Marketing for Dentists & Dental Practices.
NHS or private in the UK. Which insurance you take in the US.

UK and US dental practices, decision by decision

A dental practice in the UK and a dental office in the US both live on new patients who turn up and then accept treatment. The decisions that get them there are made under different rules. The US column uses Texas and California because both publish their dental advertising rules online: Texas through its dental board's rules, California through a statute that applies to dentists. Other states differ, so check with your state dental board. Everything here is as read in October 2026.

The first appointment: NHS or private in England, insurance accepted in the US

In England the first fork is NHS or private. A patient may register at a first visit, but the NHS says that does not mean they will always be able to get NHS dental care at the same practice in the future. NHS Business Services Authority statistics record 18.8 million adults seen by an NHS dentist in the 24 months to 31 March 2026, 40% of the adult population of England, and they include no data on private treatment. A separate Healthwatch England poll of 2,593 adults in England, run from 31 October to 7 November 2025, found 32% had used private dentistry in the last year, against 22% in 2023. The poll is self-reported and counts a different group over a different period, so the two figures sit side by side and never add up to a market share.

For a mixed practice, that fork decides the ad. The GDC says advertisements and other practice publicity must make clear whether the practice is NHS, mixed or wholly private, so we run a private new patient exam and any NHS availability as separate search campaigns, each landing on a page that names its route in the first line. We count exams booked and attended per campaign, so a cheap enquiry that never turns up stops looking cheap. A patient looking for NHS care who lands on a private offer is a wasted click; the line in the ad sorts them first.

In the US the fork is insurance. Patients on Find-a-Dentist search by address or zip code and filter by specialty, languages, insurance accepted and distance, and a member appears only after ticking the "Include in Find-a-Dentist" box. For a dental office, the commercial call is which plans to name in ads and on the site, and whether fee-for-service work such as implants gets its own campaign. In both countries, Google says a dentist at a practice with several dentists should have their own Business Profile only if they are public-facing and can be contacted directly at the practice during stated hours, separate from the practice's profile, and that its title should include only the practitioner's name.

Treatment pages: what you may call the dentist

Implant, aligner and orthodontic pages carry some of the highest-value treatment a practice sells, and the clinician's title on them is regulated in both markets. In the UK, a dentist not on a GDC specialist list must not use titles which may imply specialist status, such as Orthodontist, Periodontist or Endodontist. Two of the requirements for information carrying your name are that it must include your GDC registration number and back up claims with facts. CAP Executive advice, from the Committee of Advertising Practice, is that a dentist using "Dr" should say it is a courtesy title and that no general medical qualification is held.

In the US, the ADA code lets a member announce as a specialist in a recognised specialty, on conditions that include that they meet the educational requirements, and says general dentists announcing services must state that the services are provided by general dentists. That code binds ADA members; state law applies separately. One Texas requirement for a general dentist's ad for a specific service is the notation "General Dentist" or "General Dentistry" directly after the dentist's name, in type no smaller than the largest service name. California requires a practice trading under a fictitious name to include one of "dental group", "dental practice", "dental office" or "dental corporation".

For the page, that means describing the treatment, the stages and the assessment, and naming each clinician by the title they actually hold. A patient weighing a long course of aligners is likely to come back to the page more than once before booking, so we build treatment pages and their schema markup under our SEO service for that second and third visit, and count the consultations booked, attended and accepted from each page.

Smile photos and offers

Elective treatment such as whitening and aligners is sold on the result and the offer, and both are regulated. The cases you hold consent and proof for decide which Meta campaigns can run, and each offer goes out with the disclosures of the market it runs in, after your sign-off.

UK. CAP Executive advice dated 16 March 2022 says before and after photos of dental treatment or whitening must be genuine and representative, with signed and dated proof held. It is advice, not a ruling. A registrant promoting treatment on marketing or social networking websites such as Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Groupon or X must make clear the treatment may not be appropriate for every patient and that it depends on assessment. Whitening is a common offer, and the GDC says only registered dentists, therapists, hygienists or clinical dental technicians working to a dentist's prescription can legally provide it. Anti-wrinkle injections sit under separate limits: the same CAP advice reminds anyone offering these treatments that some products, including Botox, are prescription-only and cannot be advertised to the public.

US. Texas lets an ad use photographs of the dentist's own patients of record, on conditions that include written consent before anything that may identify the patient, and the words "Actual results may vary". California's statute includes requirements that before and after views state the procedures performed and be comparable in presentation, not distorted by favourable poses or lighting, with a statement that results may not occur for all patients. On price, Texas requires disclosures including any related services usually required, that the fee is a minimum and may rise with the treatment needed, and the dates the price applies, and California's conditions for price ads include that the price be exact, with no "as low as" or "and up".

Texas allows a non-cash gift worth no more than ten dollars to a potential patient but bars giving any third party anything of value for securing or soliciting patients, apart from advertising or marketing fees set in advance at fair market value and not based on the volume or value of patient referrals. A refer-a-friend reward may fall on the wrong side of that line, so a referral scheme goes past your adviser before we promote it. Federally, HIPAA requires a covered entity to get authorization for marketing uses of protected health information, with limited exceptions, so a patient's photo or story waits for a signed authorisation.

Reviews and patient confidentiality

A bad review tempts a reply, and in dentistry the reply is where the risk sits. The ADA warns that US practices can be fined thousands of dollars for responding to online reviews with identifiable patient information, such as a name, insurance details or a treatment plan, and the GDC's social media guidance says registrants must not post any information or comments about patients on social networking or blogging sites. Whether that reaches a Google reply is for the GDC to decide. The careful default in both countries is a short thank-you that never confirms the reviewer was a patient and invites them to call the practice; the clinical conversation stays with you. Asking for reviews has its own limits: CMA guidance says no money or gifts for positive reviews, and the FTC rule bars incentives conditioned on a review's sentiment.

After the first visit: acceptance and recall

The exam is where a patient's value to the practice is decided. A patient who attends, accepts a treatment plan and rebooks a hygiene visit before leaving is what the campaigns are built to produce, so the report follows each patient past the enquiry form. We count treatment plans accepted against treatment plans presented, split NHS and private in the UK and by insurance and fee-for-service in the US, and track revenue per new patient across their first twelve months, against your own previous year. A campaign that fills the appointment book with patients who decline treatment gets changed, whatever its cost per booking.

Recall closes the loop. The recall campaign focuses on patients who leave without their next appointment booked, or whose recall has lapsed. We bring a lapsed patient back through email from your own list, the longest overdue first, and the month ends on how many came back and what they accepted once they did.

We take on dental practices in the UK and the US, work across both countries' time zones, and quote in GBP or USD.