Anonymous, email-only doctor ratings, easy to pad, with paid top spots.
What it's really for A doctor-finder directory; the ratings are easy to pad and the top spots are paid.
What our grade covers The grade on this page is about its patient star ratings and doctor listings, not everything the site does.
High Scoring Confidence Checked against primary sources. We are confident in the facts and the grade here.
The parties paying most are the listed doctors themselves: practices can buy a "sponsored" top spot above the organic results (Vitals markets a claimed 7.5x patient-conversion boost) plus featured listings and other paid profile upgrades, so paying directly buys higher placement/visibility.
Source →- Operating since
- 2007 (19 years) · source
- What it costs you
- Free to read The reviews are free to read.
- How they make money
- It makes money by selling advertising, sponsored top-of-search placement, and enhanced/featured profiles (plus online-booking and call-tracking add-ons) to the same doctors and practices it lists and rates.
- What they do
- Vitals is a consumer doctor-finder directory that publishes star ratings and patient reviews of physicians so people can pick a provider.
- What to watch for
- The star ratings come from anonymous, email-only patient submissions with no account or verified identity required, so they are easy to solicit or pad and shouldn't be treated as a reliable measure of clinical quality.
- Composite score
- 1.60 / 5.00 → grade D
How the grade was reached
Does the site take money from the very entities it ranks? Pay-for-placement, vendor-funded data, and affiliate commissions all pull this down. The less the ranking can be bought, the higher the score.
What is the ranking actually built on? Hands-on testing scores highest, then verified first-hand reviews, then opinion or popularity surveys and self-reported figures, then pay-to-rank, which scores lowest.
Is the methodology published, specific, and reproducible? Can a reader see how a given rank was reached, or is it a black box?
Are commercial relationships, sponsorships, and affiliate arrangements disclosed clearly and near the rankings themselves, rather than buried?
How hard is it to game? Controls against fake reviews, solicited reviews, and vendor gaming raise this; an open box anyone can stuff lowers it.
Evidence
- Vitals was co-founded in 2007 by MDx Medical (Mitch Rothschild, Todd Rosengart, Richard Forman); the 2017 Business Wire release celebrating 'Ten Years of Doctor Reviews' confirms the ~2007 founding of the doctor-review operation. Source: Business Wire — Vitals Celebrates Ten Years of Doctor Reviews →
- WebMD, an Internet Brands company, acquired the Vitals Consumer Services Division (Vitals.com and UCompareHealthCare.com) from MDx Medical, Inc. on August 1, 2018, placing the consumer brand under Internet Brands/WebMD. Source: PR Newswire — Internet Brands' WebMD Acquires Vitals Consumer Services Division →
- Doctors can buy a 'sponsored' top spot in search results (Vitals claims a 7.5x boost in patient conversion after three months), plus enhanced/featured listings, online appointment booking, analytics, and call tracking are available for additional cost — i.e., the rated parties pay for placement and visibility. Source: InboundMD — Vitals Reviews & Doctor Profiles →