Healthgrades Reviews: A Guide for Physicians and Practices

By the Expert Reputation team · Updated September 30, 2026

Healthgrades publishes provider profiles built from public information, whether or not the provider has signed up. Patients may already be rating you there, so the real choice is whether you manage the profile. This guide covers how to claim and update a Healthgrades profile, how the patient survey and star rating work, how to reply without breaking HIPAA, and what happens when you flag a review.

Why Healthgrades matters for physicians and dentists

Healthgrades is one of the directories patients use to compare doctors and other healthcare providers. The profile exists whether you claim it or not. Healthgrades says it provides provider information "as a free service to consumers," and its policies prohibit complete removal of publicly available provider information from the site.

If you ignore the profile, you still get a rating. You just lose control of your photo, insurance list, and conditions treated, and you can't reply to patients. For the other directories patients check, see our review sites hub.

How to claim and update your Healthgrades profile

Healthgrades runs provider accounts through Healthgrades for Professionals (also called a Healthgrades Pro account). The steps below follow the Healthgrades help center:

1. Claim the free profile. If you have never logged in, start at Healthgrades' "Claim Your Free Profile" page. Identity verification may be required before your changes go live.
2. Sign in and open My Profile. In the left sidebar, a red dot marks each section you haven't finished.
3. Edit each section. Click "Edit" (or "+"), make your changes, then click "Save."
4. Allow time for publishing. Healthgrades says most updates appear on Healthgrades.com within 24 hours, unless identity verification is needed.

Practice managers: Healthgrades lets authorized representatives manage a provider's profile. After signing in, they pick the provider from the list they manage. Healthgrades warns that misrepresenting yourself as a physician violates federal statutes and the laws of all 50 states. Staff should only act for a provider who has authorized them.

Healthgrades suggests keeping these sections complete: a professional photo, accepted insurance, a care philosophy statement, your responses to patient feedback, and the conditions and procedures you treat. If a listing is wrong and you can't fix it yourself, Healthgrades' FAQ says to contact support with your NPI.

How Healthgrades patient ratings and surveys work

Healthgrades calls its reviews "patient experience surveys." Here is how they work, according to its guidelines and help pages:

• Who can review. A patient can review a practice they, or a family member, had contact with. A reviewer may be a relative, not the patient.
• Required question. Every survey must answer "how likely are you to recommend?" A written comment is optional, and not everyone who leaves a rating writes one.
• Confirmation. After submitting, the reviewer gets an automated email or text and has to confirm it. Healthgrades says an unconfirmed survey won't be processed.
• Star rating timing. Once the survey is confirmed, its star rating counts toward the provider's average right away. Written comments go through Healthgrades' confirmation and auditing process.
• Anonymity. Reviewers can add their name, city, and state, or leave them off and post anonymously.
• No pay-to-play. Healthgrades states that doctors cannot pay for good reviews and cannot pay to have negative ones removed.

The overall score is an average. Healthgrades' own advice after a bad review is volume: "The more patient surveys you have, the less impact a few unsatisfactory scores have on your overall survey score."

How to get more Healthgrades reviews (within the rules)

Healthgrades encourages practices to invite satisfied patients to complete surveys and points providers to its patient review tools. Two safe habits work well:

• Ask everyone the same way. Put the same invitation on the checkout script, the after-visit email, or a card at the front desk. Keep it simple, for example: "We'd value your feedback on Healthgrades."
• Make it easy. Link directly to your Healthgrades profile from your after-visit email or text.

Stay inside federal law and platform rules:

• No sentiment-based rewards. The FTC's Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials (16 CFR Part 465, in effect since October 21, 2024) bans offering compensation or incentives conditioned on a review expressing a particular sentiment. Our guide to incentives and FTC compliance covers the details.
• No insider reviews. Staff, owners, and managers must not post reviews of the practice. Part 465 also restricts reviews by officers and managers without disclosure.
• No gating. Don't screen patients first and send only the happy ones to Healthgrades. Invite everyone.

