Alberta · College of Dental Surgeons of Alberta

How to Respond to a CDSA Complaint

Alberta routes every concern about a dentist through one office and, ultimately, one decision-maker: the Complaints Director at the College of Dental Surgeons of Alberta. What that officer decides in the first weeks — resolve, dismiss, investigate, or refer to a hearing — shapes everything that follows. The early stage is not a warm-up to the real process. For most dentists, it is the process.

Who regulates you, and in what terms

Dentists in Alberta are regulated by the College of Dental Surgeons of Alberta (CDSA) under the Health Professions Act, RSA 2000, c H-7, together with the CDSA’s Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics.

The vocabulary is Alberta’s own. You are a regulated member. What is at stake is your practice permit. And the thing you may be found to have committed is unprofessional conduct — a single, broad statutory concept that runs from a lapse of clinical judgment to a failure to answer the College’s letters.

One office handles it: the Professional Conduct Department

Concerns about a dentist go to CDSA’s Professional Conduct Department, and the key decision-maker is the Complaints Director — a statutory officer under the HPA, not a committee. That is a structural difference from Ontario, where a committee screens complaints, and from British Columbia, where an Investigation Committee does.

Under the HPA, the Complaints Director’s available first steps include:

• Encouraging resolution — inviting the dentist and the complainant to resolve the matter directly, where that is appropriate;
• Dismissal — where there is insufficient evidence of unprofessional conduct, or the complaint is trivial, frivolous or vexatious;
• Investigation — assigning the formal complaint to an investigator;
• Referral to a hearing — where the evidence supports unprofessional conduct and public safety requires it.

What “unprofessional conduct” covers

The HPA definition is deliberately wide. It captures a lack of knowledge, skill or judgment; contravening the Act, the Code of Ethics or a CDSA Standard of Practice; misrepresenting your permit status; breaching conditions on a permit, a settlement or a Tribunal order; conduct that harms the integrity of the profession; and — importantly — failing or refusing to cooperate with the College.

For dentists, the recurring subject matter tends to cluster around a familiar set: standard of care and treatment planning, informed consent and the adequacy of the fee estimate, record-keeping, infection prevention and control, advertising, billing and insurance, and sedation. A complaint in any of these areas is a complaint about your professional conduct, whatever its commercial origin.

Your first week

1. Get legal advice and notify your liability insurer before you write anything. Not after a draft — before.
2. Diarise every deadline and request an extension early if you need one.
3. Preserve the record exactly as it stands. The chart, the radiographs, the consent forms, the fee estimate, the lab slips. Never alter, add to or “clean up” a record after a complaint arrives — amendments are detectable and turn a question about your dentistry into a question about your honesty.
4. Do not contact the complainant to “sort it out” once the College is involved.

You may disclose health information to the College for the purposes of its investigation; Alberta’s Health Information Act permits disclosure to a regulatory body exercising its statutory function.

Answer the College’s letters

Writing a response the Complaints Director can use

Set out the clinical picture and your reasoning at the time, on the information and imaging you actually had. Address each concern individually. Anchor everything in the record — the chart, the radiographs, the signed consent, the written estimate. Where something did fall short, say so plainly and say what you have already done about it.

Because one of the Complaints Director’s early options is to encourage resolution, a response that engages seriously with the patient’s experience can keep the matter at its least damaging stage. A dismissive response tends to push the file towards investigation.

If the complaint is dismissed

A dismissal is not always the end. The complainant may ask a Complaint Review Committee to review the Complaints Director’s decision — there is a $200 application fee, which may be waived on financial grounds. The CRC decides whether the dismissal was reasonable, and can confirm it, send the matter back for further investigation, or refer it to a hearing. Keep your file in order until that window has closed.

This article is general information for dentists regulated by the College of Dental Surgeons of Alberta and does not constitute legal advice. Regulatory processes and the law change, and every case turns on its own facts. If you are the subject of a complaint or investigation, obtain advice from a lawyer experienced in professional regulation, and notify your professional liability insurer, before you respond. Last updated July 14, 2026.