How Patients Choose a Dentist, and How to Get More Dental Patients

The short answer

The surveys behind this article come from vendors, so here is who asked whom:

Tebra sells practice software and Press Ganey sells reputation services, and none of these surveys covers dental patients alone [1][2][3][4]. Read them as a consistent pattern, not as dental-only measurements.

Where patients start: search, maps and AI answers

Popularity is where a practice has the most control. Google says: "More reviews and positive ratings can help your business's local ranking." It also says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking [5]. Distance you can't change; relevance comes from your categories, services and pages.

AI answers add a new front door. In BrightLocal's 2026 survey, ChatGPT was the tool most used for business recommendations (31%), followed by Google's AI Mode (23%), and 88% of AI users said they check the reviews or sources an AI tool cites [7]. Google says its AI responses can include information about local businesses, and that Business Profiles "can help your products and services to be visible in both AI responses and other Google Search results" [8].

Directories feed those answers too. In a small BrightLocal test of 20 searches across 10 industries and four AI tools, ChatGPT "exclusively sourced information from ten different dental directories" [9]. Keep your listings on the major dental directories as accurate as your Business Profile; our guide to the Google Business Profile for dentists covers the profile itself.

What patients compare: reviews, stars and replies

Old reviews lose force fast. In Press Ganey's survey, 64.8% of consumers said reviews over a year old are irrelevant [3], and 74% of consumers in BrightLocal's 2026 survey look for reviews written in the last three months [4]. A steady flow of new reviews tells these readers more than a long list of old ones.

Google reviews carry the most weight: in Tebra's later survey they ranked highest in influence, at 83% [2]. Even referred patients check: 83.5% of Press Ganey's respondents at least occasionally turn to online reviews to validate a referral [3].

Replies change minds. 70% of Tebra's 2025 respondents said a provider's reply to a negative review improved their opinion [1], and in its later report 71% of patients said they trust providers more when they respond, while 45% of providers said they never respond to negative reviews [2]. In BrightLocal's 2026 survey, 80% of consumers said they're likely to use a business that responds to all of its reviews [4].

Reply in general terms. HHS's Office for Civil Rights has penalized dental practices over patient details disclosed in review replies; New Vision Dental paid $23,000, and OCR's director called such disclosures "a clear NO." [10] Our guide to HIPAA marketing rules shows the wording the ADA recommends, and whether Google reviews help SEO covers the ranking side.

Cost, insurance and competition

Insurance matters too: 62% of adults had private dental insurance in 2022, and only 40% of adults aged 19 to 64 saw a dentist that year [11]. Google said in 2021 that people searching for a specific provider can check which insurance networks it may accept [12]. We found no Google source confirming that dental carriers appear there, so publish your accepted plans on your own site.

Patients have choices, and more in some states than others. There were 59.5 dentists per 100,000 people in 2024, from 40.2 in Arkansas to 103.2 in the District of Columbia, and 16.1% of dentists were affiliated with a dental support organization in 2024, up from 7.2% in 2015 [13].

Capacity varies. In the ADA Health Policy Institute's panel for the second quarter of 2026 (589 of 2,432 invited dentists responded), about a quarter of dentists said they were not busy enough, new patients waited an average of 13.9 days for an appointment, and consumer spending on dental care was up only 1% over 12 months [14]. If you can take new patient dental appointments this week, say so on your booking page.

The website and the first booking

Booking pages need care. HHS guidance says tracking tools on pages where people schedule appointments without logging in may have access to protected health information in certain circumstances [15]. Keep ad pixels off those pages until your counsel has reviewed the setup.

Name the dentists. Google's guidelines treat dentists as individual practitioners, whose Business Profiles may include a title such as Dr. [16]. On the site, show each dentist's photo, training and the treatments they provide.

Keeping patients: experience and reviews

Google bans incentives for any review, selective requests to happy customers only, and pressure to review while the customer is on your premises [17]. The FTC's rule on consumer reviews, in force since October 21, 2024, bans incentives conditioned on a positive or negative review, and FTC staff say asking only happy customers "could violate the FTC Act" [18]. The ADA advises that staff not post reviews and that practices not pay for them, and notes some jurisdictions may prohibit soliciting reviews from patients [19].

There is room to grow. With only 45% of the US population visiting a dentist in 2022 [11], more than half of Americans did not see one that year. Recall and reactivation messages reach your own patients, so run any that promote a service past HIPAA's marketing rule with counsel.

What to change first

Measure the practices patients compare you with

Every step above can be measured against the practices already in front of your patients, and that is how we plan dental SEO: measure what the leading practices have, match it, then exceed it. See the Katy Dental Experts case study and our dental marketing strategies. Our first page guarantee is offered after an assessment, for a phrase list agreed in writing, and its written terms measure the share on page one separately in each of the three places: the map results, the organic results and Google's AI answers. Start with a free SEO audit.

This is general information, not legal advice.