AI Healthcare Search: How Patients Will Find Doctors in the Future

Introduction and AI Search Shift 0:00

clinic or which doctor is best suited for them. Now AI does all the job. And then AI may recommend specific doctors or hospitals or even treatments. So authority and credibility signals will matter more than keyword ranking. Earlier, everyone used to ask for, am I ranking for this keyword? More patients, more authority, and more freedom. I'm Brett Gregory, founder of Doctor Talks, where we're democratizing the creator economy for doctors. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the Dr. Talks podcast. I'm your host, Brett Gregory.

And I am really excited today to have Rakesh Reddy and Austin Loverin, co-founders of Orange Carrot Media. Today we're going to be talking about from Google to AI, how patients will find doctors in the future. So you're gonna learn about all that and more right now. Austin, let's start with you. Could you just please introduce yourself to our audience? Sure. Thanks for having us, Brett. I'm Austin Laborn, Managing Partner at Orange Carrot Media. We are a healthcare-focused digital agency based in West Palm Beach.

we help doctors and practices build the digital infrastructure that actually converts patients. Whether it's websites, SEO, patient acquisition, or other systems, we believe that your foundation isn't right. Nothing else matters. That's what we do. And I agree with that. I just kind of wanted to preface this with about two years ago, I had a mini stroke where I. A blood clot that went through, um, a hole in between the left and right side of my heart, which was a whole that was never closed at birth.

Wow. Go right up and get stuck right behind my ear. I felt no pain, but I couldn't speak. I can't put any words together. My wife was like, maybe go take a shower. You haven't woken up yet. Uh, I did. It took a show. We're, it's out there and I got out and night. So couldn. She's like okay, well maybe you go walk around the block that will, that'll kind of maybe wake you up. Said did that and still nothing. And then. A nurse in our family who works in the ER and she said, you need to go to the right, right to hospital right away.

Right away and, um, they, put me in some sort of procedure where they kind of made me sign off a piece of paper to say, there's a chance you could die from this procedure that kind shoot something in your veins and it clears everything out. And I said. I don't have a choice. Let's do it. I'm here today. I am six days in the ICU and going through a lot of different therapy. speaking correctly, so I want to preference this episode. This is, it's hard for me to do, but I'm getting into it and I am trying to get back to it.

Austin and Rakesh Introductions 3:00

You are doing great. What a story. That's very brave of you. Thank you for sharing that and thank God for doctors. My goodness. Yeah. It just goes to show you how much we appreciate you guys listening out there. So thank you, for, that, sharing. Appreciate it You're welcome. Thanks for having us. Rakesh, we'd love to hear from you. Yeah, sure. Thank you for having us here, Brett. Like I just want to start with like, you know, how I met with Austin. Austin was my first boss right after my school from Lynn University, Boca Raton.

So we transitioned from now being colleagues. He was, my boss. As I said, I enjoyed working with him at an agency in BoCA and I had to move back to India after that. And then one day Austin just called me and then he asked me like to be his partner. And that's how we started Orange Guide Media. That's an interesting journey with Austin. And now we are here helping doctors, now finding the right patients for their practices. That's great. Well, we're sharing the same mission of helping doctors. We're doing it through democratizing the creator economy for doctors, you're helping them attract new patients online.

And we are going to talk right now about from Google to AI and how patients will find doctors in the future. Tell us for the past 20 years, when patients needed a doctor, they usually started with Google. How do you see that changing as AI tools become the new way people search for information? Yeah. I would say on a high level the shift from searching links earlier you go to Google you search and then you get like enough links right like you know one to ten links on page one and on Page two you got another 10 links and now That shift happened from searching links to asking questions.

From Google to AI in Patient Discovery 5:00

You go to chat, GPT, or even you go Google, Google doesn't give you links anymore. Google gives you the AI summary. So it doesn' matter. There is no Google search anymore, I would say. It is all AI. And that's changed so fast. Exactly. Changed so far. It's amazing. Right. And then, you know, patient asks, now conversational queries, like, best knee specialist near me, for example, and then AI summaries this information instead of showing 10 links. Now earlier user has to go to 10 things, figure out which.

clinic or which doctor is best suited for them. Now AI does all the job. And then AI may recommend specific doctors or hospitals or even treatments. So authority and credibility signals will matter more than keyboard ranking. Earlier, everyone used to ask for, am I ranking for this keyword? And what is the position? Is it number one? Number two? Where am I ranking on maps, right? That was my obsession for years. Yes. And I always turn to guys like you to help me because I knew nothing about SEO.

