If you’ve been wondering how to get more online reviews for your medical practice, you’re not alone. It’s one of the most common questions we hear from doctors, dentists, therapists, and specialists across every corner of the healthcare world. And it makes sense, because online reviews are no longer just a nice bonus. They’re the first thing a potential patient looks at before they ever call your office. According to a 2023 survey by Software Advice, 94% of patients use online reviews to evaluate healthcare providers. That number should stop you in your tracks.
The good news is that getting more reviews doesn’t require you to do anything shady, pushy, or complicated. It mostly requires a system, a little consistency, and the right timing. Most practices already have everything they need to start generating reviews regularly. They just haven’t built the habit yet.
Why Reviews Matter More in Healthcare Than Almost Any Other Industry
Think about what someone does when they need to find a new primary care doctor or a specialist after a referral. They Google the name. They look at the star rating before they even read the website. If your practice has 12 reviews from four years ago and a competitor down the road has 200 reviews from the last six months, you’re losing patients before they ever pick up the phone.
Reviews also affect your local search visibility. Google’s algorithm weighs both the quantity and recency of reviews when deciding which practices show up in the local map pack. That little three-pack of results that shows up before the organic listings is prime real estate. Practices with a steady stream of fresh, positive reviews tend to own that space. Practices that ignore reviews tend to disappear from it.
And this matters just as much for specialized practices as it does for general ones. Whether you’re running a mental health practice, a pediatric practice, or an optometry clinic, the patients you’re trying to reach are doing the same research. They want social proof before they trust you with their health.
The Biggest Reason Practices Don’t Have Enough Reviews
It’s not that patients are unhappy. Most people who visit a doctor and have a decent experience think nothing of it. They got their issue addressed, they went home, and they moved on. They’re not mad. They’re just busy. And unless someone gives them a reason to leave a review at exactly the right moment, it simply won’t happen.
The practices that consistently rack up reviews are the ones that ask. It really is that basic. The difference between a practice with 20 reviews and one with 200 reviews is usually not the quality of care. It’s whether someone on the team has made asking for reviews a normal part of the patient experience.
When and How to Ask for a Review
Timing is everything. The best moment to ask a patient for a review is right after they’ve had a positive interaction with your practice. That could be at checkout after an appointment that went well. It could be at the end of a follow-up call where the patient says they’re feeling better. It could even be right after you’ve resolved a billing question and turned a frustrated patient into a happy one.
Train your front desk team to read the room. When a patient says something like “thank you so much, I always feel so comfortable here,” that’s your cue. A simple response from your team member might be: “That means a lot to hear. If you ever have a few minutes, we’d really appreciate it if you shared that on Google. It helps other people in the area find us.” That’s it. No pressure. No script that sounds like a script.
In-person asks are powerful, but they work even better when paired with a follow-up. A text message sent a few hours after the appointment, or an email the next morning, gives patients an easy path to take action. Keep it short. Something like: “Thank you for visiting us today. If you have a moment, we’d love to hear about your experience.” Then include a direct link to your Google review page. Don’t make them hunt for it. Every extra step you add cuts your conversion rate in half.
How to Get More Online Reviews for Your Medical Practice Using Automation
If your practice is seeing dozens of patients a week, manual outreach is going to fall apart pretty quickly. Someone forgets. Someone gets busy. The system breaks down. That’s where automated review request tools come in.
There are platforms designed specifically for healthcare practices that will send a review request via text or email automatically after an appointment is completed and marked in your practice management system. The message goes out at the right time, with the right link, without your staff having to remember to do it. You set it up once and it runs in the background.
A few platforms that work well in healthcare settings include Podium, Birdeye, and NiceJob. They integrate with most major EHR and scheduling systems and they’re built with patient communication compliance in mind. Speaking of which, any digital communication your practice sends to patients, including review requests, needs to follow HIPAA guidelines. If you’re not sure where your current process stands, it’s worth reviewing how your digital tools handle HIPAA-compliant digital advertising and communication before you send a single automated message.
Google, Healthgrades, and Where Else You Should Be Collecting Reviews
Google reviews are the highest priority for most practices because they directly influence local search rankings and they’re the first thing patients see. But you shouldn’t stop there.
Healthgrades is widely used by patients searching for doctors, especially older demographics. Zocdoc is increasingly relevant for practices that accept appointments through the platform. If you’re a specialist, there may be condition-specific platforms worth paying attention to as well. For example, mental health practices often see traffic from Psychology Today profiles, and dental practices benefit from reviews on 1-800-Dentist. The point is to meet your patients where they already are.
That said, don’t spread yourself so thin that you lose focus. Start with Google. Get that foundation strong. Then branch out to one or two secondary platforms based on your specialty and patient demographics. Trying to manage five platforms at once when you’re just getting started is a recipe for doing none of them well.
Responding to Reviews Is Not Optional
Responding to your reviews is almost as important as collecting them. When you respond to a positive review, you’re showing that real human beings work at your practice and that you actually care what patients think. When you respond to a negative review, you’re showing potential patients how your team handles conflict, which is often more reassuring than five glowing reviews about how great everything is.
Keep your responses to positive reviews warm and brief. “Thank you so much for taking the time to share this. We’re glad your visit went well and we look forward to seeing you again.” Done. You don’t need to write a paragraph.
For negative reviews, stay calm and stay general. Never reference any specific health information in a public response. That’s a HIPAA issue. Instead, acknowledge that the experience didn’t meet expectations and invite the person to contact your office directly. Something like: “We’re sorry your experience didn’t reflect the standard we hold ourselves to. Please reach out to us directly so we can make this right.” Short, professional, and it shows other readers that you take feedback seriously.
What Not to Do When Building Your Review Profile
Don’t offer incentives for reviews. Giving a patient a discount or a gift card in exchange for leaving a review violates Google’s policies and the FTC’s endorsement guidelines. It can also create liability in healthcare settings. It’s not worth it, and it’s not necessary.
Don’t ask your staff, family members, or friends to leave reviews. Fake reviews can be spotted by Google and removed, and if you get caught, the consequences can be significant. Build your profile the right way and it will hold up over time.
Don’t ignore a stretch of negative reviews and hope they go away. They don’t. Address the issue internally so it stops happening, respond publicly in a calm and professional way, and then double down on getting authentic positive reviews from happy patients to balance things out.
A Consistent System Beats a One-Time Push
According to BrightLocal’s annual local consumer review survey, 73% of consumers only pay attention to reviews written within the last month. That means a burst of reviews from two years ago is doing very little for you right now. Recency matters. You need a system that keeps reviews coming in regularly, month after month, not just when someone on your team remembers to make it a priority.
That’s the real answer to how to get more online reviews for your medical practice. It’s not one big campaign. It’s a small, repeatable process that becomes part of how your practice operates. Train your team, set up automation where it makes sense, respond to every review, and keep going. Practices that do this well, whether they’re a chiropractic clinic or an urgent care center, tend to see a noticeable bump in new patient inquiries within a few months.
If you want to understand how reviews fit into a broader digital marketing strategy for your practice, the healthcare digital marketing guide is a solid place to start building that picture.
At Lost & Found Marketing, we work with healthcare practices across a range of specialties to build digital strategies that actually bring in patients. Reviews are one piece of that. Paid search, local visibility, and your overall online presence are the rest.
Ready to Take Your Digital Advertising to The Next Level? If you’re in the mood for a to-the-point, no-fluff conversation about how to grow your business in the digital environment, let’s talk.