Original data · CommentAssist
76.8% of dental practices have an unanswered negative Google review
In an audit of 672 US dental practices across 6 metros (Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix, Denver, Chicago and Seattle) in September 2026, 76.8% had at least one unanswered negative Google review — a 1-to-3-star review with no reply from the business (95% confidence interval ±3.2%).
Put another way: 52.8% of every negative review we sampled had no owner response at all. More than half of unhappy patients are met with silence on the exact page future patients read before booking.
By metro
The gap is remarkably consistent city to city — a structural habit, not a local quirk.
| Metro | Practices | With an unanswered negative | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atlanta | 112 | 88 | 78.6% |
| Dallas | 112 | 88 | 78.6% |
| Phoenix | 116 | 90 | 77.6% |
| Denver | 110 | 85 | 77.3% |
| Chicago | 113 | 85 | 75.2% |
| Seattle | 109 | 80 | 73.4% |
| All six metros | 672 | 516 | 76.8% |
Methodology
- Source: public Google Maps review data, collected September 2026.
- Sample: 672 dental practices found via Google Maps search (“dentist” and “dental clinic”) across six US metros, deduplicated, limited to practices with at least 10 total reviews.
- Measure: a practice counts as having an unanswered negative if any of its lowest-rated reviews is 1-3 stars with no owner reply. This is a conservative floor — sampling the lowest reviews can only miss unanswered negatives, never invent them.
- Scope: the figure describes these six metros, not US dental practices nationally. 95% confidence interval ±3.2%.
- Data: the anonymized per-metro dataset is available as CSV.
About this data. Aleks Shrestha compiled this study while building CommentAssist, an AI tool that drafts a reply to every new Google review in a business's own voice, owner-approved before it posts. Journalists and researchers are welcome to cite these figures with a link to this page.
Published 4 September 2026.