What to Do About a Google Review From Someone Who Was Never Your Patient

First, take a breath, because this is more common than it feels in the moment. An analysis widely cited by BrightLocal estimated that around 10.7 percent of Google reviews are fake, the highest rate of any major platform. And Google is not ignoring it. In its own reporting, the company said it blocked or removed more than 240 million reviews that broke its policies in 2024. So a review from someone who was never your patient is not some rare glitch you have to live with. It is a known problem the platform actively fights, and that works in your favor.

The key thing to understand is that this type of review is one of the easiest to get removed, because it breaks Google's most basic rule. Reviews must come from real, firsthand experience. A person who never walked through your door has no experience to describe. That puts the review squarely in the territory Google calls prohibited content, and it gives you a clean, honest reason to ask for it to come down.

Why these reviews land on the wrong practice

Before you report anything, it helps to know what you are actually looking at, because the fix changes a little depending on the cause. In our experience with healthcare clients, a review from a non patient almost always falls into one of four buckets.

• Mistaken identity. The patient had a real bad experience, but at a different clinic with a similar name, or a different location of the same group. They found your listing first and posted there. They are not lying, they are just confused.
• A competitor. Someone trying to drag your rating down, often a cluster of one star ratings with no text, showing up in a tight window. This is a direct conflict of interest violation.
• A troll or bot. Spam, a copied rant, nonsense, or an attack that has nothing to do with any real visit.
• The wrong person entirely. They confused your Dr. Smith with another Dr. Smith three states away. It happens more than you would guess.

All four break Google's rules on fake engagement, off topic content, or conflict of interest. You do not have to prove motive. You only have to show the review does not come from a genuine experience at your practice.

Step 1: Flag the review for removal

Start with the official report, not a public fight. Sign in to the Google account that manages your Google Business Profile, find the review, click the three dots next to it and choose Report review. Pick the reason that fits best, usually that the content is fake, spam, or off topic. Google also runs a support flow where you can report a review and check its status later, which is worth using for anything serious.

When you explain, keep it short and factual. You are talking to a reviewer and a system, not a jury. Something like: "This account has never been a patient at our practice. We have no record of this person or the visit described. This review does not reflect a genuine experience with our office." No anger, no sarcasm, no patient details. Clear and boring wins here.

Step 2: Post one calm public reply

Reporting can take days or weeks, and Google does not promise anything. Meanwhile, that review sits in public. So while you wait, post a single short reply, because future patients read how you handle problems far more closely than you think. The reply is not for the reviewer. It is for the next person deciding whether to trust you.

Notice what that does. It calmly signals to every future reader that the review is likely a mistake or a fake, without calling the person a liar and without revealing a single detail about anyone. That matters, because even when a review is clearly bogus, you are still a healthcare practice bound by HIPAA. You cannot defend yourself by posting records or confirming anything about a real patient. We wrote a full guide on that line you must not cross: how to respond to negative reviews without breaking HIPAA. The short version holds here too. Answer the situation, never the medical facts.

A quick story from the trenches

A chiropractor in a mid sized city called us rattled. He had three new one star reviews in a single afternoon, all with no text, all from accounts with a handful of reviews across random businesses in a city he did not even serve. His gut said a competitor. We did not try to prove that. We just reported each one as fake with the same two calm sentences, pointed out the pattern in the report, and posted one short public reply noting we had no record of these visits and welcomed a direct call. Two of the three came down within about a week. The third stayed, but it was buried under the steady stream of real reviews we had already helped him build. A month later his rating was higher than before the attack. The fakes did not win because they were outnumbered.

Step 3: Document everything, then build your buffer

If the review does not come down, or the attack is organized and defamatory, take dated screenshots of each review and the reviewer profiles before anything changes. That record is what you will need if you escalate through Google, or if it gets bad enough to involve a healthcare attorney. You almost never get there, but documentation costs you nothing and protects you if you do.

Here is the part most owners skip, and it is the most important one. The real protection against a stray fake review is not a faster report button. It is volume. A practice with 30 reviews feels every single bad one. A practice with 300 barely notices. When you are actively earning honest reviews from happy patients every week, one fake one star moves your average almost nothing and gets pushed down the page fast. The attack that would have been a crisis becomes a shrug. If you are not sure where to start, this is the ethical, FTC safe way to get more Google reviews from real patients.

Why this connects to how patients find you at all

It is tempting to treat reviews as a side chore, something your office manager deals with between patients. They are not. Your star rating and the words inside your reviews are a major input into where you show up when a patient searches "dermatologist near me" or asks an AI assistant for a recommendation. A pile of fake one stars does not just scare off readers, it can slowly drag down the local SEO that decides whether a searching patient finds you or the practice across the street. Protecting your reviews is protecting your front door.

How EtherealMinds handles this for practices

Monitoring reviews, flagging the fake ones, and replying to every real one in a way that is warm and HIPAA safe is slow, fiddly work that is easy to let slide until an attack hits on a Friday night. We do it for healthcare practices across the United States so you do not have to think about it. We watch your profile, flag reviews that break the rules, write replies that protect patient privacy and build trust, and run an automatic, ethical system that asks every happy patient for feedback at the right moment, so your genuine reviews always outnumber the noise. It plugs into the same patient acquisition system that turns a strong reputation into booked appointments. And because so many bad reviews start with a call nobody answered or a problem nobody caught in time, our AI receptionist picks up every call and message instantly, so the frustration that fuels a one star never gets started.

A review from someone who was never your patient feels personal and unfair. But it is one of the most fixable problems you will face online. Report it calmly, reply once for your future patients, document it, and keep your real reviews flowing. Do that, and a fake voice never gets to speak for your practice.