A dental practice website does three things: reassures a nervous new patient, lets them book, and collects their details before they arrive. The third is where a dental website builder differs from a salon's, because a new patient form carries health information and the practice is a covered entity under the federal health privacy rule. A generic contact form that emails the practice is not an acceptable way to collect a medical history. This page sets out the pages a practice site needs, the form and booking features that decide the builder, and how to cost the build so a dental marketing company's quote can be read against it.
The pages and the one feature that matters
A home page with the phone number, the address, the hours and a book button. A new patients page that says what the first visit involves and what it costs. Treatment pages for the services you want to be found for, written plainly. A team page with the dentists' qualifications. A page for insurance and payment plans, because it is the question every new patient has and few sites answer. The feature that matters is the new patient form: it has to be collected over a secure connection into a system the practice controls, not emailed as plain text to the front desk.
The privacy rule and what it means for the builder
Under the health privacy rule a dental practice that transmits health information electronically is a covered entity, and a website form that collects a medical history, medications or insurance details is collecting protected information. The builder or the form vendor that stores it is a business associate and has to sign an agreement saying so. Many general builders will not, which is why dental sites commonly use a builder for the pages and a specialist patient forms vendor for the intake. That split is normal and it should be priced as two lines rather than hidden inside one.
Costing a practice site
A practice site is ten to fifteen pages once each treatment gets its own page, and the treatment pages are the ones patients read. With a dental marketing company the site is usually bundled with a monthly retainer for search and review management, and the site's cost is hard to separate from the retainer. Run the page count through the website cost calculator with the forms vendor as the feature line and the retainer left out, and you have the cost of the site on its own, which is the number to compare offers on.
Questions people ask about dental website builder
Can a dental practice use a general website builder?
For the pages, yes. For the new patient form and anything else that collects health information, only if the builder will sign a business associate agreement or the form is handled by a vendor that will.
Should treatment prices be on the site?
Publishing from prices for common treatments and a clear statement of what a new patient exam costs answers the question patients most often ring about. Most practices that publish prices report fewer calls asking for them and more bookings.
Do we need online booking or is a request form enough?
A request form that the front desk confirms is enough for most practices and avoids the double-booking problems of a live diary. Live booking wins for practices whose patients book out of hours.