AI visibility for healthcare practices, clinics and telehealth.
When a patient asks an AI assistant how to choose a med spa, a fertility clinic or a telehealth service, the engines cite providers directly far more than they cite supplement brands. That is an opening, and the rules around it are stricter than in any other category we serve.
Who do AI assistants cite when your buyers ask?
We asked ChatGPT search, Perplexity and Claude 10 questions patients ask before choosing a provider (telehealth for weight loss, a med spa, a physical therapy clinic, dental implants, a fertility clinic, online therapy, and others) on 20 October 2026: 160 citations from 133 sites. Practice, clinic and telehealth sites took 59 of them, health systems and academic medical centers another 16.
Source: Abovance, one run of each question on 20 October 2026 (US Central time), API versions of each engine with web search. Shares are from a manual classification of every cited domain. A snapshot, not a constant: AI answers change from run to run.
| Site | Citations | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| webmd.com | 5 | Health publisher |
| forbes.com | 4 | General media, service roundups |
| health.harvard.edu | 3 | Academic health publisher |
| healthline.com | 3 | Health publisher |
| my.clevelandclinic.org | 2 | Health system |
| news.umiamihealth.org | 2 | Academic medical center |
| getzealthy.com | 2 | Telehealth company |
| formblends.com | 2 | Telehealth company |
| schweigerderm.com | 2 | Dermatology practice group |
| breakthroughpt.com | 2 | Physical therapy practice |
| Engine | Answers | Citations | Leans on |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT search | 10 | 31 | A mix of publishers and single practices, few sources per answer |
| Perplexity | 10 | 91 | Publishers, magazines and health systems; many sources per answer |
| Claude | 10 | 38 | Practice, clinic and telehealth sites almost exclusively |
The spread is the finding. 133 sites for 160 citations means no practice owns these answers yet, and the sites that were cited are ordinary practice websites with one thing in common: a page that answers the patient's question directly (what to look for in a physical therapy clinic, what a concierge practice costs) rather than a services page. That is a page type most practices do not have, and it is the one the engines read.
What gets a healthcare provider cited
The four conditions a page has to meet before a model cites it, applied to a practice or telehealth company.
Crawlers can reach and parse the page
robots.txt that admits the AI crawlers, no crawl delays, a visible H1, clean location and provider pages, an llms.txt at the root, and a sitemap in both search consoles. Most practice sites have never had robots.txt checked for the AI crawlers.
One entity everywhere
MedicalOrganization or Physician schema with sameAs links, matching NPI, Google Business Profile, Healthgrades and insurer-directory records, so every engine resolves the practice and each provider to one identity.
Evidence a model can quote
Patient-question pages on your own domain: what to look for, what it costs, what the evidence says, written by or reviewed by a named clinician with credentials and a date. Clinical claims cite the guideline or study (PubMed, specialty society), and automated QA checks every citation.
Named where the models already look
Being named where the engines look for providers: the specialty society's find-a-provider directory, Healthgrades and Zocdoc, local press, and health-system news pages that name your clinicians.
The rules every page has to clear first
Healthcare marketing sits under HIPAA, the FTC, FDA rules on compounded and prescription drug promotion, and each state's medical, dental and nursing board advertising rules. We build to these so that your compliance officer's sign-off is routine.
- No patient information without authorization. Testimonials, before-and-after images and case descriptions that identify a patient need a HIPAA-compliant authorization. Review responses never confirm that someone is a patient.
- Drug and compounding claims stay within the label. Telehealth pages for GLP-1, hormone or hair-loss treatment describe FDA-approved uses as approved, say plainly when a product is compounded, and do not promise results. The FTC's Health Products Compliance Guidance applies to the marketing claims.
- Board advertising rules. State boards restrict words like specialist, board-certified and best, and some require a supervising physician's name on med spa advertising. The claims register records which rule applies to each page.
- Endorsements disclosed. Influencer and affiliate content follows the FTC Endorsement Guides. Reviews are never gated or incentivized in ways the FTC's rule on consumer reviews prohibits.
This is how we run the claims register, not legal advice. Your counsel or compliance officer signs off on the rules that apply to you; we build so that sign-off is easy to give.
Proof
Our published case studies are in supplements (CalmGut) and research compounds (Liv Pure, repositioned under a stricter reading of the rules). Practice and telehealth engagements run on the same Answer Layer with the HIPAA and board rules above added to the claims register. The citation data on this page comes from the same study pipeline we use on every engagement.
Check a question your buyers ask
Pick one or write your own, then run it in the free checker to see which sites each engine cites today and whether yours is one of them.
Frequently asked questions
Do AI assistants cite medical practices directly?
Yes, more than most categories. On 10 patient questions in October 2026, practice, clinic and telehealth sites took 37% of 160 citations, and Claude cited them almost exclusively. The pages cited answered the patient's question rather than listing services.
Is GEO compatible with HIPAA?
Yes. GEO work publishes general clinical and practical information; it does not touch protected health information. Where testimonials or case examples are used, they follow HIPAA authorization rules.
Does this work for a multi-location group?
Yes. Entity work is done per location and per provider (schema, Google Business Profile, directories), and the question pages are shared across the group with location-specific sections where the answer differs.
What does it cost?
Engagements begin with a Foundation build, from $15,000. The GEO Retainer follows from $5,000 per month. The Deep Audit and Roadmap is a standalone $5,000 diagnostic, credited toward a Foundation started within 60 days.
Start with the audit.
The AI visibility audit runs the questions your buyers actually ask, maps who AI cites instead of you, and ranks what to fix first. Complimentary, by application. Engagements begin with a Foundation build, from $15,000; the GEO Retainer follows from $5,000 per month.