What does ChatGPT say about your clinic right now?
Ask three questions in ChatGPT with web search on, then ask the same three in Google. Write them down before you look at any answers, or it's too easy to keep rewording until your clinic appears.
- Your clinic's name. Does it describe you correctly?
- "[Service] clinic in [town]". Do you appear, and who appears instead?
- "How do I book a [service] consultation at [clinic]?" Are the practical details right?
For each answer, note the date, the tool, whether you were mentioned, whether it linked to your site and anything it got wrong. If Google shows no AI summary, note that too. That's your baseline: ask the same three questions after every fix.
Fix the source, not the answer
Asking the AI again won't correct a wrong address; correcting the page it learned from can. Start with the sources the answer links to.
Juniper's own site had the new address. The wrong one lived on a directory listing nobody had touched since the move. Wrong facts tend to hide in the same places:
- an old address or phone number on a directory
- a practitioner who left, still on a team page
- a service shown at a branch that doesn't offer it
- old prices in a forgotten PDF
- a booking link that loses the branch
Juniper asked the directory to update the listing, noted the date and checked again a fortnight later. If a source won't correct itself, record it as unresolved and make your own pages unmistakable. If you can't trace a wrong answer at all, save it and use the tool's feedback button rather than guessing.
Give AI tools something worth quoting
AI answers lean on pages that say something the rest of the web doesn't. Google's guide to its generative AI features asks for original, non-commodity content and says you don't need special formatting, tiny chunks of text or special markup.
Clinics hold information nobody else has, so publish it:
- Instead of the manufacturer's machine description: how your consultation works, step by step.
- Instead of "expert team": named practitioners, their roles and register links.
- Instead of "contact us for details": prices, parking, hours and how to book, on the page.
- Instead of stock photos: your real entrance, reception and team.
Example · Juniper's first edit
Before: the laser page explained the treatment, but the consultation steps sat in an old PDF and the booking button opened a list of confusing appointment names.
After: the steps are on the page, the exact appointment is named ("Laser consultation (Bath)") and the branch details sit beside the button. The PDF is gone.
Why it matters: there's now one source to keep current, for people, Google and ChatGPT alike.
The easiest original material comes from your practitioners. Ask one to answer the question patients ask most, out loud, for two minutes, then turn it into a page section with their name on it.
Ask your developer whether the tools can read your site
A site can look fine to you and still be closed to the software (crawlers) that Google and ChatGPT use to read pages. Ask your developer to check a service page, a branch page and a team page for five things:
- Public access: no login wall or bot challenge on public pages.
- Google indexing: each page is in Google's index.
- Google's AI setting: Google requires your site to be included in its generative AI features in Search Console before it can appear in them.
- ChatGPT search access: nothing blocks OpenAI's search crawler, OAI-SearchBot.
- Private areas: staff and patient areas stay locked.
OpenAI runs separate crawlers for separate jobs. OAI-SearchBot feeds ChatGPT's search answers; GPTBot collects pages that may train its models. You can allow one and block the other, but block the search crawler and your pages drop out of ChatGPT's search answers.
Copy and adapt
"Please check our service, branch and team pages. Show me their Google indexing status, our Search Console setting for Google's generative AI features, and whether anything blocks OAI-SearchBot. Explain any deliberate blocks before changing them."
Count appearances, visits and enquiries separately
Being shown, being visited and getting an enquiry are three different numbers. Search Console's Generative AI report counts how often your pages appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode. It counts appearances, not visits.
- Shown often, but the page is out of date: fix the content.
- Visitors arrive but don't get in touch: fix the route to reception with our 20-minute website test.
- A handful of ChatGPT mentions: good news, but no reason to move your ad budget.
Test a supplier on one page you already own
Before you buy an AI-search package, ask the supplier to show one change they'd make to a page you own. Then ask three questions:
- Which questions, tools and dates does your report cover? Walk away from "we'll get you to number three in ChatGPT": answers change with the person, place and wording.
- Who updates it when our prices or team change?
- What do we keep if we cancel?
One red flag is a package built around an llms.txt file, a text file sold as a map of your site for AI tools. Google's guide says you don't need one to appear in Google Search. For any other platform, ask for that platform's own evidence.
Good deliverables are things you can inspect: a rewritten page, a corrected listing, a fixed crawler setting. A score like "AI-ready: 94" with no checks behind it tells you nothing.
Juniper's finished sheet
Track the source correction and the later AI answer as two separate results. Fixing a page doesn't guarantee the next answer changes.
Juniper's finished sheet
- Question tested: "laser hair removal clinic in Bath", ChatGPT with web search, 14 September
- What came back: Juniper mentioned, linked to a directory showing the pre-move address
- Correction sent: directory asked to update the address on 14 September; fixed by 28 September
- Page improvement: consultation steps moved from the PDF onto the laser page, "Laser consultation (Bath)" named, PDF deleted
- Recheck: 28 September, same question, same tool: new address shown
- Who checks what: the practice manager checks admin details, the practitioner checks treatment information, the website owner publishes
Do this today
Run the three test questions and send one correction. Fix the wrong fact on your own page, or send a dated correction request to the site that holds it.
Done when: the change is live, or the request is sent and logged on the AI-search working sheet.
For the rest of the work of getting found, PatientPulse's free 60-page Clinic Growth Playbook covers the costly mistakes, the numbers that matter and the playbooks that work. Requesting the PDF means agreeing to PatientPulse's emails, each with a one-click unsubscribe.
Questions owners ask
An AI answer is wrong but shows no source. What now?
Save the question and answer, use the tool's feedback button and correct anything you can find publicly. Don't guess where it came from.
Can a directory listing replace our own service page?
No. You don't control a directory's content or when it updates, so your own page should be the best source of truth about you.
We can't get into Search Console. Can we still do this?
Yes. Carry on with the fact fixes and ask whoever set up your website to give you access. Don't build a new site to get round it.
Juniper is an example clinic. Its scenes and dates are illustrative. Google's and OpenAI's statements were checked against their own pages on 6 October 2026.
