Reputation and review management

Reputation management is the ongoing work of earning honest reviews, replying to them well and keeping track of what people say about your business online. MAD Lion Digital is a physician-led marketing agency based in Las Vegas, Nevada, and we manage reputation for medical practices, clinics, hospitals, med spas and local businesses, in English and Spanish. We do it within the FTC’s rules on reviews and, for healthcare, within HIPAA.

What’s included

A review request process: one message sent to every patient or customer at the same point after a visit, with a direct link or QR code, plus a short script for your front desk.
Replies: drafted for positive and negative reviews, brief and warm, and written so they never confirm that a reviewer is a patient.
Monitoring: Google, Yelp, Healthgrades, Zocdoc, Facebook and the other sites that matter in your field, checked regularly.
Reporting violations: fake, abusive or otherwise policy-breaking reviews flagged through each platform’s own process.
A compliance check: how your team asks for reviews, any incentives you offer and the terms on your customer forms, reviewed against FTC rules and platform policies.
A monthly report: rating, review volume, reply time and the themes customers mention most, so management can act on them.

Who it’s for

Medical practices, clinics, hospitals and med spas, where reviews affect local search visibility and every reply carries privacy risk. We also manage reviews for restaurants, retailers, cleaning services and other local businesses whose customers check ratings before they call.

How we work

Diagnosis. Our free marketing diagnosis looks at your ratings on each platform, how often and how you reply, and how your team asks for reviews today.
Plan. Goals for review volume and reply time, the platforms that matter for your field and who approves replies.
Execution. We set up requests, give your staff a short script, draft replies for approval and report policy violations.
Monthly follow-up. A report on ratings, volume and themes, plus the changes we will make next month.

The rules for asking for reviews

These rules apply as of October 2026. The FTC’s rule on consumer reviews and testimonials took effect on October 21, 2024. It bans fake reviews, incentives that depend on a review being positive or negative, insider reviews without a clear disclosure of the connection, and threats or intimidation used to get honest negative reviews removed. This is general information, not legal advice.

The FTC is enforcing it. In December 2025 it warned 10 companies about possible violations, and in April 2026 it announced a case against a supplement seller over, among other things, thousands of five-star reviews allegedly written by employees and free or discounted products offered in exchange for five-star reviews.

Platform rules go further. Google prohibits offering incentives for reviews and selectively asking only for positive ones, and Yelp discourages businesses from asking customers for reviews. The Consumer Review Fairness Act also makes standard contract terms that restrict honest reviews illegal, even if you never enforce them. Our approach: ask everyone the same way, offer nothing in return and never filter.

Replying to patient reviews under HIPAA

Under HIPAA, identifiable information about a person’s health or the care they received is protected. A public reply that confirms the reviewer was your patient, or mentions their visit, can disclose it.

HHS’s Office for Civil Rights enforces this. In 2023 a New Jersey psychiatric practice paid $30,000 to settle a case in which its replies to negative online reviews disclosed patients’ information, including one patient’s diagnosis and treatment.

A safer reply thanks the person, speaks about your policies in general terms and invites them to call the office. Google’s own advice is similar: never share a reviewer’s private information. We draft every reply that way, for good reviews and bad ones.

Frequently asked questions

Can you remove negative reviews?

Only reviews that break a platform’s policies, such as fake or abusive ones, can be removed, and we report those through the platform. Google asks businesses not to report a review just because they disagree with it. We don’t try to remove honest reviews; a calm reply works better.

Can we offer a discount for leaving a review?

Not on Google or Yelp, which both prohibit incentives for reviews. The FTC rule bans any incentive that depends on the review being positive, and the FTC says reviews given in exchange for an incentive should disclose it.

Can we ask only our happiest patients?

No. Google prohibits selectively asking for positive reviews, and the FTC advises businesses not to ask only the customers they expect to be positive. Ask every patient the same way.

Can our staff post reviews of the practice?

We advise against it. Google treats current or former employment as a conflict of interest, and the FTC rule requires insider reviews to clearly disclose the connection to the business.

Talk to our team

We’ll review your ratings, replies and review process on every platform as part of a free diagnosis.

Request a free diagnosis

Email info@madliondigital.com · Call +1 (702) 234-0505

Reputation management for medical practices and local businesses