I was on the other side of the marketing equation. Yeah. So now healthcare decisions will become more research driven, thanks to these AI and LLMs. That is how AI changing the way patients searching for doctors now. Yeah, and so this shift has already happened, right? Right. It's already happen. it happened so fast, it's all ready happened. Yes. So, I mean, do you think AI will actually replace Google as a starting point for healthcare searches or will it work alongside it? Now I won't see it as a Google versus chart GPT as it tools, but let's look at this as change in behavior of the user.

It doesn't matter. Now, if it is me searching on Google or chart, GPP, what am I looking for? I'm looking. The right doctor for my issue. Maybe. like a knee doctor, like an orthopedic. It doesn't matter. Even if I go to Google, Google gives me the AI overview. If I got to chat GPT, chat GPD does the same for me. So Google itself is becoming AI driven with the overviews. And then Google has much more data than any of these. and other LLMs. So the whole user behavior is changing. It doesn't matter whether it is Google or any other of these things.

Younger users are already using ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini to start their conversations, not the searches. It is all about conversation now. Now, search is, as I said, no, so it is moving from keyword to natural conversations. It doesn't matter. Whatever you ask that GPT will ask you 10 more questions and then it will drag you into an endless loop of conversations so no doctors must prepare for both. No Google and AI discovery. You cannot just prepare separately for Google. And then separate for.

So you've got to prepare for AI right now. AI is much more the conversation. The conversation includes personalized query to answer. So, you cannot answer every query, but at the end of the day, You've gotta prepare your whole presence. online to make sure that these LLMs has enough content from you to grab and then give it to the user. Best example is getting into the podcast. You get half an hour and you talk about everything and that's where AI L.L.M.s get much more content. Right, and so you can't answer every question, but your AI can answer any question.

So this has fundamentally changed the patient journey.

Building Authority for AI Recommendations 9:00

Used to be, you know, for 20 years, searching on Google, take your time going through all the links, look through the reviews, then start to figure out which doctor might seem to right for you. Now, most of that process is skipped. It's going right to the, whether it's Google or GPT or Claude or whatever, you're going right to the answer and getting specific recommendations. So again, of course that then, now how can the doctors, in this AI driven search world, what makes a doctor clinic more likely to be recommended by these AI tools like ChatGPT and Google and these other AI assistants?

I would say you've got to take a step back. Don't think too big. You've gotta think foundation first. Meaning you need to create strong medical authority signals. How do you do that? Your website is step one and then you gotta create high highly educational content meaning if you talk With your experience, that becomes highly educational content because all the doctors are highly qualified professionals. You cannot just become a doctor in a year. Like you've got to go through regular stress and then whatever you talk, once you get the degree becomes authority.

But how do you present matters for the, for this stagy pity or an gemini or perplexity? Like your website is the first step and there's the source of the truth. So in order to create that, you need to have the right foundation, right structure of the website. Technically, not just if you just keep on writing 10 blogs and then if the whole website is not technically right, then whatever the work that you are doing, you're just doing this service to yourself. And then in this whole process, what I have seen is over a period of time, these doctors, they just keeps on adding more tools, expecting that, and I'll have 10 different tools working for me.

and then 20 different subscriptions. It is not about technicals that you should have, it is about the technical foundation that should you have first. If the foundation is solid, then you can build maybe a Buj Khalifa on top of it. But, right? It's not, you know, maybe after two floors, your foundation might say, no, that's enough. So now you've got to maintain the consistency across all the web. And then you're going to do whatever is right for the foundation that is 100% which is in your hands.

Maybe a patient review cannot be in our hand because you never know how a person is going react to. But if our foundation is solid, even one or two negative reviews won't affect you much. That looks more natural, right? Who will get Now thousands of five-star reviews that doesn't look natural. Maybe they cannot satisfy everyone. So I would say, you know, in order to keep your reputation up in our to be your whole practice AI ready, get your website ready for AI, not just. the basic for the users.

