calls to book a cleaning, they have almost always read your reviews. If your overall score is below 4.4, or your last three reviews were ugly, they call somewhere else.
This is true everywhere in the GTA, but it is especially sharp in North York because the area is dense with practices — Yonge and Sheppard, Yonge and Finch, Bathurst and Lawrence all have multiple offices within five minutes of each other. The practice with the better online reputation wins the new patient, every time.
Here is how to build, protect, and respond to that reputation deliberately.
The three platforms that matter (and one that does not)
For dental offices, the platforms that drive bookings are Google Business Profile, RateMDs, and Yelp — in roughly that order. Google does about 70 percent of the work. RateMDs is huge for healthcare specifically because patients trust it as healthcare-focused. Yelp matters for the under-40 crowd and for downtown Toronto-adjacent neighbourhoods like Lawrence Park and Yonge-Eglinton.
Facebook reviews barely matter anymore. Do not spend time chasing them. Focus 80 percent of your effort on Google, 15 percent on RateMDs, and 5 percent on Yelp.
How to ask for reviews without violating PHIPA
Ontario's privacy rules — PHIPA specifically — restrict what dental offices can do with patient information. You cannot just upload your patient email list to a review platform and blast them. You can, however, ask a patient at their appointment, hand them a card with a QR code, or use software that lets them opt in to a follow-up text.
The most reliable method for North York dental practices: train every hygienist and front desk staff member to ask, at the end of a successful cleaning or treatment, "If you have a moment, would you mind leaving us a Google review? It really helps a small practice like ours." Then hand them a card with a QR code that opens the Google review form.
Practices that do this consistently add 6 to 12 reviews per month, every month. Practices that do not, hover at single digits.
Responding to reviews — the rules dental practices specifically have to follow
This is where dental offices regularly get into trouble. You cannot acknowledge that someone is a patient publicly. You cannot reference the specific treatment they had. You cannot share any clinical detail. PHIPA and the Royal College of Dental Surgeons both have rules here.
What you can do: thank them generally, invite them to call the office to discuss any concerns offline, and never confirm or deny that they are or were a patient. A safe template for a positive review: "Thank you so much for your kind words. We are grateful for the trust patients place in our team and look forward to seeing you again soon." Do not name procedures. Do not name people.
For a negative review, the safer template is even more important: "Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. We take all concerns seriously and would like the opportunity to address this directly. Please call our office and ask for the practice manager." Do not argue. Do not defend. Do not reference treatment.
Bad reviews are inevitable. What to do when one lands
Every practice in North York will eventually get a 1-star review. Sometimes it is a billing dispute, sometimes it is a patient who confused you with another practice, sometimes it is a competitor's friend. None of that matters. What matters is how you respond, because every prospective patient reads it.
The right response is short, calm, and oriented toward fixing the issue offline. Do not respond emotionally. Do not respond same-day if you are upset. Wait, draft, have someone else review the response, then post.
Then move on. Bury the bad review with five new positive ones over the next 30 days. Reviews are weighted by recency — a 1-star from January 2026 stops mattering by April if you have stacked good ones since.
Monitoring beyond Google
Set up Google Alerts for your practice name, the names of your dentists, and your address. You will catch mentions on local Facebook groups, on Reddit threads about North York dentistry, and in news articles. Most reputation problems start small and quiet — catching them early lets you respond before they spread.
Also check RateMDs and Yelp at least once a week. Both let you respond to reviews under the practice account. Most dental offices in North York have unanswered reviews on RateMDs from years ago. Replying — even now — signals that the practice is active and cares.
The long game: stack reviews, fix systems
Online reputation is not a one-time project. It is a slow accumulation of behaviour over years. The practices in North York that have 400 plus reviews and 4.8 stars did not get there by accident. They built a system: every patient asked, every review answered, every complaint addressed, every quarter reviewed.
The role your website plays in reputation
Most dental offices treat reviews and the website as separate things. They are not. When a prospective patient in North York searches your practice name, Google shows the reviews and the website together — and the website is where the trust either gets reinforced or quietly dies.
If your reviews are 4.8 stars but your website looks like it was built in 2014, with broken links and stock photos of stranger's teeth, the patient hesitates. Make sure your website lists the dentists by name with real photos, shows the actual office (not a stock waiting room), and includes a clear new-patient page with what to expect on the first visit. That page is where reviewed-trust converts into a booked appointment.
If you do not have time to run that system in addition to actually treating patients, that is exactly what we do. Curbli manages the Google Business Profile, responds to reviews within 24 hours, and builds the website that drives new bookings — $397 to set up and $97 a month to run. Visit curbli.ca if you would like dental practice marketing handled for you.