Electronic Health Reporter

As healthcare becomes increasingly shaped by AI-driven discovery, online reputation has evolved from a marketing consideration into a core component of patient acquisition, retention, and trust. Today’s patients are not only evaluating providers based on clinical quality, but also on the digital signals that shape first impressions — from online reviews and search visibility to the consistency and authenticity of patient feedback across platforms.

At the same time, healthcare organizations are navigating a delicate balance: embracing AI to improve efficiency and patient insights while preserving the human connection that defines quality care. The practices succeeding in this environment are those using technology to remove friction, uncover actionable feedback, and strengthen patient relationships — not replace them.

In this Q&A, Evan Steele and Austin Colvard of rater8 discuss how healthcare organizations can prioritize patient experience, maintain Net Promoter Scores above 90, improve online discoverability in the AI era, and build reputations that accurately reflect the quality of care they deliver.

Questions for Evan Steele, Founder + CEO, rater8:

How do you help practices ensure that their online reputation matches their quality of care?

The gap between care delivery and online perception is still one of the biggest inefficiencies in healthcare. Most practices are delivering excellent care, but only a fraction of that experience makes it online. We focus on systematically capturing patient feedback at scale and structuring it in a way that search engines and AI systems can actually understand. When you consistently collect verified reviews and publish them in the right places, your online reputation starts becoming a true reflection of reality.

Is the Net Promoter Score (NPS) the most universally trusted measure of practice quality?

NPS is a useful directional metric, but it’s incomplete on its own. It tells you how people feel, not necessarily why they feel that way. In healthcare, context matters. A 90+ NPS is meaningful, but only if you can tie it back to specific patient experiences and operational drivers. The practices that perform best don’t just track NPS; they pair it with qualitative feedback and real-time insights to understand what’s actually driving loyalty.

What challenges does the “AI era” pose for practices?

AI is fundamentally changing how patients are finding and choosing providers. We’re moving from a world of “ten blue links” to one where AI-generated results are giving a single answer. If your practice isn’t represented accurately in the data those systems rely on, you effectively disappear from consideration.

How can practices use AI to help improve their online reputation?

The biggest opportunity with AI is accessibility. Historically, extracting insights from patient feedback required time, tools, and expertise. AI removes that barrier. You can ask simple questions like “What are patients frustrated about in the last 30 days?” and get immediate answers. That allows practices to move faster, close gaps sooner, and continuously improve the experience they’re delivering, which ultimately drives stronger reviews and better online visibility.

How can practices maintain a human connection with their patients as AI increasingly helps connect patients and providers?

AI should handle the operational friction, not replace the human moments that matter. Patients don’t remember how efficiently they booked an appointment, they remember whether they felt heard, respected, and cared for. The goal is to use AI to create more space for those interactions, not less. The practices that get this right use technology to streamline the background work so their teams can be more present where it matters most.

Questions for Austin Colvard, VP of Professional Services, rater8:

How do online reviews impact practice success and discoverability?

Online reviews play a direct role in both patient decision-making and visibility. Patients are using them to validate whether a practice is worth their time, and search platforms are using them to decide which practices to show. If reviews aren’t coming in consistently, you lose ground in both areas. Recency and volume show that the experience is still consistent today, and the testimonials have the added benefit of boosting the confidence a patient has in booking an appointment. The combination of all three maximize discoverability.

What data are patients and prospective patients most concerned with when it comes to selecting or staying with a practice?

Patients are typically drawn to listings with a strong volume of reviews, while also paying close attention to any negative feedback. The listings with the most reviews help build a foundation of trust in a provider or practice by creating a baseline assessment of the quality of care. From there, seeing some negative reviews acts like a sanity check that often reassures the potential patient that they are making the right decision. For more specific care, such as procedures, having reviews that reference those procedures is especially important as well.

Most patients start with the star rating, but they don’t stop there. They’ll usually read through a handful of reviews to get a better sense of what the experience is actually like.

What tends to stand out are patterns. Things like whether the provider takes time to answer questions, how the staff interacts with patients, and how smooth the overall visit feels. Wait times and communication come up pretty frequently as well. It’s less about clinical detail and more about whether the experience feels consistent and trustworthy.

Should practices put more emphasis on Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) than Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in today’s AI landscape?

It’s less about shifting away from SEO and more about building on it. The same foundational pieces still matter: accurate information, strong review presence, and consistent content. What’s changing is how that information gets used. AI tools are pulling from those same sources, just presenting them differently. So the focus should really be on making sure your data is complete, consistent, and easy to interpret in every place patients and AI tools are searching, especially review sites that were historically considered secondary to Google, such as Healthgrades, WebMD, and Vitals.

What are the first steps practices can take to improve their online reputation?

The first step is making sure you’re asking every patient for feedback in a consistent way. A lot of practices are only capturing feedback from a small portion of their patient base, which can skew things over time and tremendously hinder building AEO/GEO/SEO authority at a competitive rate.

From there, double-check that all listings are accurate and up to date across platforms. After that, I’d focus on how reviews are being handled. Responding consistently, especially to negative feedback, goes a long way in showing that the practice is paying attention, willing to improve, and open to taking service recovery measures.

What’s the most common misconception you hear from practices about managing their online reputation?

The most common misconception is that online reputation is something that can be fixed quickly or treated as a one-time effort. In reality, it reflects what’s happening day to day in the practice and compounds over time. The teams that see the most improvement are the ones that build it into their routine. They’re consistently collecting feedback, reviewing it, and making small adjustments over time. In turn, they have the most visibility and success attracting and retaining patients.