For a doctor, a bad review is a different problem — because you often cannot answer it.
A restaurant can reply to a complaint with specifics. You cannot. Confirming that a reviewer was your patient is itself a confidentiality issue, and a reply that references their treatment is a far bigger problem than the review.
This is the constraint that generic reputation advice ignores, and it changes the entire strategy.
The confidentiality trap
A patient posts that you misdiagnosed them and were dismissive. The instinct is to explain: they arrived late, refused the test you recommended, and the diagnosis was correct.
Every word of that is a disclosure about an identifiable patient, published by their doctor, on a public website.
Indian Medical Council regulations on professional conduct treat patient confidence as binding, and the fact that the patient spoke publicly first does not release you. A defensive reply can expose you to a complaint far more serious than a one-star rating.
The safe form of reply acknowledges nothing about the individual: a brief note that you take feedback seriously, that you cannot discuss any individual’s care publicly, and an invitation to contact the clinic directly. Two lines. Nothing more.
What Practo and Lybrate will remove
- Reviews from people who never consulted you — verifiable against appointment records
- Reviews containing another patient’s information
- Reviews naming individual staff members
- Abusive language, threats, or discriminatory content
- Reviews for the wrong doctor or wrong clinic branch — common where names are similar
- Reviews that are advertisements for a competing practice
- Duplicate reviews from the same person about the same consultation
Practo operates a verification model where consultations booked through the platform are marked. A review from an account with no booking history is materially weaker, and worth raising specifically.
What they will not remove
A genuine patient who was unhappy with their experience and said so.
This includes reviews about waiting times, cost, manner, or a clinical outcome they disagreed with. Unless it breaches a written rule, it stays — and no agency can change that.
Anyone quoting you a fee to remove an honest patient review is either going to fail or use a method you should refuse.
The one that matters most: Google, not Practo
Most doctors focus on Practo because it feels like the medical platform. But when a patient searches your name, Google Business Profile results usually appear first and carry your aggregate star rating in the result itself.
What this means practically: a claimed and complete Google Business Profile, with genuine review volume, does more for your practice than any amount of Practo management. Most practices have not claimed theirs, or claimed it and left it half-filled.
Building genuine review volume without breaching anything
This is the single most effective thing you can do, and it is free.
Ask at the right moment. Not during consultation — at reception, after payment, when the patient is leaving satisfied. A card with a QR code linking directly to your review page removes all friction.
Ask everyone, not selectively. Asking only patients you expect to be positive is review gating, which platforms prohibit and detect.
Never offer anything in exchange. No discounts, no free consultations, nothing. Beyond the platform rules, inducements for medical reviews raise ethical questions you do not want raised about you.
Never write them yourself or ask staff to. Under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 and the BIS standard on online reviews (IS 19000:2022), fabricated reviews carry real exposure — and for a doctor, being caught fabricating patient testimonials is career-level damage, not marketing damage.
Twenty genuine reviews over three months will move your average and push a single bad review off the visible portion of your profile. That is the whole strategy, and it beats every removal campaign.
When a review is genuinely defamatory
A review alleging specific misconduct that did not occur — a procedure you did not perform, a qualification you do not claim, an outcome that did not happen — is a different matter from an unhappy patient.
Routes exist: a complaint to the platform’s grievance officer under the IT Rules 2021, and where warranted, civil action or proceedings under Section 356 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
But apply the escalation test first. A doctor sending a legal notice to a patient over a review is a story local media will run. Weigh what the content is actually costing you against what the fight would cost.
A practical order of operations
- Claim and complete your Google Business Profile if you have not
- Check whether the reviewer has any booking history on the platform
- Report only what breaches a specific written rule, citing it
- Reply once, briefly, disclosing nothing about the individual
- Start asking every patient for a review, systematically
- Consider legal routes only for provably false factual allegations, and only after weighing the exposure
Send us your profile links through our review removal service and we will tell you which reviews have genuine grounds for removal and which do not — including when the honest answer is that volume, not removal, is what will fix your rating.
Remove Negative Articles is an online reputation management company. We are not a law firm and do not provide legal advice; references to legislation and case law are general information, not advice on your situation. Where a matter requires it, we work alongside licensed counsel. Outcomes cannot be guaranteed in advance.