A website for your dental practice that tells people where they stand.
A good dental practice website first answers what most callers want to know: can you take me on? Next comes what a treatment costs and what insurance covers. Get those two right and the front desk has time again for the patients who are actually in the chair.
We build websites for practices with dentists and dental hygienists. We start from your registration policy, your price list and the questions your assistants answer again every day.
What we hear most often.
Three problems that keep coming back, in the words of the people who deal with them.
The closed list is handled by phone
“Every morning ten people ask whether we are taking new patients yet.”
Many practices are temporarily not taking on adults, while children are often still welcome. If the website does not spell that out per situation, everyone phones. The voicemail fills up and people on the waiting list have no idea how long it will take.
An estimate raises more questions than it answers
“What does that code mean, and why are there lab costs on top?”
Patients receive an estimate full of treatment codes and amounts, then ring to ask what it says. The assistant explains the same codes over and over, along with the difference between basic insurance and a supplementary policy.
Toothache out of hours, and vacancies that stay open
“I am in pain and it is Saturday, who do I call?”
The emergency number is tucked away at the bottom, and an anxious patient finds nothing about what the practice can do for them. Meanwhile you are recruiting assistants and a hygienist with a job advert that reads like every other practice.
Try it yourself.
A complete example website for a fictional organisation, with a visitor side and a team side.
Tandartsen VlietbrugHonest about space, honest about prices.Tandartsen Vlietbrug is a fictional practice with dentists and hygienists in the invented town of Vlietstad. The website shows how a practice with a closed list can be open about access and prices, so the phone rings less often for questions the site can answer.
As a visitor
- Registration status per household memberEnter a postcode and ages and see per person what the practice can offer: welcome now, the waiting list with an honest estimate, or where else to go.
- Estimates explained in plain wordsPick a treatment or copy the codes from an estimate. You see what each code means, an example price from the practice list and what to check on your policy.
- Route finder for pain or urgent problemsNo assessment, only the route: the practice during opening hours, the out-of-hours dental service otherwise, and 112 or the GP out-of-hours service when it is serious.
On the team side the waiting list for new patients is in order. When the practice opens up capacity, the next households get an invitation the desk approves first, and the status on the website changes with it. Hygienist recalls and questions about estimates are ready too.
See the team sideRead how Tandartsen Vlietbrug is put together. The organisation is fictional and the photos are stock; the way it works is real.
What we check first.
Before we design anything, we go through your current website for the points that are often missed in your sector. With the source alongside.
Prices, insurance and out-of-pocket costs
Since 1 September 2024 every care provider must tell consumers about relevant prices, whether there is a contract with their insurer and any out-of-pocket costs, before care starts (NZa, TH/NR-035). The NZa also has its own arrangements for dental price lists. We check your list and wording against the regulation in force now, and whether people can find them on the website.
Waiting time for new patients made clear
The same regulation asks providers to make waiting times clear. For a practice with a closed list, the waiting list for new patients is the obvious place to start. We look at how to show it honestly and keep it current, without promising more than the diary allows.
BIG numbers for dentists on the team page
Dentist is a protected title in the BIG register. Anyone who states their name professionally, including on the practice website, must state their BIG registration number with it. We go through the team page for names, titles and numbers.
Complaints procedure and disputes body easy to find
The Wkkgz requires a written, accessible complaints procedure, a reply within six weeks (extendable by at most four) and membership of a disputes body. Patients must be informed about this in a suitable way; a findable web page is the usual way to do that. We check that the page exists and that its details are right.
Forms that ask about someone’s teeth
A registration or contact form where someone types symptoms or treatment history processes health data. Under the GDPR that is a special category, and whoever hosts or sends such a form for you needs a processing agreement. We ask only for what the desk really needs.
This is an explanation, not legal advice. Whether a rule applies to your organisation depends on what you provide and how it is funded; we check that together.
How we go about it.
Start small, measure, and only then expand. The same four steps as in your plan.
Introduction
Twenty-five minutes with Sharif. You explain how your registration policy works, who is on the waiting list now and which questions the desk gets most often.
Working session and baseline
We sit at the front desk for a morning or listen through the voicemail. Together we pick one measure, such as the number of calls a week about registering or about estimates.
Prototype
A working version of the registration status or the estimate explainer, with fictional patients and your own price list as sample data. Nothing is connected to your practice system yet.
Test and decide
Your assistants and a few patients try it. Using the agreed measure, you decide whether we stop, adjust or build further.
Questions we often get.
Our list is closed. Why invest in a website?
That is exactly when the desk gets the most questions about registering. A page that says what is possible per situation, and a waiting list people can follow themselves, takes some of those calls away. When the practice opens up again, you change one setting.
Can the site work out example costs from our prices?
Yes, based on your own price list and clearly marked as an indication. The explainer describes what a code means and gives no treatment advice. The real estimate stays with the dentist.
Can the waiting list connect to our practice software?
That depends on what your software supplier allows. We start separately from the system and only then look, with you and the supplier, at whether a connection is possible and sensible.
Why are there no prices?
Because the scope differs for every organisation. After an introduction you receive a written quote, and nothing is invoiced until you have agreed to it.
Further reading.
Practical guides to the rules above, with sources. The guides are in Dutch.
Websites for other sectors.
Each sector has its own example and its own points to check.
- Websites for home care and community nursingFor home-care organisations and community nursing
- Websites for day care and care farmsFor day care, meeting centres and care farms
- Websites for physiotherapists and physiotherapy practicesFor physiotherapists, group practices and practices with more than one location
- Websites for mental health and psychology practicesFor independent psychologists, psychotherapists and group practices in mental health care
- Website for maternity care: registration, planning and recruitmentFor maternity care organisations and agencies