How to Help Patients Find (and Choose) Your Healthcare Organization

When patients search for healthcare today, the landscape is vastly different than it was just a few years ago. AI and evolving customer behaviors are reshaping the way people find care — and traditional search engines, like Google, are no longer the only way patients find information.

Instead, patients are turning to conversational platforms like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and social media to find answers to their healthcare needs. This shift has already led to a 25% or greater decline in traditional search impressions for many organizations, with further declines expected by the end of 2024.

For healthcare organizations, this evolution creates new challenges — and new opportunities. Patients now expect accurate, consistent, and credible information wherever they search, from local listings and review sites to your website and emerging AI-driven platforms. Managing these channels effectively requires more than just maintaining visibility. It calls for a cross-channel content strategy built on strong, structured data that establishes your authority and builds trust.

So, how can your organization make sure patients can find you — and book appointments — in this new AI-driven search world? It starts with the basics of your data strategy: managing your listings and reviews so that you’re giving Large Language Models (LLMs) the information they need to surface your organization. That’s what powers discovery, credibility, and engagement across every touchpoint.

1. Understand the role of both owned and non-owned channels in the patient journey 

You can't be certain of how patients will find your organization, as each patient journey is as unique as the patient themselves.

What we do know: most patients no longer turn to a provider's website first. Only 45% of Baby Boomers visit a provider's website as the first step in their search journey. Those numbers drop significantly for each younger generation. Here's what the research says:

• 34% of Gen X starts their customer journey on a healthcare provider's website
• 28% of Millennials start their customer journey on a healthcare provider's website
• 26% of Gen Z starts their customer journey on a healthcare provider's website

Patients and their healthcare advocates are using more digital channels than ever to find provider information and healthcare advice. That's why it's important that you manage as many channels as you can, as well as you can.

Here are a few key channels that patients are likely to find (and that emerging AI tools are likely to source from):

• Your listings: Listings are hosted by third-party publishers. For example, Google (a publisher) hosts your Google Business Profile (a listing). Listings show information about your organization – like your location, hours of operation, provider specialties, insurance(s) accepted, and even your reviews from past patients – without having to visit your website.
• Your website's pages: Patients might see certain webpages on the search engine results page (SERP). They can also navigate to your website from your listings by clicking the 'visit website' button.
• Your reviews: Whether they begin their journey on your listings or on your website, patients use reviews to make a decision on whether your practice is the right fit for their needs. And the quantity of patient reviews is rapidly increasing: Yext found that the healthcare industry experienced an almost 200% increase in total reviews left per location from 2019 to 2022.

All of these channels help patients seek and evaluate different healthcare options. They can research a variety of options and find all the information they need to make a decision — all before they ever book an appointment. Whether AI-driven or “traditional,” third-party search is where patients turn in early stages of their journey, and their intent to convert is high. When your organization’s listings, landing pages, and reviews are optimized and discoverable,, you’re likely meeting patients where they are with the information they need.

To show up early (and competitively) in the patient journey, you'll need to align your non-owned channels and your owned channels so they show the information patients want to see at those moments of high intent.

Listings, website pages, and reviews: each of these channels increase your discoverability. But they also encourage viewers to take the next step in their journey, too. By recognizing the role these channels play in the patient journey (and managing each one), you create a seamless transition for patients as they progress from "looking for care" to "making an appointment."

In doing so, you also create a great patient experience. Consistency across your information promotes trust. A robust digital presence helps patients make an informed decision about their care. And all this sets your healthcare organization up for success because patients have a great experience before ever stepping foot in your facility.

2. Use Listings to Increase Discoverability (And Give Your Website More Visibility, Too)

Yext research shows that, on average, listings receive 2.7x more views than website pages. But here's the thing: better visibility for your listings means more visibility for your website, too. Patients may view your listings first, but your listings also link back to your website.

Additionally, AI models pull data from diverse sources, and they rely heavily on accuracy and consistency to determine which information to use. If your details differ across listings sites, AI may not trust your brand.

If you want to be trusted by both patients and the technology they use, it’s important that you optimize your listings as well as you can.

How to optimize your listings for more visibility in search

To be discoverable in search and helpful in the patient journey, your listings need to be complete and accurate. As many as 50% of patients will exit their search when they see inaccurate information. There are lots of publishers out there — Google, Apple, Bing, and Alexa are popular, as well as healthcare-specific directories like WebMD — so you'll need to prioritize which ones you'll manage. Then, include as much information as possible in each listing, such as:

• The name of your organization or individual provider's name
• Your address(es)
• Your phone number(s)
• Your specialty or specialties
• Insurance(s) accepted and whether you're accepting new patients
• A description of your organization or short provider bio
• Facility photo for your location or headshot(s) for your provider(s)
• Booking URL (if you're able to book appointments online)

By completing your listings profiles as much as possible, you bring important links and information upstream in the patient journey. But in order to be helpful, all your listings must have correct, consistent up-to-date information. To encourage the next step in the patient journey, your listings should point back to your website. And remember: more information in your third-party listings leads to better visibility for (and clicks to) your website, too.

Overwhelmed by the amount of publishers to manage? Find a technology partner to help. With Yext Listings, you can sync information across over 200 publishers and listings so your information is accurate and consistent wherever patients seek care. Learn more here.

