Electronic Health Reporter

By Evan Steele, Founder and CEO, rater8.

A patient wakes up with knee pain. Instead of calling their primary care doctor, they open ChatGPT, Claude, or Google and type a question. From there, these AI tools pull from what they already know: your reviews, your directory listings, what patients have said about you in forums, and return a short list of recommendations.

You weren’t consulted. You didn’t get a chance to make your case. And you probably have no idea what it said. For the patient, the process feels simple. For healthcare organizations, it raises a new question: what information are these AI tools using to describe your practice?

The Referral Network You’re Not Part Of

For decades, patient acquisition followed a predictable pattern. Another doctor made a referral, the patient had a friend or neighbor who recommended their surgeon, or perhaps a coworker or family member vouched for a nearby specialist. These were human conversations built on relationships, and practices could influence them by delivering great care and building strong professional networks.

Today, the process often begins somewhere else: the search bar. Increasingly, that search leads to an AI-generated summary from tools like Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, or Gemini. Instead of scrolling through links, patients get one synthesized answer. Part of the reason is structural. Younger patients, for example, are less likely to enter the healthcare system through a traditional referral.

According to a national survey from the Cleveland Clinic, nearly two in five Gen Z adults do not have a primary care provider. At the same time, 45% of Gen Zers are enrolled in high-deductible health plans, which typically do not require referrals to see a specialist. Without a PCP guiding the process, many patients start their search online.

When these AI models recommend one provider over another, they influence which practices prospective patients investigate first, and which ones they never see.

AI Is Looking Beyond Your Practice’s Website

Many healthcare organizations assume that if their website is accurate and up to date, they are in good shape. In reality, AI tools pull from a much wider range of sources. They analyze Google reviews and listings on sites like Healthgrades, Vitals, and WebMD, and they scan patient discussions in online forums like Reddit, Quora, and local Facebook groups. Some AI models even incorporate employee feedback from sites like Glassdoor.

Together, these sources form a holistic picture that AI systems use to describe your practice. This means that information a practice rarely monitors, such as an outdated directory listing, an old review thread, or a frustrated patient comment about their parking experience, can influence how AI is summarizing that organization to prospective patients.

How to Show Up Where Patients Are Searching

The first step is surprisingly simple: search the way your patients would. Ask AI tools the questions a prospective patient might ask: “who is the best orthopedic surgeon near me,” “who is the top dermatologist in Phoenix,” “which cardiologist in Dallas has the best reviews?” Then, review the responses carefully. Is the description accurate? Are competitors appearing instead? From there, organizations can begin tracing where those answers are coming from.

When organizations begin running these searches, they often uncover a pattern: certain providers appear frequently, while others are missing entirely. One of the most common reasons is the “silent profile.” Many providers, especially newer physicians or specialists in smaller service lines, simply do not have enough recent reviews or online activity for AI models to confidently recommend them. Even highly respected providers can become invisible in AI-generated answers if their profiles appear inactive or outdated. Maintaining a steady flow of fresh patient reviews and ensuring provider profiles remain active across all platforms like Google, Healthgrades, Vitals, and WebMD can help close that gap.

Your reputation has always been shaped by what patients say about you. What’s changing is how that information gets interpreted. That makes the information surrounding your practice across review sites, directories, and community conversations more important than ever. Healthcare organizations don’t need to become experts in AI, but they do need to understand how patients are searching today, and how those tools are describing them when they do.