You read that AI search is changing how patients find care. You may have even adjusted some website copy. But here is the question most practice owners skip: what do these tools actually say about you today?
Not in theory. Right now. This week.
We built a simple check you can run in about twenty minutes. No agency required. No special tools to buy. Just a few searches, a notes doc, and honest eyes on the results.
This post is the missing step between understanding what AI-enhanced search is and deciding what to do about it. If you want the foundational context first, start there.
Related: What is AEO for healthcare and why it matters for your practice
Why This Check Matters Before You Do Anything Else
AI tools, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Perplexity, synthesize answers from sources they find credible. When a patient asks a question, these tools respond with confidence. They name practices, cite hours, reference physician names, and describe services. Some of that information is current. Some of it is not.
A four-provider general cardiology practice may be cited accurately in one tool and listed with a cardiologist who left eighteen months ago in another. A chiropractic clinic may not appear at all, while a broad directory listing fills the answer instead. A functional medicine practice may be named with the right specialties but linked to a location that closed after a consolidation.
None of those practices know this is happening unless they look. This check helps you look.
Step One: Write Your Eight to Ten Questions
Start the way a real patient starts. Before anyone books an appointment, they ask something. Write down the questions your patients are most likely to type or speak. A general structure that works across most specialty practices:
- The condition question: "What causes [symptom] and when should I see a doctor?"
- The provider question: "Best [specialty] near [city]"
- The coverage question: "Does insurance cover [service or procedure type]?"
- The comparison question: "What is the difference between [option A] and [option B]?"
- The process question: "What should I expect at a first appointment with a [specialist]?"
- The credentials question: "How do I find a board-certified [specialty type] in [city]?"
- The trust question: "Is [practice name] a good [specialty] practice?"
- The direct lookup: "[Practice name] hours" or "[Practice name] accepting new patients"
That last pair is the most revealing. If a tool pulls your direct information and gets it wrong, that is an active problem, not a passive gap.
Step Two: Run Each Question Across Four Surfaces
Open ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity in separate tabs. Then run a standard Google search for the same query and screenshot any AI Overview that appears at the top. For each answer, record three things in your notes doc:
- Is the practice named? Yes, no, or indirectly (via a directory or a review aggregator that lists you).
- Is anything wrong? Check physician names, hours, location, services, and any factual claim.
- What sources does the answer cite? A directory, a competitor, a health system, your own site, a news article?
Do not worry about whether you rank first. That framing belongs to traditional SEO. Here you are looking for patterns across tools and across question types.
Step Three: Read What You Find
The results will fall into one of three patterns, and each calls for a different first move.
Named and accurate. The tools cite you, the facts are correct, and the sources they lean on include your own website or a well-maintained directory profile. This is the strongest position. Your next move is to run this check again in sixty days and make sure nothing drifts. Accuracy in AI tools is not permanent. It reflects whatever these systems ingested most recently.
Named with stale or wrong information. This is the most urgent situation. A departed physician listed as current, outdated hours, a service no longer offered, or a location that has changed can actively mislead a patient who is ready to book. Your first move is to update the primary sources these tools are pulling from: your Google Business Profile, your website, and any directory that appears in the cited sources. Then rerun the check.
Related: How to optimize your website for AI search
Absent while a competitor or directory is cited. The tools are answering the question. They just are not using you to do it. This is a visibility gap, not a credibility crisis. Your first move is to look at what sources are being cited and assess whether your practice appears in those places at all. Often a missing or thin directory presence, a website that does not answer the question clearly, or a lack of structured information is what keeps a practice out of the synthesized answer.
A Simple Tracking Sheet You Can Copy
Set up a notes doc or spreadsheet with these seven columns before you start:
- Question
- ChatGPT named?
- Gemini named?
- Perplexity named?
- AI Overview named?
- Errors found
- Sources cited
Fill it in as you run each query. Eight to ten rows takes about twenty minutes. What you end up with is not a score. It is a pattern. And patterns tell you where to focus.
What to Fix First
If errors appear: fix the source, not just the symptom. Update your Google Business Profile, your website contact and team pages, and any directory that the tool cited. AI tools do not read your mind. They read your data.
If you are absent: read the cited sources the way a patient would. If a directory ranks well and lists your competitors but not you, claim and complete your profile there. If your website does not answer the kinds of questions you searched, that is a content gap worth closing.
If you are accurate but lightly cited: the content on your site likely answers questions in a general way rather than a specific, structured way. That is a longer conversation, and it is what the writing framework in our AEO optimization post addresses.
How Often to Rerun This Check
AI tools update continuously. The answer ChatGPT gives today is not guaranteed to match what it gives in eight weeks. We recommend running this check once a quarter at minimum, and any time something meaningful changes at the practice: a physician joins or departs, a service changes, a location opens or closes, hours shift.
This is a pattern check, not a ranking. What you are watching for over time is whether your presence is growing, staying flat, or drifting into inaccuracy.
One More Thing Before You Start
Run the direct lookup query with your practice name first. It is the fastest signal. If a tool gets your own name wrong, everything else in the check becomes more urgent. If it gets your name right and the details match, you are starting from a better position than many specialty practices realize.
Twenty minutes. A notes doc. Real answers.
That is where this starts.