If you want a steady, compliant request process across Healthgrades, Google, and other sites, that is what Review IQ is built for.

How to respond to Healthgrades reviews

Healthgrades lets physicians and their authorized representatives reply to reviews publicly. The replies appear under the patient's comment on your profile.

Steps:

1. Sign in to your Healthgrades Pro account.
2. Go to Patient Reviews and find the review.
3. Click Reply and write your response. The limit is 500 characters.
4. Submit. Healthgrades moderates every response before it goes live.

You can edit a response later, which sends it back through moderation, or remove it.

HIPAA comes first

Healthgrades' own guidance says to "respond in generalizations," never identify patients, and take sensitive conversations offline. Federal enforcement backs this up. In December 2022, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) settled with a California dental practice, New Vision Dental, over protected health information (PHI) it disclosed while replying to online reviews. HHS said "this practice is illegal under HIPAA." According to the resolution agreement, the replies sometimes gave patients' full names where the reviewer had used only a screen name, and described visits and insurance details. The practice paid $23,000 and agreed to a corrective action plan, which included removing the posts and notifying the affected patients.

The takeaway: even if a reviewer describes their own treatment, your reply must not confirm they are a patient or mention any health detail. Don't say "your visit," "your procedure," or "your bill."

Example reply to a negative review (under 500 characters):

Thank you for sharing this. We take every concern seriously, but privacy laws prevent us from discussing any individual's care in a public forum. Please call our practice manager, [Name], at [Phone] so we can listen and try to make this right. — [Practice Name]

Example reply to a positive review:

Thank you for taking the time to leave feedback. Our team works hard to make every patient feel welcome, and we're glad to hear it. — [Practice Name]

Neither reply confirms that the reviewer is a patient. For more response templates, see how to respond to negative reviews.

What Healthgrades removes and what it doesn't

Healthgrades' Community Review Guidelines list the content it won't publish. It also "reserves the right to reject or remove any content from the site for any reason."

Healthgrades says it will remove fraudulent reviews when it detects them, and that anyone can flag a live review for another screening.

How to flag a Healthgrades review for audit

If a review appears to violate Healthgrades' Editorial Policy, you can ask Healthgrades to audit it:

1. Sign in to your Healthgrades Pro account.
2. Go to Patient Reviews in the top menu, then Patient Reviews in the left sidebar.
3. Find the survey and click Flag on the right.
4. Choose the reason and use the text box to explain. Point to the specific guideline the review breaks, such as personal information, threats, or a mention of a lawsuit.
5. Click Submit. The survey will show as "Flagged" in red.

Healthgrades then reviews your explanation and the survey. Its help center is clear that "Healthgrades makes the final decision regarding removing it from your profile." No turnaround time is published.

If you believe someone falsified a survey, for example a person who was never seen at your practice, Healthgrades' FAQ also directs providers to its Contact Us form. Our guide to fake reviews covers how to document that.

If Healthgrades keeps the review

Healthgrades may decide a review meets its guidelines. If so:

• Reply once, calmly, using the HIPAA-safe pattern above. Future patients will read your reply alongside the review.
• Don't re-flag the same review without new, concrete evidence of a guideline violation.
• Keep inviting patients, consistently and without filtering. A larger number of surveys reduces the weight of any single score.
• Watch out for removal scams. Nobody outside Healthgrades controls its decisions. Be skeptical of any company promising guaranteed removal for a fee. See review removal scams.
• Talk to a lawyer if you believe a review is defamatory. This is general information, not legal advice, and defamation law varies by state.

Common Healthgrades mistakes

• Never claiming the profile. Your ratings exist either way. Without a claim, you can't reply or fix your listing.
• Replying with clinical detail. This is the most expensive mistake, as the HHS enforcement case shows.
• Arguing in public. You get 500 characters. Use them to move the conversation offline, not to rebut.
• Asking staff or relatives to post surveys. This is misleading content under Healthgrades' rules and may violate FTC rules.
• Letting data go stale. Wrong insurance or an old address frustrates patients and invites negative reviews that have nothing to do with care.