What Healthgrades Will Actually Remove — and What It Won’t
A genuine patient’s unflattering account of their visit stays up, even if it’s harsh. Here’s what does qualify for removal, and how the dispute process actually works — without ever asking a practice to confirm what happened with a specific patient.
Yes, in specific cases — Healthgrades’ Community Review Guidelines prohibit false, misleading, or fabricated content; personal attacks, name-calling, racist comments, or threats; profanity, harassment, or obscenity; exposed personal information such as phone numbers, emails, or URLs; and content that discriminates against or disparages someone on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender, or similar protected status. A genuine patient’s honest but unflattering account of their own visit is not, by itself, grounds for removal — and a practice can dispute a review without confirming or denying that the reviewer was ever a patient.
Healthgrades’ Community Review GuidelinesWhich reviews can be removed?
- The review contains false, misleading, or fabricated content rather than a genuine account of a visit
- The content includes personal attacks, name-calling, racist comments, or threats
- The review contains profanity, harassment, or obscenity
- The content exposes personal information such as phone numbers, email addresses, or URLs
- The content discriminates against or disparages someone on the basis of a protected status
If a flag or dispute is denied
Healthgrades does not publish a self-service appeal process beyond its standard flag-and-review workflow through the Provider Center. If a flag is denied, submitting new supporting evidence that wasn’t included the first time is more likely to change the outcome than resubmitting the same objection.
Improve your rating instead
For reviews that don't qualify for removal, a professional response and a consistent flow of new reviews does more than chasing a removal that isn't coming.
Frequently asked questions
A provider who has claimed their free Healthgrades profile can flag a specific review from the Provider Center, select the guideline it violates from the options provided, and add a concise, evidence-based explanation. A response built on documentation — such as no record of an appointment matching the description — holds up better than a general objection to the tone of the review.
Healthgrades doesn’t publish a fixed turnaround, and reported timelines vary by case; a flagged review typically gets a decision within a few weeks. Flagging starts a review of the content — it doesn’t guarantee removal.
Healthgrades’ decisions on flagged content are generally treated as final, with limited room for appeal short of providing evidence that wasn’t part of the original flag. A practice should never respond to a denied dispute by confirming or discussing a specific patient’s care publicly, even in frustration.
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