How can a physician practice audit its own marketing?
A physician practice can audit its own marketing by checking nine areas in order: account ownership, Google Business Profiles, website, search visibility, ads, social, reviews, lead handling and tracking with reporting. For each item, note what you checked, what you found and what good looks like. Fix ownership and privacy gaps first, then anything that loses calls, then polish.
- Start with ownership: list who owns the domain, website, every location and provider profile, ad accounts, analytics and call-tracking numbers.
- Provider details must match everywhere: names, credentials, locations, plans accepted and whether each provider is taking new patients.
- Call the practice yourself during the day, at lunch and after hours; missed and slow-answered calls are often the biggest leak.
- No ad pixels on portal, intake or appointment request pages, and reports should show booked appointments, not just clicks.
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What do you need before auditing a physician practice's marketing?
Before you start, gather admin logins for every marketing account, the last few monthly reports, a year of new-patient numbers by location and provider from your practice-management system, and current spend split into fees and ad budget. Ask the practice manager to join. Work through the areas in order and record every gap.
Ownership check comes first
List every account and its primary owner: domain registrar, hosting, website, the Google Business Profile for each location and each provider, Google Ads, Meta ads, analytics, tag manager and call-tracking numbers. If an agency or former employee is the only owner of any of them, that is your most urgent finding. Ask for primary ownership to move to the practice.
How to record findings
Use three columns: what you checked, what you found and the fix. Mark each finding urgent (risk to patient data, ownership or calls), important (affects new patients) or minor (polish). Fix urgent items before you approve any new campaign.
Why physician practices need a provider view
Patients often search for a physician by name, not only for the practice. In a group, each provider's listing, bio page and directory entries can drift out of date as people join, leave or change schedules. Build a simple sheet with one row per provider and check every item below against it.
For an outside view to compare with your own, run the free practice visibility audit.
What should a physician practice check on its profiles and website?
Check that every location and provider has an accurate Google Business Profile owned by the practice, and that the website answers the questions new patients ask before booking: which plans you accept, which providers are taking new patients, where and when you see people, and how to book. Details should match exactly across profiles, site and directories.
| Area | What to check | What good looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Location profiles | Name, address, phone, hours, primary category, appointment link, photos | Owned by the practice, accurate, holiday hours set, booking link works |
| Provider profiles | One listing per provider where used; correct credentials and location | No duplicates; departed providers handled under Google's rules |
| Directories and plan listings | Provider names, addresses and phone in health plan and medical directories | Same details as your website and profiles |
| Provider bios | Credentials, board certification, languages, locations, new-patient status | Current, accurate, and approved by each provider |
| Insurance page | Plans accepted, Medicare and Medicaid status, self-pay or membership options | One clear page, updated when contracts change |
| New-patient path | Book online, call, or request an appointment from every page | Booking in a few clicks on a phone |
| Services and locations | A page per main service and per location | Specific, physician-reviewed, no copied text across locations |
| Speed and access | Mobile load, readable text, forms usable on a phone | Fast on mobile; forms work with a keyboard and screen reader |
Claims about credentials need special care. If a bio says "board certified", confirm the board and the specialty. State medical boards regulate how physicians advertise, and rules vary by state. Our Virginia physician advertising checklist shows what one state expects.
The insurance page deserves its own check. List every plan you accept, say plainly whether each location takes Medicare and Medicaid, and explain self-pay or membership options. Update it the week a contract changes, because callers who find out at the front desk that you are out of network rarely book.
How do you audit search visibility, ads and social for a physician practice?
For search, check whether you appear in the map results and organic results for your main services plus each city or neighborhood you serve. For ads, check that conversions count booked appointments or qualified calls, not page views. For social, check that accounts are owned by the practice, active and free of patient information.
Search
- Search your main services with each location name, on a phone, from inside your area. Note where you appear in the map results.
- Search each provider's name. The practice's own page and profile should come first.
- Ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity which practices offer your services nearby. Note whether you are named and whether the details are right. Our guide on how doctors show up in ChatGPT and AI Overviews explains what affects this.
- Check that key pages are indexed and not blocked.
Google Ads and Meta ads
- Ads accounts owned by the practice, with spend billed to the practice.
- Conversions defined as calls of a set length, completed booking requests or booked visits.
- Negative keywords for jobs, training, free clinics and services you do not offer.
- Ads sending people to the matching location and service page, not the home page.
- No targeting or audiences built from patient health information, and ad copy that follows platform health policies and your board's rules.
Social
- Practice-owned accounts with at least two practice admins.
- Posts reviewed for patient privacy: no identifiable patients without written authorization.
- Comment replies that never confirm someone is a patient.
How should a physician practice audit reviews and speed-to-lead?
Audit reviews by checking volume, recency and response quality for each location and provider, and confirm every request method is honest. Audit speed-to-lead by testing how fast calls, forms and booking requests reach a person and get an answer. For many physician practices, unanswered phones lose more new patients than weak ads.
Reviews
- Read the newest reviews for every location and provider profile. Note recurring themes such as wait times, billing or phone access.
- Check that responses never confirm a person is a patient or mention their care. Our guide on responding to negative reviews under HIPAA covers safe wording.
- Confirm the practice asks all patients in the same way and never offers rewards for positive reviews or filters out unhappy patients. The FTC rule on fake reviews and testimonials took effect in October 2024.
