Dental and medical practices have the same review problem as every other local business, plus one that most businesses don't: compliance. You can't just blast a generic "leave us a review" campaign the way a retail shop can. Here's how practices get more Google reviews without creating a compliance headache.
HIPAA doesn't prohibit asking for reviews — it prohibits a practice from disclosing that someone is a patient or referencing their specific care in a public way without authorization. The request itself, sent to a patient who's already given you their contact information as part of care, is fine. What matters is what you ask for and how any resulting review gets used.
The safest and most effective approach is a guided prompt that asks about the experience broadly — wait time, staff friendliness, how clearly things were explained — rather than anything that requires the patient to disclose their specific diagnosis or treatment. The patient chooses what to share in their own words; the practice isn't the one disclosing anything.
Send the request after checkout, once the visit is complete — never in a way that could feel like it's influencing care or coming from a clinical interaction itself. A simple text or email after the appointment, the same way any other business would follow up, works well.
A blank review box invites patients to write whatever comes to mind, which can sometimes include details they probably shouldn't post (a specific diagnosis, medication, or procedure) without realizing it. Guided, multiple-choice prompts that focus on the experience — not the clinical details — produce better reviews and reduce that risk at the same time.
A dissatisfied patient is exactly who you don't want publicly disclosing frustration about a clinical experience without a chance for your practice to address it first. Routing critical feedback to your team directly — alongside, not instead of, the patient's ability to post publicly — lets your practice follow up and resolve real issues quickly.
Pruvvn's guided tap-through flow is built for the real constraint dental and medical practices face: getting specific, useful feedback without inviting patients to overshare. See how it works.
No — HIPAA restricts what the practice can disclose about a patient's care, not whether the practice can ask a patient for a review. The key is keeping the request generic and letting the patient control what they share.
Ask about the experience broadly — staff, wait time, communication — rather than anything tied to a specific diagnosis or treatment, so the patient decides what (if anything) clinical to include.
After checkout, once the visit is complete, similar to how any other business follows up — not during or immediately tied to the clinical interaction itself.
Route critical feedback to a private dashboard where staff can see and respond to it directly, in addition to (not instead of) the patient's ability to post a public review.