The HPCSA advertising rules most dental websites are quietly breaking

The HPCSA does not ban you from advertising your practice. The rule that governs it lets you market your services — as long as what you say is truthful, professional, accurate, not misleading, and does not make people anxious that they might be suffering from some condition. The trouble is that most practice websites — written years ago, or by someone outside dentistry — quietly cross the lines the rule does draw. In the sites we audit, the line that turns up most is some version of "completely safe" on a sedation or aesthetics page — almost always written years ago, never meant to mislead, and squarely the kind of claim the rule treats as untruthful. None of it is malicious, and all of it is easy to fix. But you, as the practitioner, are personally responsible for every word on your site, so it is worth knowing where the lines sit.

What the rule actually says

The instrument is Rule 3 of the HPCSA's Ethical Rules of Conduct. It allows advertising, and then forbids two things by name: canvassing and touting. Canvassing is drawing attention to your personal qualities, your superior knowledge, your quality of service, professional guarantees, or being the best. Touting is luring patients with guarantees or perks that fall outside dentistry. Put plainly: you may tell people what you do and that you do it well. You may not claim you are better than other dentists, guarantee outcomes, or promise things you cannot stand behind. And the same rule covers your social media, not just your website — a reel caption can canvass just as easily as a homepage can.

It is fair to ask whether any of this is enforced — plenty of sites carry this language and nothing happens. The honest answer is that enforcement is complaint-driven. It usually takes a competitor or an unhappy patient to lodge one, and then a board looks at it, with sanctions that can run from a reprimand to suspension. So this is not a case of the HPCSA hunting your website. It is that the downside, if it ever lands, is serious and public, while the upside of a phrase like "completely safe" is close to zero — and the fix costs nothing. There is simply no reason to leave the exposure on the page. If you fix only one category below, make it the guarantees and the safety claims — they are the clearest breach, and the hardest to defend if a complaint ever lands.

The lines to check on your own site

Open your home, about, services and any aesthetics pages, and read the copy with these in mind. For each, the swap is easy:

• "Completely safe", "painless", "guaranteed", "permanent", "we cure" — any promise of a result or of safety is a guarantee, which the rule treats as canvassing, and an absolute-safety claim is not truthful in any case. Swap it for honest framing: "most patients find it comfortable", "we'll talk you through the risks before anything starts".
• "The best", "leading", "the top practice", "#1", "the most advanced in town" — a superiority claim, which is not allowed where other dentists offer the same service. Swap it for what is specific and true: how long you have practised, the treatments you offer, your actual training.
• Testimonials that praise your skill or claim an outcome — "best dentist I've ever had", "completely fixed my smile". The HPCSA's own example of canvassing is posting reviews that call you the best. Your genuine Google rating, which patients leave on Google themselves, is a different and safer thing from skill-testimonials you curate onto your homepage. Reword or remove the outcome and skill claims.
• Patient photos, before-and-afters, or named stories without written consent — patient information is protected under POPIA, so you need consent to publish any of it, and a before-and-after must never imply that result is typical or guaranteed. Keep consent on file, and never suggest every patient gets the same outcome.
• Fear hooks — "Do you have bleeding gums? You may be facing..." — copy built to make a reader anxious that they have a condition is specifically out under the rule. Swap it for plain, calm information.
• "Specialist", or anything implying it, without specialist registration — the title is reserved for practitioners registered as specialists. If you are a general dentist, "experienced in" is honest; implying a specialty you are not registered for is not.

None of this makes your site bland. Superlatives are weak persuasion anyway — "the best, gentlest, safest practice in town" is what every site says, so it reads as noise. What actually convinces a nervous patient is specific and honest: the treatments you genuinely do, your real qualifications, your true Google rating, a calm description of what a first visit is like. That language is both more persuasive and squarely inside the rules, which is the quiet point of all of this.

When Novodent builds a dental site, this copy pass is part of the work — but the checklist above is yours to run on your current site today, with or without us.

General guidance on the HPCSA's published advertising rules, not legal advice. For anything borderline, check the current HPCSA guidance or your professional board.