So that considered the structured data and well-organized website and then the content that answers patients' questions clearly. And then podcasts would be the best way to start creating the context. I would say having the right foundation in the form of website, which is the first source of the truth for anyone, even for LLMs to code useful. So content authority is now king and yeah, I think you said the right thing because it can be a tremendous time investment if somebody wants to write a lot of blog posts.

And I'm not saying you shouldn't, but it, it takes a long time. It could cost a ton of money to pay someone else. I wouldn't recommend just using AI to generate lots of blogs posts only. Totally agree that, um, like having someone interview you being on a podcast is certainly a very easy way to do it, but you could even have. So if you're a doctor and you wanted to create, become this content authority so you could be AI searchable, you can have someone in your office interview you. You could have a colleague interview.

you, You can use AI to help generate what are our top 10, 20, 30 most commonly, most frequently asked questions. So you may even have that already on your website or frequently ask questions, but then have somebody ask you and let's, let you answer those questions in the video format. I find that's the easiest way to create that content authority. And of course, it's really easy to get the transcript off of that and then put that on your website. and that can help create that content authority. But I would imagine there's got to be some changes.

Like, so what do doctors need to change on how their websites are built for the AI era so that that Content Authority can get properly read and searched by the AIs so they can show up in the Ai searches? Yeah, I know. I will start with The most of the websites currently are created for the old school SEO kind of a thing where there is a keyword stuffing, right? You will find the keyword on the title, H1, the text, like, you know, see like the same keyword repeating 30 times. And then if you read it, it doesn't look like it is written for.

the human beings. It was written for Google. Exactly. Right. So now I would say, you know, I will give you six points, six key improvements for any website, especially for the doctor websites to be optimized for AI. Like point one is we need like, no, create clear doctor bio and expertise pages, because that gives the right signal for google,

Website Optimization for the AI Era 15:00

for chat GPT, perplexity for Gemini or any other LLM tools, you've got to create your own bio and expertise pages. And then obviously, we've to focus on educational articles, answering patients' questions. Now, it can be in the form of video. It can from audio and then the text. The third one is the most important one, which is a structured content, FAQs and the treatment explanations. For example, I went through a first surgery last year for my sinus. I was looking for, it was my first surgery in my life.

I had never went through a surgery and then I Iwas curious and I just trying to understand what is the process, where it will start and where will it end. Now if you are a surgeon, But for every single procedure that you do, if you can create the whole content on every procedure explanation, that would be a great start. And then the fourth point is the proper schema and structured data. This is a little bit more technical, but still you got to look into it. Whoever is working on your website, for your SEO.

Like, you've got to ask them whether there is a proper schema and structure data plugged in or not. And then the point five is the fast and mobile-friendly websites that is non-negotiable anymore. If you're looking at any website, I would say do not look at it on desktop at all. Just open your mobile, maybe open the website on every single one from your clinic, right? From your receptionist mobile to your phone. Don't just look on the iPhone. Look at the different phones as well. Look at it and then look at whether you are able to read the content, whether are you able browse different pages, if you're able fill out the form, click on the phone call button.

Most of the times what I have seen is these little chart icons, sometimes they become annoying. So just make sure the chart icon becomes user friendly rather than annoying. I'm not saying get rid of it, I am just saying just make sure they are user friendly so that the user can chat with you. And then the final point here is write content for patients, not just search engines. We know the era of keyword stuffing is gone. The LLMs are intelligent enough to understand the context around the content written, and not the keywords.

So these are the six points I would say to start with to optimize the website for AI. All right, so let's do a quick recap. So what do doctors need to do to get their website ready for the AI search engines? Number one, clear bio and expertise on the website. Number two, great educational articles. Number three, structured FAQs. So you want to answer the patient's questions. Number four is the proper schema and technical data structure. And number five, fast and mobile friendly websites. The number six, writing the content for patients, which again, I recommend have someone from your office interview you.

That's the fastest, easiest way to create that content. Once you've got your video created, then it's actually relatively easy to turn it into blog posts or into your structured FAQs. Great advice. All right, so what are some of the biggest mistakes that doctors or clinics are making online today that limit their visibility, like both in Google and AI-driven search? Yeah, like most of the websites I see today are templated websites. Either they are too basic or outdated. I'm not saying templating websites is wrong approach.

