9 ways to show up when patients ask AI about your practice

Somewhere right now, a prospective patient is typing your practice's name into a chatbot. According to a KFF tracking poll released in April, about a third of U.S. adults turned to AI chatbots for health information in the past year, and Gallup polling found most of them are researching before or after a doctor visit, not instead of one.

The problem is what those tools say back. A rater8 survey found 47 percent of patients now use AI to help find a new provider, and two-thirds of them have encountered incorrect information: wrong addresses, wrong phone numbers, wrong insurance details, wrong hours. Worse, 60 percent said they trust AI summaries without verifying them.

You cannot opt out of this channel. Chatbots will answer questions about your practice whether or not you have done anything to shape the answer. What you can do is fix the sources those tools draw from. Here are nine places to start.