How Does Vitals's Rating Actually Work?
How a Vitals rating is actually built
Every Vitals review starts with a required overall star rating. Patients can then optionally rate the physician across seven additional categories: Ease of Appointment, Promptness, Courteous Staff, Accurate Diagnosis, Bedside Manner, Spends Time with Me, and Follow-up. Vitals does not publish the exact formula for how — or whether — those optional category scores factor into the overall average shown on a profile, so treat any displayed score as an indicator rather than a number you can rebuild from a spreadsheet.
How a Vitals rating is actually built
Vitals limits patients to one review per physician every 30 days, which is a stated guardrail against a single patient repeatedly skewing a profile’s average. Reviews are also screened for defamatory or inflammatory content before or after posting, with Vitals reserving the right to remove anything that violates its guidelines or Terms of Use.
Importantly, Vitals’ own review guidelines prohibit reviewers from including any information about their own medical or health conditions — symptoms, diagnosis, or prescriptions — along with personally identifiable or confidential information. That’s a content rule Vitals enforces on reviewers, and it shapes how a provider should approach both requesting reviews and responding to them.
What Vitals discloses about its rating
- A required overall star rating on every review, plus seven optional category ratings (Ease of Appointment, Promptness, Courteous Staff, Accurate Diagnosis, Bedside Manner, Spends Time with Me, Follow-up).
- No published formula for how category ratings combine into the displayed overall score — Vitals does not disclose a simple-average or weighted mechanic.
- A one-review-per-patient, per-physician, 30-day limit, stated as a safeguard against a single patient repeatedly moving the average.
- Screening for defamatory or inflammatory content, with removal reserved for guideline or Terms of Use violations — not for reviews that are simply negative.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Vitals review packages start at $110 for up to 5 reviews, scaling to $690 for 50, with monthly billing at 15% off. Pick a package on this page, or try a free example first.
We can draft and guide a response, but any reply has to stay within HIPAA’s constraints — a provider can never confirm that someone is even a patient in a public reply, let alone discuss their care. We help providers respond professionally without saying anything that could constitute a privacy disclosure.