Speed-to-lead tests
- Call each location as a new patient during morning peak, at lunch and after hours. Record whether a person answered, how long it took and whether you were offered a time.
- Submit the website appointment form. Time the reply and check who received it.
- Leave a voicemail and see if, and when, someone calls back.
- Ask a referring physician's office how easy it is to send you a referral and get confirmation.
- Check what happens when a provider is fully booked: is the caller offered another provider?
What good looks like
Calls answered by a person in business hours, a clear after-hours path, forms answered the same business day, referrals confirmed back to the sender and every caller offered a time. A front-desk CRM with call tracking makes this measurable. Our physician practice KPI guide lists the measures to track.
How do you check that tracking is HIPAA-safe and reporting is honest?
Check every page that collects health or appointment details for advertising pixels and third-party scripts, and confirm a Business Associate Agreement is in place with every vendor that touches patient data. Then check that reports tie spend to booked appointments by location, with live access to the underlying accounts rather than summaries alone.
Tracking checks
- List every script on the patient portal, intake forms and appointment request pages. Advertising pixels should not be there.
- Review tracking against the HHS guidance on online tracking technologies. A federal court vacated part of that guidance in June 2024 for unauthenticated public pages, but tracking on authenticated pages such as portals is still covered.
- Confirm a signed BAA exists with the agency, call-tracking provider, form tool and CRM where they handle protected health information.
- Check that call recordings and form data are stored where the practice controls access.
Our guide to HIPAA-safe website tracking explains safer setups. Confirm the details with your counsel.
Email and texts
Marketing emails need a working opt-out, honored within 10 business days under the FTC's CAN-SPAM guide. Marketing texts need documented prior express written consent, and opt-outs must be honored.
Reporting checks
- Spend, calls, forms and booked appointments, split by location and service line.
- Cost per booked appointment, not only cost per click.
- New patients by payer type, so you can see whether marketing fills the right panels.
- Live read access for the practice to every account.
What should a physician practice do with its audit findings?
Sort findings into urgent, important and minor. Fix ownership, privacy and lost-call problems first, then work on profiles, website and ads, then polish. Give each fix an owner and a date. Repeat the audit each quarter, or whenever you add a provider, open a location or change agency.
Specialty-specific checks
- Primary care: new-patient status for each provider, same-day sick visit options, annual physical and wellness visit pages, and Medicare acceptance shown clearly.
- Direct primary care: membership pricing, what is included and how to enroll, all easy to find.
- Multi-specialty groups: a page and profile path for each specialty, with referral instructions for other physicians.
- Telehealth: the states where providers are licensed to see patients, shown on the telehealth page.
- Hospital-affiliated practices: brand and listing rules agreed with the health system.
Turning findings into a plan
- Fix urgent items within your own team or with your agency.
- Agree monthly goals for booked new patients by location.
- Ask your agency, or prospective agencies, to respond to the findings in writing.
If the audit shows you need a new agency, the physician practice RFP template turns your findings into a brief. You can also book a call with the US team to talk through your findings, or read how we work on our doctor and primary care marketing page.
Related pages from the US team
Doctor and primary care marketing USA
How Ichelon Consulting US plans and runs physician practice marketing.
Physician practice marketing KPIs
The measures to track after your audit.
Physician agency RFP template
Turn audit findings into a brief for agencies.
HIPAA-safe website tracking
Safer ways to measure calls and forms on a practice website.
Every practice welcome — Goals-Driven engagements from $499/mo
We benchmark your last 90 days, agree monthly goals with you, and track them live on Ichelon Agency OS with a report every Monday. Performance-Linked Payout Models are available. Our US leadership is based in Dallas, and strategy calls run in US business hours.
Common questions
How often should a physician practice audit its marketing?
A physician practice should run a full self-audit every quarter and a quick check whenever something changes, such as a new provider, a new location, a departing physician, a new health plan contract or a change of agency. Those changes are when listings, bios and tracking most often fall out of date and start losing calls.
What is the most important part of a physician marketing audit?
Account ownership comes first. If an agency or former employee is the only owner of the website, a Google Business Profile, an ad account or the call-tracking numbers, the practice can lose them. After ownership, check privacy risks such as ad pixels on intake pages, then test how quickly calls and forms are answered.
How can a practice test its speed-to-lead?
Call each location as a new patient at busy times, at lunch and after hours, and record whether a person answered and whether you were offered an appointment. Submit the website form and time the reply. Leave a voicemail and see when someone calls back. Repeat the tests regularly, because results change with staffing.
What should a physician practice check on provider Google Business Profiles?
Check that each provider listing is owned by the practice, shows the correct name, credentials, location and phone, and has no duplicates. When a physician leaves, handle the listing under Google's rules rather than leaving it to collect calls. Confirm details match the website and health plan directories exactly, including whether each provider is taking new patients.
How do you know if practice website tracking is HIPAA-safe?
List every script on the patient portal, intake forms and appointment request pages; advertising pixels should not appear there. Confirm a Business Associate Agreement is signed with every vendor that handles protected health information, and review the setup against HHS guidance on online tracking technologies. Ask counsel to confirm the setup, because the rules depend on the details.
A note on this guide: it explains marketing practice, not legal advice. Rules on privacy, advertising and insurance change and vary by state, so confirm anything compliance-related with your own counsel.
Want a second pair of eyes on your audit?
Book a call with the US team. We'll go through your findings, tell you which fixes matter most for new patients, and explain how we would track the results.