Practo feedback vs a Google review: what's actually different for a clinic?

A patient can leave feedback for the same visit in two different places, and the two platforms barely agree on what a review even looks like. Here is what each one's own rules actually say, read directly off Practo's and Google's help pages, side by side.

What's different, at a glance?

The short version: a Google review is a short, public star rating that posts immediately. Practo feedback is a longer, checked write-up that goes through a human moderation step first. The table below lines up the details each platform publishes about itself.

Who is actually allowed to leave feedback or a review?

Google's policy asks for a real experience, not a real name: it says content should reflect a genuine visit and does not require the reviewer to have been a paying customer to leave a rating. Practo is stricter about who counts. Its patient guidelines set a minimum age of 13, and its provider guidelines block more than one feedback entry for the same appointment, so the same visit cannot generate two write-ups from one patient.

• Google: anyone with a Google account, provided the review reflects a genuine experience and is not posted because of a conflict of interest, such as a current or former employee.
• Practo: a patient, at least 13 years old, writing about their own appointment, with a family member allowed to write on behalf of a patient under 13. Copying a paper comment card in as feedback is explicitly ruled out.

Neither platform allows the clinic side to write the entry. Google's policy calls that a conflict of interest; Practo's guidelines name it directly as non-compliant, whether it is the doctor, a staff member, or a relative doing the writing.

The two also differ in how tightly feedback is tied to a real visit. Practo's guidelines attach each entry to a specific appointment, which is why they can set a firm one-year window (three months for an online consultation) and rule out a second entry for the same appointment. A Google review carries no such record: anyone with a Google account can leave one for any listed business, and Google's policy relies on the reviewer's honesty about the visit being genuine, not on a booking made through Google.

How does each platform check what gets posted?

This is where the two platforms diverge most. Practo describes a review step before feedback ever reaches the public profile. Google's own help pages describe reporting and removal after a review is already live, and reserve the pre-publication check for something else: the clinic's own reply.

A word count and moderation queue sound like friction, but they cut both ways. A frustrated patient still needs to clear Practo's 100-word bar and wait out the check, while the same patient can leave a one-line Google review the moment they walk out.

How do patients actually read each one?

Google shows a star average the moment a clinic has any reviews at all, so even three or four reviews produce a visible number. Practo takes a different approach: its Recommendation Score, the percentage of recommendations that are positive, only appears once a profile has 10 or more, and its separate Appointment Experience Score, built from no-shows, wait time, and cancellation or rescheduling rates, needs at least 5. A newer clinic can look review-free on Practo well after it has real feedback sitting behind the threshold.

The 100-word minimum also changes what a patient reads once they get there. A Google review is often a single line: "Good doctor, short wait." Practo's guidelines ask for a descriptive, factual account of the appointment itself, so a patient scanning Practo tends to find longer, more specific write-ups about wait times, staff behaviour and how the visit actually went, while a patient scanning Google gets a faster read across more entries.

For how far patients actually go before booking, from checking timings to reading a handful of reviews, our post on how patients choose a clinic online walks through the fuller journey.

Where does each show up in search and in AI answers?

Google reviews show natively, right on the Business Profile inside Google Search and Maps, according to Google's own tips page for business owners. What surprises a lot of clinics is where a review does not get to show up: Google's structured-data rules say a page is ineligible for the star review rich result if the business being reviewed controls the reviews about itself, including through an embedded widget such as a Google or Facebook reviews plugin. Put plainly, pasting your own Google reviews onto your clinic's website will not put stars next to your site in Google Search.

A newer development sits on the reply side, not the review side. Since June 2026, Google's Gemini web app can connect to one linked Business Profile and draft a reply to a review, or summarise the themes across recent reviews, in a set of languages that includes English and Hindi. The feature is rolling out worldwide outside the EEA and UK, which covers India, though it is limited to an account managing exactly one verified profile.

Practo does not offer a comparable AI reply tool on its own published pages. Where a Practo profile does show up beyond practo.com is harder to pin down: an agency's own test of AI search across four engines in India found a clinic with a strong Practo presence appeared in AI-generated recommendations more consistently than a competitor with more Google reviews but a thinner presence elsewhere. That is one agency's own study, not a controlled measurement Medslots ran, so treat it as indicative rather than a guarantee for any specific clinic.

How should a clinic reply, without breaking confidentiality?

The mechanics differ, but the confidentiality line does not move between platforms. Regulation 7.14 of the National Medical Commission's 2002 code bars a doctor from disclosing a patient's secrets learnt in practice, and a public reply that confirms someone was a patient, or mentions their treatment, counts as a disclosure either way.

For sample replies to specific kinds of complaints, our post on replying to Google reviews, with examples for doctors goes line by line. For the fuller field-by-field rundown of Practo's own feedback rules alongside its profile requirements, see Practo profile optimisation: what actually matters. And for how a Practo listing sits next to a Google Business Profile and a WhatsApp number in the first place, read Practo vs Google Profile vs WhatsApp AI for clinics.