Accepted Health Insurance Feature on Google My Business

[wehrlse1]

Hello! Has anyone seen that GMB added "Accepted Health Insurance" as an option for health/medical profile? It only appears to be live on mobile search. I was wondering if anyone knew how this feature might effect ranking?

 

[Phil Rozek]

@wehrlse1, that may be related to the "Check insurance info" link, which shows up in the knowledge panel for certain doctors, which I've seen only on desktop.

The insurance info in there is provided by third-party sources (e.g. HealthGrades or WebMD), rather than in GMB.

First saw that a few months ago.

I wonder if what you're seeing is the next-generation version of that, where the doctor / practice owner can provide the info directly, rather than rely on a third-party source to get it right.

Anyway, I doubt either has an effect on rankings, partly because I don't think either feature is very common (yet). But I could see how Google might add a search filter to Maps that allows people to filter the results by which practices accept which insurance(s).

 

[wehrlse1]

Interesting! Yes, it is not super user friendly. I definitely prefer entering everything into Healthgrades. Thank you for the insight.

 

[Professor M]

I read this article a few days ago about this:
Google Offers New Insurance Attribute for Healthcare Providers - Reputation.com | The online reputation management leader

From the article
Google recently shared with its trusted partners (including Reputation.com) information on an attribute that will make it easier for healthcare providers to share information about health insurance networks accepted at different locations or physicians. The insurance attribute, which applies to healthcare providers’ Google My Business (GMB) listings, will be valuable to providers so long as they have access to the GMB application programming interface (API).

 

[JoyHawkins]

@wehrlse1 what platform are you seeing that in (your screenshot)?

 

[wehrlse1]

Hi Joy! I am using Safari desktop.

 

[JoyHawkins]

But that screenshot, is it the Google My Business dashboard, or something else?

 

[wehrlse1]

It is the GMB dashboard. I had never had the option to add in that information before so I was unsure if it was new.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Interesting. I can't replicate it for any of our healthcare listings. What is the primary category for the listing you saw it on?

 

[wehrlse1]

I haven't checked all of my clients yet, but they all have dentist, orthodontist, or some kind of dental primary category. But I am also seeing it show up for my non-dental medical clients (ex: dermatology).

 

[Shelly]

I noticed this in a massage therapist/acupuncture client that I work with on 12/28/20. We heavily promote that they accept VA Insurance on their website, but that isn't an option to choose in GMB so I have not used the feature.
Their primary category is massage therapist.

 

[Eoghan_Aircam]

This feature was recently added to the GMB API too.

 

[wehrlse1]

Do we know if this new feature has any potential ranking factor? My and I always utilize all GMB features for the engagement/activity, but I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts?

 

[JoyHawkins]

I wouldn't anticipate it would. There are only 4 fields that currently do inside the GMB dashboard.

 

[wehrlse1]

Thanks, Joy!