Review & Moderation Policy

DentistGrid only publishes reviews we can attribute to a real person with a real connection to the practice. Until a listing has verified reviews, we display "No verified reviews yet" and do not show an aggregate star rating.

Who can write a review

Submissions are limited to two groups:

• Verified patients. Users whose patient relationship with the practice has been confirmed by our support team (for example, through an appointment confirmation, billing record, or a verified email from the practice).
• Claimed providers. The owner or authorized representative of the practice, after their claim of the listing has been approved.

Any other account is blocked from submitting a review at both the application and database level.

Moderation workflow

• Every submission is created with a pending status and is not publicly visible.
• Our moderators review the content for policy violations within a reasonable timeframe.
• Approved reviews are published with the reviewer's role (verified patient or claimed provider).
• Rejected reviews are kept private with a reason logged for audit.
• Reviewers may edit or delete their own submissions; substantive edits re-enter moderation.

Content rules

• No protected health information (PHI) about any patient, including yourself in identifiable detail.
• No personal attacks, slurs, threats, or content that targets staff members by name beyond the provider.
• No medical, legal, or financial advice. Reviews describe personal experience only.
• No promotional content, referral links, or solicitation.
• Be factual and specific. Opinions are welcome; fabricated claims are not.

Fraud prevention

• Eligibility gating. Review submissions are checked against our verified-patients list and approved-claims list before they're accepted. Database-level access rules enforce this independently of the UI.
• One review per user per listing. Duplicate submissions update the existing review and return to moderation.
• Conflict-of-interest disclosure. Reviews from a claimed provider are labeled as such so readers can weigh the source.
• Pattern detection. We monitor for coordinated submissions, suspicious timing, repeated IPs, and content reuse. Suspected fraud results in removal and account suspension.
• No aggregate ratings on unverified data. Star averages and structured-dataAggregateRating are only emitted when there is at least one approved, verified review.

Reporting abuse or requesting verification

To request patient verification, dispute a review, or report suspected fraud, contact us through the support page. Provide the listing URL and a brief description; we'll respond with next steps.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as our verification and moderation processes evolve. Material changes will be noted on this page.