Google Business Profile for Medical Practices: A Practical Guide
A medical practice should have one verified Google Business Profile for each location, kept accurate by someone who checks it regularly. Individual providers can have their own profiles too, but Google's guidelines set how those are named, and every review reply should stay general enough that it never confirms someone is a patient or mentions their care.
This guide covers provider and practice profiles, categories, hours, reviews and replies.
Should each doctor have a profile, or just the practice?
It depends on how many providers see patients at the location. Google's guidelines say that when a practitioner is one of several public-facing practitioners, the practice should have its own location profile and the practitioner's profile should use only the practitioner's name. When there is only one public-facing practitioner, Google says it is best to share a single profile.
Those rules are in Google's guidelines for representing your business. Here is how they apply to a typical practice:
| Your situation | What Google's guidelines say |
|---|---|
| Several providers see patients at one location | The practice has a location profile. A provider profile, if there is one, is named with only the provider's name, not the practice name. |
| One provider at a branded location | Share a single profile named in the format [brand]: [practitioner name]. |
| A provider with several specialties | One profile, not a separate profile for each specialty. |
| Front desk, billing or other support staff | No profiles of their own. |
| A separately owned and operated department inside your building, such as an independent lab | Its own profile, rather than its categories added to yours. |
Provider profiles are a judgment call. They can help patients who search a doctor's name, but each one is another listing with its own hours, reviews and phone number to keep accurate. Decide as a practice who owns them, and plan what happens to a profile when a provider leaves, so patients are not calling a number for someone who no longer works there.
Which categories should a medical practice choose?
Choose the most specific primary category that describes the practice as a whole, then add only the few that cover your core services. Google's guidelines ask businesses to use as few categories as possible and not to use categories as keywords or to describe attributes.
A family medicine practice that also offers some cosmetic treatments should not lead with a cosmetic category to chase searches. Your primary category should match what most patients come to you for. The services you want to grow belong in your services list, your provider pages and the service pages on your website, where you can describe them properly.
How should we set hours, holidays and closures?
Set regular hours that match when patients can actually reach you, and use special hours for holidays and short closures so Google does not show you as open when you are not. Google's help page on special hours says that for a closure of seven or more days, or one with no end date, you should mark the business as temporarily closed.
Two problems come up often. The first is hours that differ between the profile, the website and the phone greeting. Pick one source of truth and update all three on the same day. The second is a practice with a lab, imaging or walk-in hours that differ from office hours. Google offers "more hours" fields for specific services, which is better than squeezing everything into one set of times.
How do we get more reviews without breaking Google's rules?
Ask every patient the same way, at a consistent point after their visit, with no incentive and no filtering. Google's prohibited and restricted content policy says businesses may not discourage negative reviews or selectively ask for positive ones, and treats offering incentives for reviews as fake engagement.
That rules out the common shortcut of asking "happy" patients only, or sending unhappy ones to a private form while happy ones get the review link. Reviews matter because Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking, and because patients read them. How you send review requests, by text, email or a card at checkout, involves patient contact information, so check the method with whoever handles privacy at your practice before you start.
How do you reply to reviews without disclosing patient information?
Keep every reply general. Do not confirm that the reviewer is a patient, do not mention any visit, condition, treatment, bill or insurance detail, and invite them to contact the office directly.
This is not legal advice, and your privacy officer or counsel should set your rules. But the risk is real. In 2019, the HHS Office for Civil Rights announced a $10,000 settlement with a Dallas dental practice that had disclosed patients' information in replies to reviews on Yelp. The complaint said a reply revealed a patient's last name and details of their health condition. In that announcement, then OCR Director Roger Severino said, "Doctors and dentists must think carefully about patient privacy before responding to online reviews."
Our rules for practice replies:
- Do not confirm the relationship. Avoid "we are sorry your visit" or "thank you for choosing us for your procedure." Speak about your standards in general.
- No details at all. No names beyond what the platform shows, dates, providers seen, treatments, diagnoses, bills or insurance.
- Move it offline. Give the office phone number or the name of a role, such as the practice manager, and stop.
- Escalate before replying to anything that mentions harm, a complaint to a board, a lawyer or another patient.
"Thank you for your feedback. We take every concern seriously and want everyone who contacts us to have a good experience. Please call our practice manager at the number on this profile so we can talk with you directly."
"Thank you for the kind words. We will share them with the whole team."
Notice that neither reply says anything about care, even to agree with a happy reviewer. The general structure is similar to our guide to responding to reviews for apartment communities, but healthcare replies have to give away even less.
What should we check every month?
Check that each location's hours, phone number, booking link, providers and categories are still correct, that upcoming holidays have special hours, that new reviews have replies, and that no one has suggested an edit that changed your information.
- Search each location on Google Maps from a phone and read the profile as a patient would.
- Confirm hours, holiday hours, phone and booking link.
- Confirm provider profiles match who currently sees patients.
- Reply to new reviews using your approved wording.
- Add a few recent, real photos of the office and team, with no patients in them.
This is the Google Business Profile care we provide for practices, alongside service and provider pages and review management. You can see the full approach on our medical practice marketing page.
Questions we hear
Should every doctor in our practice have a Google Business Profile?
Not necessarily. If a provider has one and several providers see patients at that location, Google says the practice needs its own location profile and the provider's profile should use only the provider's name.
What name should a solo practitioner use on Google?
Google says a sole public-facing practitioner at a branded location should share one profile named in the format [brand]: [practitioner name].
Can we reply to a negative review if it is from a patient?
Yes, but keep the reply general. Do not confirm the person is a patient or mention any care, billing or insurance details, and invite them to call the office. Have your privacy officer approve your wording.
Can we ask only happy patients for reviews?
No. Google's policy says businesses may not selectively ask for positive reviews or discourage negative ones, and offering incentives for reviews counts as fake engagement.
How many categories should a medical practice use on Google?
As few as possible. Google asks businesses to choose specific categories that describe the core business and not to use categories as keywords.
Want a second set of eyes on your practice's Google profiles? Get your visibility plan and we will show you what patients see today and what to fix first.
