Can Dentists Post Before-and-After Photos? Rules in the US, UK, Brazil, and Turkey

United States

In the US, patient photos are protected health information, so posting requires a written HIPAA authorization signed by the patient — a simple form that names social media as the intended use. With that authorization on file, before-and-after posts are common practice: American dental social media is among the most active in the world. Keep results presented honestly and avoid editing the clinical outcome, and you're on solid ground.

United Kingdom

UK dentists follow General Dental Council guidance and UK GDPR: written patient consent for the specific use, truthful presentation, and no misleading claims. The GDC supports professional social media presence when it's honest and respectful of patient confidentiality — thousands of UK practices post transformations regularly with a signed consent workflow behind each case.

Brazil

Brazil moved from restriction to permission: since the Conselho Federal de Odontologia updated its rules in 2019, dentists may share before-and-after images of real patients, with consent, as long as posts stay informative and avoid promising identical results to everyone. Brazilian dental Instagram has since become one of the most vibrant anywhere — a great source of format inspiration.

Turkey

In Turkey, patient visuals require explicit consent under KVKK, and healthcare communication rules favor informative content over promotional claims. In practice that means the same recipe as everywhere else: signed consent, real cases, educational framing — showing what a treatment involves and what it achieved — rather than campaign-style promises. Turkish clinics that follow this approach maintain active, growing social accounts.

The universal checklist

• ✓Written consent that names social media use — stored with the case file.
• ✓Real, unedited results: no filters or retouching on the clinical outcome.
• ✓Informative captions: name the treatment, avoid promises like "guaranteed" or "painless".
• ✓Respect withdrawal: if a patient asks for a post to come down, remove it promptly.
• ✓When unsure about a local detail, a quick check with your dental association clarifies it — most publish plain-language social media guidance.

Frequently asked questions

Do anonymized close-ups still need consent?

Best practice is yes. Even when the face isn't visible, the images come from a patient's treatment record, and a one-line consent keeps everything clean. The anonymized option is worth offering anyway — it turns hesitant patients into happy yeses and close-up smile reveals perform excellently in video templates.

Does one consent form cover all platforms?

It does if the form is written that way. List the channels explicitly — Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, clinic website — so a single signature covers your whole presence. That's exactly what a good social media consent template includes, and it saves re-asking patients for every new platform.

Are the rules different for videos than for photos?

No — a before-and-after video made from consented photos falls under the same consent. If your form mentions photos and videos (as a good template does), you can freely turn any consented photo pair into an animated reveal with an app like DentalReels and post it across your channels.

Keep reading

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