Claiming what already exists, understanding what each one costs, and the HIPAA rule that makes review responses different from every other industry.
Verified August 2026.
Healthcare directories work differently from the rest of the complete setup guide in two ways.
First, your profiles already exist. Healthgrades and similar platforms build provider profiles from public licensing data, NPI records, and claims data. Nearly every practicing provider in the U.S. has one whether or not they've seen it.
Second, HIPAA governs how you respond to reviews, in a way that has no parallel in any other industry. That section is the most important part of this post.
The HIPAA problem, first
Read this before you respond to anything.
Acknowledging that someone is a patient is a disclosure of protected health information. That's true even when the response is positive, brief, and well-intentioned.
This means the natural, obviously-friendly reply is the one that creates exposure:
"Thank you so much, Mrs. Chen! It was a pleasure seeing you last week."
That response confirms she is a patient and when she was seen. The patient disclosed it herself in a public review — but her disclosure does not waive your obligation. HIPAA binds you, not her.
Practices have been penalized for exactly this.
What a safe response looks like
Respond generically, without confirming or denying that the person is a patient:
"Thank you for taking the time to leave feedback. We appreciate hearing from everyone who visits our practice."
For a negative review:
"We take all feedback seriously and would like to understand your concerns. Please contact our office manager at [number] so we can discuss this directly."
Notice what neither response does: confirm a relationship, reference a visit, mention a condition or treatment, or dispute any clinical claim.
The rules for staff
Anyone who might respond needs to know this. The most common breach is a well-meaning front-desk employee thanking a patient by name.
- Never confirm someone is or was a patient
- Never reference a visit, date, condition, treatment, or outcome
- Never correct a factual error in a review if doing so requires disclosing anything about the person
- Never respond from a personal account
- Move every substantive conversation offline immediately
When a review is factually wrong and you cannot correct it publicly — a genuinely frustrating situation — the answer is still not to correct it publicly. Invite the person to contact the office. That's the whole available response.
Consult your compliance officer or healthcare counsel to establish a written review-response policy. Nothing here is legal advice.
Healthgrades
The largest physician and dentist directory in the U.S., used by patients researching and comparing providers before they contact anyone.
Claiming
Search your name on Healthgrades. A profile almost certainly exists, built from public data. Claim it and verify — typically by phone or email.
If genuinely nothing exists, contact Healthgrades support to establish a profile.
Claim per provider. Each clinician in the practice has a separate profile, plus there may be a separate practice-level listing.
Completing it
- Professional headshot — a profile without one reads as neglected
- Specialties and subspecialties
- Board certifications
- Education, training, residency, fellowship
- Hospital affiliations
- Insurance accepted — one of the most-used filters on the platform
- Languages spoken
- Office locations, hours, phone — matching your standard NAP
- Conditions and procedures treated
- Professional biography — roughly 150–200 words covering your approach to care, experience, and focus
Healthgrades does not publish detailed image or character specifications. Upload your 1080 × 1080 headshot and draft the biography to about 1,500 characters, checking for truncation. (Unconfirmed.)
Check the background information. Healthgrades displays malpractice and sanction data pulled from public sources. If something is inaccurate, dispute it through Healthgrades with documentation.
Zocdoc
A booking platform rather than a research directory — patients filter by insurance, see real availability, and book.
The tiers
Zocdoc's provider offering has expanded:
- A free Basic tier for bookable profiles
- A Marketplace plan that charges per new-patient booking
- An Advanced option adding practice tools such as website scheduling and phone automation
The Marketplace model charges for new patients acquired through the platform. Bookings from existing patients and from people searching you by name are not charged.
The Healthgrades partnership
This is the recent change worth knowing about. Zocdoc now powers real-time appointment booking directly on Healthgrades profiles.
If you're on the Zocdoc Marketplace and listed on Healthgrades, your availability appears on your Healthgrades profile automatically — no additional setup. You're charged your standard booking fee when new patients find you through generic searches there, and not charged when existing patients or people searching your name book.
Practically: the two platforms are no longer a clean either/or. Healthgrades is where patients research; Zocdoc increasingly handles the booking wherever that research happens.
Whether it's worth it
Zocdoc costs money in a way Healthgrades' free profile doesn't, so it's a real decision.
It tends to earn its cost when: you're in a competitive metro, you have genuine capacity to fill, your specialty is one patients shop for by insurance and availability, and you're actively growing a panel.
It tends not to when: you're at capacity, your practice runs on referrals, or you're in a market with little competition for new patients.
The way to know: run it, and track new-patient acquisition cost against your actual per-patient value. That's a clearer calculation than most marketing spend, because Zocdoc's charges are attributable per booking.
The others worth checking
Vitals and WebMD Care — auto-generated profiles worth claiming and correcting; free.
Your insurance panel directories — often the most-used and least-maintained listings a practice has. Patients filter by insurance first. If your directory entry has an old address or says you're not accepting patients, you're invisible to exactly the people who can afford to see you. Check every panel you participate in.
Specialty-specific directories — the ADA for dentists, the AAD for dermatologists, and equivalents in most specialties.
Google Business Profile — worth stating plainly: for "dentist near me" type searches, Google outweighs every healthcare directory on this page. Do it first.
Common problems
A profile lists a practice I left. Claim and correct it. Old affiliations across live profiles are common after any move and they confuse both patients and referring providers.
Insurance information is wrong. Very common on unclaimed profiles, and directly costly — patients filter on it.
Background data appears inaccurate. Dispute with documentation through the platform.
A review contains false clinical claims. You still cannot respond with clinical detail. Invite offline contact and consult counsel about whether platform removal is available.
Multiple profiles for one provider. Usually a name variant or a former practice address. Claim both, request a merge.
Staff responded to a review by name. Address it with your compliance officer, and put a written policy and a single responsible responder in place.
Maintenance
- Quarterly: verify insurance panels, locations, hours, and accepting-new-patients status on every profile
- Monthly: review new reviews; respond within your compliance policy
- When any provider joins or leaves: update every directory and every insurance panel
- Annually: re-check background and credential data for accuracy
Next steps
Before investing further in directories, confirm Google Business Profile is complete and verified — it outranks all of these for local searches. Nextdoor also performs well for practices serving a defined geographic community.
Full checklist: the complete setup guide.
Verified August 2026 against current published sources including Zocdoc provider documentation. Platform tiers and pricing change; confirm current terms directly. Nothing in this post is legal or compliance advice — establish your review-response policy with your compliance officer or healthcare counsel.