What I am trying to say here is most other templative websites are, you know, they're created for volume, right? Like, I know you hire an agency and then they'll just duplicate. use the same template and then they have the basic setup ready for you. And then it is outdated and there's no educational content, no clear explanation of treatments and ignoring the reviews and reputation. That's the major part and just relying on social media. Now I've seen like most of the doctors are just going and putting a lot of efforts on Social Media, including the podcast.

Like what happens? Just think about the user's journey, right? I listen to a doctor. I really like it, the content. That doesn't mean that I remember the doctor's name right away. Maybe I listened to 10 different doctors, right? Whenever I get an issue, if I want to go to an orthopedic, it's very tough for me to remember the doctor that I liked. Either I go back to my Instagram or I got back Google and then search for this specific doctor. And then I'd go to their website to get more information.

Most of the times, whenever I get to the websites, those websites are outdated and the perception changes. Right? Like most of the times the button that I click doesn't work. The phone numbers are not placed in the right places and then I have to fill out a form and I don't think I want to wait for the call back from the front desk.

Common Website Mistakes and Visibility Gaps 20:00

I wanna talk with someone right away and also I wanted to read more little bit about the doctor and that's where I see there is a gap, a lot of doctors investing heavily on the socials, like, you know, they're updating the video content or anything. And then on, the other hand, completely ignoring the foundation where the website has to be set up right with all the content. Right. Then also not building the digital authority, meaning, no, You've got to maintain consistency of your clinic name, of you name and then the full bio like sometimes I just read like, you know, doctor and their last name and sometimes the full name, and then sometimes full-name with their educational credentials.

Sometimes, now they talk about just a few procedures, sometimes, the phone number is wrong, this just creates a web of uncertainty and you are just pushing yourself out of the market. This has been done unintentionally most of times because doctor's job is not to look into these things. Yeah. But it is your job right now. It's important. Just to make sure to talk with the same points everywhere. Yeah, well, let's get an action plan. So if a doctor listening today wants to stay visible as AI becomes a bigger part of the healthcare searches, what are the top three things they should start doing right?

The top three things I would say, and I'll repeat it again, build a credible, informative website. That's the first touch point. And then publish the educational medical content. The second point and then the third point is think of your website as a digital knowledge hub. Don't think that who will read my website. Definitely people come to your web site and they just read it. And then most of these patients look for the doctor who are nearby. It is a proximity business. So don't think that in a big corporate chain, you cannot beat out the big, corporate chains if you're a small doctor.

Definitely people, right? People are looking for doctors, like you are authority and then if your humans, exactly. Right. And then you got to present yourself. I would say these are the three things that doctors should start doing today. Yeah. I think this is just like the most exciting time that I've been through for doctors. It's more opportunity than we've ever seen before for the doctors to amplify their information, build that credible, informative website, publish that educational content again with You know, we love having them be guests on podcasts as well as having just at minimum,

Action Plan and Closing Advice 23:00

have someone in your office interview you so that you could publish the educational content on your website with those starting off as just those frequently asked questions and then building that website as a digital knowledge hub. So if our listeners want to get ahold of you, what's the best way that they can do that? Yeah, you can go to orange carrot media and, um, You can call us at area code 561-603-9344, you can fill out the form, we can get back to you. And I just wanted to caveat one thing that kind of goes over all of this.

What we see is that there are a lot of doctors that work for hospitals and big medical groups. I'm sure you see it too, Brett, this is the majority of the doctors. They don't all own their own practices. And they think that I can't do any of this because I worked for a hospital. Right. And that's not necessarily true. You own your own likeliness. you can create your. Website that is just your name. Can do a lot of these things that stays with you for the rest of your life. and you start building that now and don't think just because you work for hospital or a medical group that you cant do this.

Yeah, absolutely. Great. Well, we'll put the link in the description for people to find you guys. That's orangecareatmedia.com. And yeah, I just want to say thank you, guys, so much for all the work that you're doing. Thanks for sharing your story with us, Austin, Rakesh. Really appreciate all of the works that your doing helping so many doctors out there. Thank you. I appreciate it. All right, thanks so much.