Vitals is an online review site solely focused on helping patients find the right healthcare provider. Unlike other physician review sites, Vitals also offers patient education content to users to help them prepare for appointments, often linking relevant topics to doctor profiles to help educate patients before the visit.
The Basics
Can practices have a listing, or is the site just for physicians? Vitals specifically focuses on individual physicians, so practices cannot have a listing.
Can doctors set up their own profiles? Vitals aggregates physician data from a number of sources, including state boards of medicine, hospital websites, publication databases, and award sites, so most physicians are already listed. You can contact Vitals if you are not listed, however.
Are patients required to create an account to leave a review? No. Patients do not need to create an account or even leave a name to submit a review on Vitals. Reviewers are required to submit an email for verification, though.
Is there a cost for physicians / patients to use this site? No, the site is free for both physicians and patients, although Vitals offers paid options for physicians with additional features.
How the Rating System Works
Physician ratings on Vitals are based on a 5-star system. Patients are first asked to give an overall rating, and are then prompted to rate the physician in 7 other categories: Ease of Appointment, Promptness, Courteous Staff, Accurate Diagnosis, Bedside Manner, Spends Time with Me, and Follows Up After Visit. Patients are also asked to give an approximate wait time, provide a written review and title, and provide their name. Only the overall rating is required, though
Patients are only allowed to submit one review per physician every 30 days.
How Physicians Can Use the Site
Physicians can claim their profiles to manage reviews. Vitals fills in most of the information via aggregated data, but physicians can contact Vitals to update the information if needed. Physicians can “personalize” their profiles by adding photos and a bio.
Vitals also offers enhanced profile features like online appointment booking, analytics, featured listings, and call tracking for an additional cost, but they require that you contact them for more details. Advertising options are also available on the Vitals site.
Handling False Reviews
Vitals screens written reviews for defamatory or inflammatory remarks and limits users to one review per doctor every 30 days to prevent users from skewing the overall ratings. Doctors can report false reviews to the Vitals team, and they will investigate questionable reviews.
Popularity in Search Results
We looked at a few different metrics to determine Vitals’ popularity in search results. First, we looked at Similarweb, which gives a website’s ranking on both a global and country-specific basis, based on website traffic. In the U.S., Vitals has a rank of 7,322 according to Similarweb, meaning it is the 7,322nd most popular website in the United States.
Next, we looked to Moz, an SEO software service, to determine the root domains linking to Vitals. This number tells us how many other websites are linking to Vitals. According to Moz, 25,100 other sites are linking to Vitals.
Finally, we turned to another SEMRush, another SEO tool, to get an estimate of the monthly organic traffic to the site. According to SEMRush, Vitals has about 325,000 organic visits per month. This number only includes visitors who found Vitals organically and does not include visits from paid search and advertising.
As the P3 Marketing Manager, Ashley ensures that our clients’ marketing strategies are put into action. This includes content writing, SEO, online advertising, analytics, and interfacing with the tools, systems, and team members needed to help our medical practice clients accomplish their marketing goals.
Scott Zeitzer
Scott has been in the healthcare industry for his entire adult life. Prior to launching P3, he earned a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering and spent 10 years selling medical devices (total hips, total knees, trauma devices, and CMF devices) to orthopedists and neurosurgeons.
