Essays on reviews, reputation, and the operational reality of running a modern practice.
Most practices that adopt NPS measure it well and act on it never. The evidence says the number adds little on its own — so stop managing to it. Use it to sort the week's conversations, then run the themes: one theme, one owner, one week.
People say they are increasingly asking an assistant who they should see. The number is self-reported and probably soft — but the mechanism it points at is real, and it means something is summarising your reviews into a sentence. A practice whose reviews contain only ratings gives it nothing to say.
Showing the Google review link only to your nines and tens has a name, and Google wrote it down. Here are three questions that will find the gate in whatever software you already run, and one of them is a number your vendor already has.
The sourced version of this claim is narrower, older and more useful than the one on the slide. Three real studies say reviews are a screening filter, not a choosing one — and that changes what you do about it.
The academic record on Net Promoter Score is genuinely mixed, and the sharpest criticism is that the recommend question stops making sense when patients cannot choose their provider. In an outpatient practice, they can. That is the whole argument — and it changes how you should report the number.
Every signal Google uses to decide which 3 practices appear in the Local Pack for healthcare queries — ordered by 2026 weight, with what to do about each.
Most patients don't make booking decisions on Google alone. Here's how Healthgrades, ZocDoc, and Vitals factor in — and which deserves your attention.
When does it make sense to run review outreach in-house, and when does done-for-you actually win on dollars? The honest breakdown.
A week-by-week build plan to take a brand-new dental practice from zero Google reviews to a competitive Local Pack position by month three.
A breakdown of the call structure, tone, and pacing we use to convert post-visit calls to posted Google reviews at five times the industry standard.
Why a 4.6 average is exceptional in family medicine but average in a medspa, and how to set the right competitive target for your specific practice type.
Sending SMS to patients in 2026 requires carrier registration most healthcare vendors quietly skip. Here's what A2P 10DLC actually is, why it matters, and how to do it right.
How to respond to a 1- or 2-star review on Google when you're a healthcare practice — without violating HIPAA, escalating the patient, or hurting your ranking.
A 200-review practice posting one per month ranks below an 80-review practice posting fifteen. Recency dominates totals in Google's 2026 local algorithm.
HIPAA doesn't prevent review outreach — it shapes it. A practical breakdown of what you can and can't do, what your BAA actually covers, and where most vendors slip.
What actually moves the needle on GBP rankings for medical, dental, derm, and medspa practices in 2026 — by signal, in order of weight.
A 4.6 average that slides to a 4.4 doesn't feel dramatic. The booking impact is more dramatic than the number looks. Here's the math.
Front-desk-led review asks cap out around 5% conversion no matter how good your team is. Here's the structural reason — and what to do instead.
What “visit-to-review” conversion actually means, why the industry average sits at 5%, and what changes when a practice gets to 50%.