Online Reputation Management for Doctors

You can respond, but HIPAA prevents you from confirming a patient relationship or discussing any clinical details, even to correct a false claim. Most physician responses end up sounding evasive by legal necessity, which can do more harm than saying nothing. This is exactly why removal, not response, is the more effective lever for physicians specifically.

No. We build removal cases around what's documentable about the review itself, non-patient origin, fabricated claims, coordinated posting patterns, without confirming or discussing whether the reviewer was ever your patient. Your compliance posture is never put at risk.

Yes, this is one of the most common and most winnable grounds we work with. We establish non-patient origin through account creation timing, posting patterns, and, on platforms like ZocDoc, the platform's own verified-appointment records.

A specific, verifiable false statement of fact, such as a fabricated diagnosis or a claim that a procedure was never performed, is different from a negative opinion about your bedside manner. Opinions are protected. Demonstrably false factual claims are not, and they're generally actionable under each platform's policy.

Yes. Most physicians have a profile on four or five platforms simultaneously (Healthgrades, RateMDs, ZocDoc, Vitals, Google) and a damaging review often gets cross-posted or referenced across more than one. We map your full footprint at intake, not just the one review you noticed.

Yes, and this is a physician-specific problem review-generation tools do not touch. Attorney solicitation pages, coverage of a settled or dismissed suit, and complaint aggregators often sit at the top of a name search. We pursue removal where there is a genuine policy or legal basis, and where the content is lawful and accurate, we suppress it beneath authoritative assets you own so it ranks below what matters. The honest caveat: accurate reporting of a real board action or a legitimately filed lawsuit generally cannot be erased, and we will tell you which situation you are in before you commit.

Both. Reviews are usually the loudest problem, but data-broker profiles, rating aggregators, old news, and board or complaint listings shape the same first impression and increasingly feed AI answers about you. We map your full first page and AI-answer footprint at intake, not just the one review you noticed, and work removal or suppression across all of it.

We work across specialties, including primary care, surgeons, OB-GYN, dermatology, dentistry and orthodontics, plastic and cosmetic surgery, psychiatry and mental health, cardiology, and orthopedics, as well as med spas, clinics, and hospital and multi-provider groups. The HIPAA constraints and the platforms patients check are the same across specialties; the mix of reviews, news, and directory issues is what we tailor to your practice.

Yes. Asking patients for reviews is permitted under HIPAA; responding to them is where the compliance minefield lives. We set up post-visit request flows that ask all patients, not just the happy ones (Google's policies and the FTC's rule on consumer reviews prohibit review gating), prioritized toward Google because that's what patients see first. No incentives, no gating, nothing fabricated. We also provide templated, PHI-free responses that reassure future readers without ever confirming anyone is a patient.

Yes. We claim, complete, and keep consistent the profiles patients actually find: Google Business Profile, Healthgrades, Vitals, ZocDoc, WebMD, and insurer directories, for the practice and each named provider. Complete, consistent profiles rank for your name searches and occupy the results patients see, and we monitor them along with your reviews so changes are caught early.

There's no upfront fee. You pay only after a specific review is confirmed removed. Your free case review includes an honest assessment of which of your reviews actually qualify before you commit to anything.

Most healthcare review platforms resolve removal requests within 30 days or less once a properly documented policy case is filed. Complex cases involving legal escalation can take longer. We give you a specific timeline for your case during the free review.

Yes. In 2026, AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity increasingly summarize a physician's review profile directly in response to a patient's question, often before the patient ever visits Healthgrades or Google. Removing the source review is the only way to stop that content from being cited in an AI-generated answer about you.

Yes. Groups face the same issues at scale, often including coordinated attacks tied to a specific provider or a staffing dispute. We map every provider's profiles across every platform and prioritize by impact.

If you respond at all, keep it neutral and non-confirming: something like "We take all feedback seriously and would like to understand your concerns, please contact our office directly." Never confirm the person was a patient, never reference a visit, date, diagnosis, or treatment, and take the conversation offline. Even acknowledging "thank you for coming in" can be a HIPAA disclosure. Because that safe response is so limited, removal of a policy-violating review is usually the more effective route for physicians, which is what we handle.

It's possible when a review contains a specific, provably false statement of fact (not an opinion about bedside manner or wait times), but litigation is slow, public, and can backfire by drawing attention to the review, the 'Streisand effect.' We're not a law firm, so this isn't legal advice. In most cases, removing the review through the platform's policy process is faster, quieter, and cheaper than suing, which is why physicians come to us first.

Sometimes, through a court order. If a review is defamatory and the author is anonymous, a defamation claim can include a request to compel the platform or ISP to unmask them, though courts apply a First-Amendment balancing test before allowing it, so it isn't automatic. It's a real but heavy tool. We typically pursue platform-policy removal first and reserve unmasking for cases that genuinely warrant litigation, coordinating with legal partners.

It can, this is the 'Streisand effect,' where drawing attention to content spreads it further. It's a real risk with public litigation. It is not a risk with a quiet, documented platform-removal request, which is how we handle the large majority of cases: no public filing, no attention drawn, just a policy case submitted directly to the platform.