Dental websites, written inside RCDSO's advertising rules

What a patient needs to find before they book

Someone choosing a dentist usually has four questions before anything else: are you taking new patients, can you see me if something hurts, will you bill my insurance, and do you take the Canadian Dental Care Plan. Each one deserves a plain answer in text, on a page of its own, rather than “call us to find out”.

The new-patient page should say whether you are accepting patients right now, what happens at the first visit, and what to bring: the insurance card, a CDCP member ID if they have one, and a list of medications. The medical history form is the one thing I would not turn into a web form. Offer it as a printable form to fill in and bring to the first visit, or link to the secure patient portal in your practice software if you already use one.

The booking form should ask for a name, a phone number or email, new or existing patient, and a preferred time, and nothing clinical. Ontario's privacy commissioner says health information custodians should limit the personal health information they put in email and should encrypt email with patients where feasible, and a simple website form usually arrives as plain email.

Why the emergency page has to match your voicemail

Under Ontario's dentistry misconduct regulation, failing to arrange emergency care for your patients, or to tell them how to get it, is professional misconduct. RCDSO's guidance is that an emergency during office hours should be seen the same day or the next day at the latest, that patients who contact a closed office must be told how to get emergency care, for example through a recorded message or an answering service, and that requiring a deposit as a condition of emergency care is not appropriate.

The website is the other place a patient in pain looks, often after hours and on a phone. It should say how you fit emergencies in during the day and exactly what to do when you are closed, in the same words as the message on your phone line. If the two disagree over a long weekend, the patient has two sets of instructions and nobody to ask. Holiday closures and on-call changes are what the Care plan is for: $49 a month, up to 30 minutes of edits, made within two business days, so send them the week before.

Be careful what that page is called. The same regulation makes it misconduct to use “dental emergency service”, or any other name suggesting you provide emergency dental care, unless a dentist is on site at least sixteen hours every day and one is available to attend there, or within eight kilometres, for the other eight, or the service is sponsored by a component society of the Ontario Dental Association. My reading is that a page explaining how you handle emergencies is fine, and a title such as “Emergency Dentist London” is not, however tempting it is for search.

Insurance, CDCP and Healthy Smiles: say which way you do it

Direct billing, or assignment of benefits, means the insurer pays the dentist instead of the patient. The Ontario Dental Association points out that some dentists do not accept it and some plans do not allow it, so patients cannot assume. The insurance page should say whether you bill directly, which plans you cannot, and what the patient pays at the visit. It should never offer to waive the co-payment or take insurance as payment in full: the ODA's position is that waiving a co-payment is insurance fraud.

If you bill Sun Life for the Canadian Dental Care Plan claim by claim, Health Canada's 2024 provider guidance said you would not appear in Sun Life's CDCP Provider Search, so your website is where patients check. Offices that signed up formally were listed unless they opted out. With 90% of eligible providers taking part as of June 30, 2025, and canada.ca telling members to confirm that an office accepts CDCP and bills Sun Life directly, the question will come to almost every office. If you take the plan, the CDCP page should say so, that you bill Sun Life directly, that patients will not be asked for the full cost upfront, and that any gap between the plan and your usual fee, which the ODA says you may charge, is explained before treatment.

Healthy Smiles Ontario, the provincial plan for children 17 and under from low-income households, has the same problem: Ontario tells families to ask the office whether it takes part. In London, families can enrol through the Middlesex-London Health Unit, whose school screenings send parents a form to answer when a child has an urgent dental problem. If you take HSO, say so where that parent will see it.

What an Ontario dental website cannot say

RCDSO treats a practice website as advertising and holds the dentist responsible for every ad involving them or their clinic, including one made on their behalf by staff or a third party such as a web designer. I write the first draft from our call, and you read every line before launch, because it goes out under your registration, not mine. RCDSO's advisory says the College will give advice on a proposed ad sent to it. This page is my reading of the published rules, not legal advice, so check anything you are unsure of with RCDSO.

Two things are allowed with conditions. A fee can be shown, but unless you say otherwise it is read as the maximum, lab costs included, and it applies to every patient, insured or not. Patient photos count as personal health information: consent comes first and is confirmed in writing after the patient has seen the images, even when they cannot be identified, and the images come down if consent is withdrawn. Like any ad, the photos also must not suggest a result every patient can expect. The rest is a checklist to hold the copy against:

• No testimonials, or anything that can only be checked against someone's opinion
• No “best”, “#1 rated” or “state of the art”, and no claim to be better than another practice
• No free exams, whitening giveaways, contests, draws or reduced rates, and no guaranteed results or “risk-free” care
• No “specialist” without an RCDSO specialty certificate, no “cosmetic dentist”, “implant specialist” or “holistic dentist”, and wherever a treatment is named, say whether a general dentist or a registered specialist provides it
• No “emergency dentist” or “dental emergency service” unless the office meets the sixteen-hour rule above
• No mention of continuing education, or of memberships or positions at the College or in societies, associations or academies, and no degrees beyond those needed for registration

Which build fits, and why a flat price matters for a dentist

The six pages in the table below fit the Standard build, which covers four to six pages. Whichever build you choose, the price is flat and paid once, and for a dental office that matters: RCDSO's advisory tells dentists not to pay a third party according to how much business an advertising or marketing campaign brings in, so a web or marketing deal priced per new patient deserves a close read before you sign it.

The full price list, free hosting and the optional Care plans are on the pricing page, and the free homepage preview shows you your own homepage before you decide anything.

Six pages, and the patient question behind each

Questions people ask

Sources

• The dos and don'ts of advertising
• Advertising Guidelines
• RCDSO Practice Advisory: Professional Advertising (PDF)
• e-Laws | Ontario.ca
• Use of qualifications, titles, and designations
• RCDSO: Advice on the Use of Patient Images (PDF)
• Professional responsibilities for managing dental emergencies
• Canada.ca: Canadian Dental Care Plan, information for oral health providers
• College of Dental Surgeons of Saskatchewan: provider participation options for the CDCP (PDF)
• Canada.ca: Canadian Dental Care Plan, after you apply
• Health Canada: Canadian Dental Care Plan 2024-2025
• Canadian Dental Care Plan FAQ - Ontario Dental Association
• Making a Dental Benefits Claim - Ontario Dental Association
• Dental Benefits Explained - Ontario Dental Association
• Teeth cleaning, check-ups and dental treatment for kids | ontario.ca
• Children and Youth 0-17 – Middlesex-London Health Unit
• IPC Ontario: Communicating personal health information by email (PDF)
• How to make websites accessible | ontario.ca