Hey there, Jason Koeppe here from SurePath Digital.
Somebody in your town just typed this into ChatGPT:
"Who's the best chiropractor near Cuyahoga Falls who takes walk-ins on Saturday?"
And ChatGPT answered with three clinics, a sentence about each and a few links.
Were you one of them?
If you don't know, you're in good company. Plenty of clinic owners have never checked. Some have heard there's a new acronym for it (GEO), and there's probably someone on LinkedIn ready to sell you a $5,000 course on the "secret prompts."
Let me save you the $5,000.
Are people really asking AI for local recommendations?
Yes, and fast.
BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 (BrightLocal, published March 10, 2026, a representative panel of 1,002 U.S. adults) found:
- 45% of consumers had used AI tools for local business recommendations in the past 12 months, up from 6% the year before
- ChatGPT was the most-used tool for it, at 31%, followed by Google's AI Mode at 23%
- AI became the third most used source for local business recommendations, behind Google and Facebook
- 88% of AI users said they fact-check the reviews AI tools cite
That last number is the one I'd tape to your monitor. People ask the robot, then they go check whether the robot was right. Which means the AI answer and your real reviews, listings and website all have to back each other up.
How do AI assistants decide who to recommend?
Here's the part the $5,000 course won't tell you: nobody outside OpenAI, Google and friends knows exactly. They don't publish the recipe, and it changes.
What you can see is where they get their information. Look at the links under a local answer and you'll usually find the same kinds of places:
- Google Business Profiles and map listings
- Review sites
- Directories and listing sites
- The clinic's own website
- Local news, blogs and "best of" articles
Notice anything? That's basically the same local SEO checklist that's been around for years. The robots are reading the same homework Google grades. (Ain't nobody got time for secret prompts.)
GEO, by the way, stands for generative engine optimization: making your business easy for AI tools to find, understand and recommend. For a local clinic, it's mostly good local SEO with a fresh coat of paint.
The CLEAR plan: make your clinic easy to recommend
Start with the information a patient would need to choose you: what you do, where you are and whether the details agree across websites. CLEAR turns that cleanup into five manageable jobs.
C: Consistent listings
Your clinic's name, address and phone number (people call this NAP) should match exactly everywhere: Google, Apple Maps, Bing, Yelp, Healthgrades, Facebook, your website, the chamber of commerce site.
If one listing says "Suite 200," another says "Ste. 2B" and a third still has the address you left in 2020, you're asking a computer to guess which one is real. Computers don't love guessing.
This week: search your clinic name plus your old address and old phone number. Fix or claim every listing that's wrong.
L: Location profile (your Google Business Profile)
This is the most important listing you have, so fill out every field:
- Primary and secondary categories that match what you actually do
- Every service, with a plain description
- Hours, including holiday hours
- Real photos of your team, front door and treatment rooms
- Attributes like accessibility and parking
- Questions and answers if your profile shows them
Then keep it alive. Post an update a couple of times a month. Stale profiles look like closed businesses.
E: Every question answered
When someone asks an AI assistant a specific question ("Do they take walk-ins on Saturday?"), it needs a page somewhere that answers it.
So write those pages:
- One page per service. Your "Services" page with nine bullet points doesn't cut it. "Neck Pain Treatment in Cuyahoga Falls" with a real explanation does.
- A real FAQ page. Insurance, pricing approach, what happens at a first visit, parking, hours, walk-ins.
- Your SAQs too. Those are the should-ask questions patients don't know to ask yet. I walk through how to list them in Don't Create Content. Do This Instead!
Write answers in plain sentences that make sense on their own. Start each answer with the answer. (You'll notice this blog does exactly that. Not a coincidence.)
A: Accessible pages
None of the above helps if the robots can't read your site. Have whoever manages it check:
- Robots.txt and firewall settings aren't blocking search or AI crawlers by accident
- Important text is in the page itself, and not trapped in images or behind a script that only loads when someone clicks
- Schema markup (code that labels your info for machines) includes LocalBusiness or a more specific type like MedicalClinic, plus FAQ markup on FAQ pages
- The site loads fast and works on mobile. Here's a 10-minute speed check you can run yourself
If that list made your eyes glaze over, that's what our Unlimited WordPress hosting and support is for. We handle the plumbing.
R: Reviews
Reviews are some of the most visible public information about any local business, and remember that 88% of AI users fact-check the reviews these tools cite. A steady, honest flow of them backs up whatever the AI says about you.
Ask every patient the same way, with a one-tap link, and never offer anything in exchange. Here's the full system: How to Get More Google Reviews Without Begging, Bribing or Getting Your Profile Flagged.
Test it yourself in 10 minutes
- Open ChatGPT (and Gemini, if you're feeling thorough) in a fresh chat.
- Ask three questions a real patient would ask:
- "Best [your service] near [your town]"
- "[Your service] in [your town] open on Saturday"
- "Is [your clinic name] any good?"
- Write down who shows up, what it says about you and which sources it links.
- Fix whatever's wrong or missing using the CLEAR plan.
- Repeat once a month and keep your notes in one doc.
If it's saying something wrong about you, start by hunting for the listing or page that says the wrong thing, and correct it at the source.
What happens when you're easy to recommend
The nice thing about CLEAR is that none of it is wasted. Every fix that helps AI assistants also helps Google, and also helps the actual human deciding whether to book.
Our experience comes from working with 125+ clients, with an average 71% ROI increase in the first three months. Across those clients, the systems we use have been behind about $85M in sales.
The pain-clinic results show a 1,010% ROI from a specific campaign. The owner of that clinic had only three weeks before he expected to close his sole location. Less than 60 days after work began, he was planning to open and fill one new clinic per quarter.
And once the AI sends someone your way, make sure your site doesn't lose them. Here's where patients leak out of clinic websites.
Frequently asked questions
How do I get my clinic to show up in ChatGPT?
Make your clinic easy to find and verify across the web. Keep a complete, accurate Google Business Profile, make your name, address and phone match everywhere, publish clear service and FAQ pages, make sure search and AI crawlers can read your site and keep a steady flow of honest reviews. There's no way to pay for placement in the answers.
What is GEO?
GEO stands for generative engine optimization. It's the practice of making your business easy for AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI features to find, understand and recommend. For a local clinic, it overlaps heavily with good local SEO: accurate listings, a strong Google profile, clear website content and reviews.
Do AI assistants use Google reviews?
They use public information from around the web, and reviews are a big part of what's public about a local business. The exact sources vary by tool and change over time. Keep your Google reviews steady and honest, and claim your profiles on other review sites people in your area actually use.
Should I block AI crawlers from my website?
If you want AI tools to recommend you, think twice. Blocking their crawlers in your robots.txt file can keep your pages out of the information they use. Ask whoever manages your site to check robots.txt and any security or firewall settings, and make sure the crawlers you care about aren't blocked by accident.
How long does it take to start showing up in AI answers?
There's no fixed timeline, and nobody can promise a placement. Listing fixes and Google profile updates tend to show up first, while new website content and reviews build over months. Test the same questions in ChatGPT and other assistants once a month and keep notes so you can see what changes.
What's your next move?
There's no secret handshake. There's CLEAR: consistent listings, a full Google profile, pages that answer real questions, a site the robots can read and honest reviews. Do the basics well and keep them current.
Want help? Book a call with me. We'll run the ChatGPT test on your clinic together and show you what to fix first.
Until next time, God bless and talk soon.