How to optimize your website pages for more visibility in search

Your website also needs to present all the information the patient needs to make a decision on their care. This helps search engines surface the right results to answer patient questions. Don't treat these webpages like a brochure of information — treat them like a conversion engine. For visibility in search and to meet the patient's need for answers, create landing pages for:

• Providers: Each provider page has a range of information, such as the provider's name, credentials, specialties, insurances accepted, appointment availability, and booking information.
• Locations: These pages include addresses for each location, including hours of operation and the providers that work there.
• Conditions & Treatments: Content on the types of conditions your providers treat (and how they help treat them) helps patients make a decision on their care.
• Frequently Asked Questions: FAQs help patients find easy answers, like "how to pay my bill" and "how to log in to my EMR."

When patients visit these web pages, they have high intent. Creating web pages like these increases your practice's visibility in search — and makes it easier for patients to access care.

For a faster ROI on your search-optimized landing pages, landing pages for conditions perform well, according to Beacon Health. They optimized their landing pages for conditions they treat, which increased patients' awareness of their healthcare organization early in the patient journey. Each landing page includes information about the condition, as well as providers who treat the condition, their surgical locations, and how a new patient can book an appointment — all on one high-converting page. When patients seeking care turn to search engines, they find everything they need to know about their condition (and they find Beacon Health, too).

Beacon Health used their website to promote patient acquisition strategy. Robust, search engine-optimized landing pages on specific conditions improved their visibility in the SERP and increased online appointments, too.

3. Manage Your Reviews to Help Patients Make Healthcare Decisions

Online reviews impact the customer decision-making in healthcare more than in any other industry. 74% of patients and patient advocates say patient reviews are the top factor in choosing a healthcare provider. Significantly, 60% of patients are likely to choose a physician based on the provider's engagement and responsiveness to patient reviews. The research shows they're also important across demographics:

• 55% of Baby Boomers consider online reviews when selecting a healthcare provider
• 59% of Gen X considers online reviews when selecting a healthcare provider
• 73% of Millennials consider online reviews when selecting a healthcare provider
• 73% of Gen Z consider online reviews when selecting a healthcare provider

Whether you proactively ask them to or not, your past and current patients leave reviews on your listings. What they have to say affects your online reputation, especially when the reviews are left on highly trafficked channels, like your listings. 

Your reviews play an important role in the new patient journey. Patients might turn to search for objective, definitive information, like your hours of operation and location — and when they do, your listings and website should have those answers. But patients also turn to search engines for subjective answers, like "how clean was the facility?" or "how long did it take to be seen by the doctor?" The reviews your previous patients have left can fill that knowledge gap — and help new patients make important decisions regarding their choice of care. That's why it's best to take control of your reviews with an online reputation management strategy. 

Step 1: Monitor your reviews

This seems easy at first glance, but there's a catch: reviews live in dozens of different places: on your listings (like Google Business Profile and Apple Business Connect) and on directories (like WebMD). You gain the most insights into what patients are saying about your healthcare organization and its providers by the reviews left on these sites. To save time, consider using technology to consolidate and monitor all your reviews in one place.

When you read every patient review, you gain valuable insights. Of course, there's feedback, which is helpful information as you improve the patient experience. You can also see how a provider compares to their colleagues, or whether patients prefer a certain location to another. You can even spot trends more easily, like whether patient satisfaction is increasing or decreasing over time.

You can centralize all of your review data from across all your channels with Yext Reviews. Aggregating this feedback gives you a holistic view of your online reputation. Learn more here.

Step 2: Respond to your reviews

When you respond to reviews, you show patients – past and present – that you care about their feedback. And it gives you back some control of your online reputation: even if a patient leaves a terrible review, you have the opportunity to respond in a respectful way that represents your healthcare organization well. 

Responding to reviews left on your listings also helps increase visibility. This is because search engines reward recent activity over stale activity on a listing. And if you need one more reason, here it is: Yext customers that respond to at least 50% of their reviews are rated .35 stars higher than organizations that don't.

If you only see a handful of reviews come in at a time, you may opt to respond to each one individually. When this is the case, be sure to set up notifications and designate a brand representative to respond to every review. 

And if you see an influx of reviews come in steadily each day, you can scale your review response strategy with the right technology partner. Look for features like managed review response to respond on behalf of your organization. And if your team is inundated with reviews, consider using AI to write personalized replies at scale.

Many organizations don't have the headcount and/or the time to respond to every review. In that case, it's best to prioritize the negative reviews and reviews with less than 3 stars. Once you've addressed and responded to these reviews, you can move on to more positive reviews. This step-by-step approach helps organizations get a jump-start on review management.

Step 3: Generate more reviews over time

Search engines reward listings with more activity, like reviews. And good reviews help patients choose your organization when it's time to make a care decision. With this in mind, it's a good idea to generate more reviews, if you can.

Consider inviting patients to leave reviews after their visits. Requesting their feedback gives you a more accurate picture of the overall patient experience. It also helps you rank higher in the SERP, bringing your organization more visibility. And finally, this is a best practice that helps patients make informed decisions about their care. 

4. What's Next? Finding the Right Technology Partner

As AI-driven platforms transform how patients find care, search is no longer a simple query-and-result process. Instead, it’s an interconnected, multi-touchpoint journey that spans chatbots, AI assistants, social media, and traditional search engines. For healthcare organizations, adapting to this shift is critical to meeting patients’ needs and building trust in an increasingly competitive digital landscape.

To get ready for AI search — and to get the most out of every touchpoint described above — your organization needs a knowledge graph.

A knowledge graph consolidates your marketing data into a single source of truth. This makes it easy for your organizations to be surfaced accurately in an AI-driven world. By structuring your marketing data in ways that AI-driven tools like LLMs, you’re making it easy for them to surface your health systems information across all digital channels.

Relying solely on traditional SEO strategies is no longer sufficient — those approaches can leave patients without the accurate, timely information they need to make important healthcare decisions.