The four rules every Vancouver dental site is bound by, and how we build to each.
1. BCCOHP, advertising bylaws and provider-tier claims
The BC College of Oral Health Professionals regulates every dentist in BC. The College's bylaws under the Health Professions Act govern advertising, restricting unverifiable superlatives, comparative claims that cannot be independently substantiated, and testimonial use that misrepresents the typical patient experience. The bylaws were inherited and refined from the previous CDSBC bylaws.
How we build to it: we write titles around substantiable specifics, your neighbourhood ('Kitsilano family dentistry accepting new patients'), your provider's actual training and credentials ('Invisalign provider since 2017'), your specialty memberships, your hours and accessibility, instead of around comparative tier claims. The "Top 1% Invisalign Provider" / "Diamond Provider" pattern that 4 of 9 audited Vancouver pages lead with originates from the device manufacturer's own internal volume tier, not from independent quality ranking, so it falls into the "comparative claim that cannot be independently substantiated" pattern the bylaws restrict when used as a clinical-quality proxy.
2. Health Canada. Invisalign as a Class II medical device
Invisalign is a Health Canada-licensed Class II medical device. The Medical Devices Regulations (SOR/98-282) read with section 9 of the Food and Drugs Act prohibit labelling, packaging, treating, processing, selling, or advertising a medical device in a manner that is false, misleading, or deceptive, or likely to create an erroneous impression about its character, value, composition, merit, or safety.
How we build to it: the Invisalign page describes the consultation, the iTero / digital scanning step, the typical treatment duration, the provider's training and case experience, and surfaces pricing as a transparent range in a dedicated 'fees' section. It does not headline "2x faster" or "half the time" Invisalign treatment, those claims typically depend on adjunctive devices (Propel, AcceleDent, OrthoPulse) that have their own Health Canada licensing and clinical evidence base, which the page making the speed claim rarely surfaces.
3. Food and Drugs Act. Botox and Latisse where offered
Botulinum toxin (Botox, Dysport, Nuceiva, Xeomin) and bimatoprost (Latisse) are prescription drugs. Section 3 of the Food and Drugs Act read with Schedule A restricts how prescription products may be advertised to the general public when offered through a dental practice for TMJ, bruxism, or cosmetic indications.
How we build to it: the page describes the clinical indication and the consultation pathway ("therapeutic Botox for TMJ", "Botox for bruxism"), not the branded drug as a product. Most BC dental practices that offer therapeutic Botox already write this way, it is the safer path Health Canada's guidance on the distinction between advertising and other activities supports.
4. PIPA (BC), intake forms and patient data
BC's Personal Information Protection Act (S.B.C. 2003, c. 63) governs how a private-sector BC dental practice handles personal information, including the medical history collected through an online appointment-request or intake form. The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC publishes the operational guidance for organizations on consent, notice, and breach handling that we map to.
How we build to it: TLS in transit, encryption at rest, explicit consent capture before health-history questions, a plain-English privacy summary on the form itself, retention period and breach-notification language in the linked privacy notice. The intake routing goes to your designated information-practices contact, not a generic shared inbox. In our April 2026 audit, zero of nine top-ranked BC sites surfaced PIPA, a trust gap most practices can close in a single page.
