Private healthcare searches carry particular intent. When someone asks AI to recommend a dentist or physiotherapist, they are ready to book. The conversion rate from AI recommendation to appointment is high — because the recommendation itself carries implicit authority.
AI search is becoming the primary route for people new to an area, people who've moved away from public healthcare provision and younger adults who use AI as their default starting point for all decisions.
Schema.org has precise types for healthcare: Dentist, Physician, PhysicalTherapy, Optician, MedicalClinic and more.
Using the correct type is essential for appearing in healthcare-specific AI queries.
Generic business schema will not surface a practice as reliably as a correctly typed one.
"Find me a physio who treats sports injuries in Leeds" — your schema and llms.txt need to declare sports injury treatment as a service, not just "physiotherapy."
The specificity of the match matters.
For regulated healthcare professions, declaring regulatory body registration — GDC for dentists, HCPC for physiotherapists, GMC for doctors — adds authority signals that AI recognises and uses.
Healthcare providers appear across multiple directories — NHS Choices, Doctify, Whatclinic, Trustpilot, Google Business Profile. Name, address, and phone must match exactly across all of them.
Dentists · Dental hygienists · Orthodontists · Physiotherapists · Osteopaths · Chiropractors · Private GPs · Consultants · Counsellors and therapists · Psychologists · Opticians · Audiologists · Podiatrists · Sports injury clinics · Fertility clinics · Aesthetic clinics · Nutritionists · Dietitians