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Online Listings for Dental and Medical Practices
A practice's Google listing is often the first thing a new patient checks, and practices face rules the rest of local business doesn't: separate listings for practitioners, departments with their own hours, and patient privacy law that governs every reply to a review.
At a glance
- A practice listing is the set of public profiles, on Google and elsewhere, that tell a prospective patient who practices where, when the office is open and what other patients say; Google's guidelines treat doctors and dentists as "individual practitioners" who may have their own profiles alongside the practice's.
- In a national survey published in JAMA, 59% of U.S. adults said physician rating sites were very or somewhat important when choosing a physician, and among those who had looked at ratings in the past year, 35% chose a physician because of good ratings and 37% avoided one because of bad ratings.
- A dental practice in Texas agreed to pay the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services $10,000 in 2019 over disclosures of patient information on social media, the reason every review reply needs a script that confirms nothing about the patient.
- The work is a one-time cleanup of practice, practitioner and department listings, followed by a privacy-safe review reply habit and a monthly accuracy check.
General information, not legal advice; talk to a licensed professional or your compliance advisor about your practice's situation.
Part 1 | Patients read the listing before they read the website
The decision to call a practice often starts on a phone, in the map results, with the star rating and the hours. A survey of 2,137 U.S. adults, published in JAMA in 2014, found that 65% were aware of physician rating sites and 59% rated them important when choosing a physician; the survey is now more than a decade old, so its figures are best read as a historical baseline rather than today's share.
| Finding | Share of respondents |
|---|---|
| Aware of physician rating sites | 65% |
| Said ratings are very or somewhat important in choosing a physician | 59% |
| Chose a physician because of good ratings, among those who looked in the past year | 35% |
| Avoided a physician because of bad ratings, among those who looked in the past year | 37% |
For a dental office the moments that matter are concrete: the parent looking for a pediatric dentist with Saturday hours, the patient in pain looking for "emergency dentist open now," and the new resident whose insurance network list includes four practices and who picks the one whose listing answers the most questions.
Part 2 | Practice, practitioner and department listings, each in its place
Google's guidelines name "doctors, dentists, lawyers, financial planners, and insurance or real estate agents" as individual practitioners, and allow a practitioner a profile of their own in addition to the practice's. The same guidelines set limits that prevent clutter: "Support staff should not create their own Business Profiles," and a practitioner "shouldn't have multiple Business Profiles to cover all of their specializations."
Larger practices also have departments, and Google's rules say publicly facing departments that operate as distinct entities "should have their own page," with names different from the main practice and hours listed on each department's own profile. A multispecialty clinic whose imaging center keeps different hours from its primary care office is the case this rule is written for; a single-location dental office with one front desk usually needs only the practice profile plus profiles for practitioners who want them.
The listing cleanup checklist for a practice
- Search the practice name, each dentist or physician by name and "[practice name] [town]" on Google Maps, and list every profile that appears.
- Claim or request access to each profile that belongs to the practice; mark duplicates and profiles for practitioners who have left.
- Match the practice name, address, phone and hours exactly to the website and the appointment system.
- Choose the most specific primary category Google offers for the main service, such as a pediatric dentistry category rather than a general one when children are the core of the practice.
- Turn on the booking link only if it leads to a page where a new patient can actually request a time.
- Fill in the attributes the profile offers for your category, such as accessibility details, so patients don't have to call to ask.
- Put one person in charge of reviewing suggested edits, since Google gives owners four days to accept or reject them.
Part 3 | A review reply that confirms nothing
Replying to reviews is one of Google's own ranking tips, and in health care every reply carries a privacy question. In 2019 a Dallas dental practice agreed to pay $10,000 to the HHS Office for Civil Rights and adopt a corrective action plan to settle potential violations of the HIPAA Privacy Rule involving social media disclosures of patients' protected health information. The safe pattern is a reply that neither confirms the reviewer is a patient nor mentions any visit, treatment or detail.
Privacy-safe review reply scripts
- Positive review: "Thank you for taking the time to share this. Our team works hard to make every visit comfortable, and we're glad to hear it."
- Negative review: "We take every concern seriously, and privacy rules keep us from discussing anyone's care online. Please call our office manager at [phone] so we can talk directly."
- Review that is not from a patient: "We can't find a record of this experience and would welcome a call at [phone] to learn more."
The negative reply avoids words like "your visit," "your treatment" or "when you came in," since each of those confirms a patient relationship. Have the compliance lead approve the scripts once, and then the front desk can use them without a new review every time.
How you compare
- Listings: count the profiles that appear for your practice and practitioners; any profile for a departed practitioner or an old address sends patients to the wrong place.
- Replies: check the last ten review replies against the scripts above; any reply that mentions a visit or treatment is worth editing.
- Your own baseline: note this month's calls and booking clicks from your Google profile before the cleanup, then compare after 30 days.
Questions to ask this week
How many Google profiles carry our practice or our practitioners' names? Count them before assuming there is only one.
Do our hours match on the profile, the website and the phone greeting? Holiday hours are worth checking first.
Who approves our review replies, and do they follow a privacy-safe script? One person and one approved script keep every reply consistent.
Search every practitioner's name on Google Maps this week, list the profiles that appear, and fix the practice profile's hours and categories before anything else.
About this research: This article draws on Google's Business Profile guidelines, a national survey published in JAMA and an HHS Office for Civil Rights resolution agreement. The JAMA survey was fielded in 2012, so its figures are a historical baseline.
Sources
- Hanauer, D. A., Zheng, K., Singer, D. C., Gebremariam, A. and Davis, M. M. Public Awareness, Perception, and Use of Online Physician Rating Sites. JAMA 311(7), 2014. 2,137 U.S. adults.
- Google. Guidelines for representing your business on Google. Google Business Profile Help. Individual practitioners and departments.
- Google. Manage Google updates. Google Business Profile Help.
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights. Elite Dental Associates resolution agreement. 2019.
Related reading: How Dental Practices Earn New Patients' Trust Before the First Visit · How to Respond to a Bad Review, With Templates · Customer Data Privacy Basics for Small Service Businesses · Recall Systems for Dental and Medical Practices · Local Search Basics: How Google Decides Which Businesses to Show
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