What ChatGPT is doing when a patient asks for a surgeon
Aesthetic surgery is researched harder than almost anything a person buys locally. The question is long: I am 47, I want something done about my lower face, I do not want to look done, who is good near me and what does it cost. The assistant answers with a paragraph and two to five surgeons by name.
To write that paragraph it needs facts it can state without hedging: which procedures you perform, where you operate, what the range costs, how long recovery takes, which board certified you, and whether patients describe careful consultations. It collects those from websites, listings and reviews. Where it cannot find them for you, it names a practice where it can.
This is a legibility contest. The practice that is easiest to describe correctly is the one that gets described.
Readable, verified and trusted
Every AI answer about local businesses rests on three things. Miss one and you drop out even when the other two are strong.
Readable
One page per procedure: facelift, rhinoplasty, breast augmentation, tummy abdominoplasty, liposuction, eyelid surgery, mommy makeover. Price ranges in plain text, recovery timelines in days and weeks, anaesthesia and facility details, and the surgeon's board certification stated on the page. Physician, MedicalBusiness and FAQPage structured data.
Verified
The same practice name, address, phone, hours and procedure list on RealSelf, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and American Board of Plastic Surgery surgeon finders, Healthgrades, Castle Connolly if you are listed, Google Business Profile and Bing Places. ChatGPT search runs on Bing.
Trusted
Recent reviews that name the procedure, a properly detailed surgeon biography with training and fellowships, before and after galleries labelled by procedure, and mentions in local press or specialty media.
Do them in that order. A strong RealSelf profile pointing at a website an assistant cannot read still leaves you out of the answer.
The pages that get a practice named
AI answers questions. Your website has to hold the answers, on pages, in text a person could read out loud in a consultation.
One page per procedure
Not a single procedures page listing eighteen operations. The assistant needs a page it can point at for the exact thing the person asked about, written in the words patients use.
A cost section on every procedure page
A range, what is included, whether the facility and anaesthesia fees are separate, and whether you offer financing. Cost is the most asked question in aesthetics and the practices that state nothing lose the answer to the ones that state something.
A recovery page per procedure
Day one, week one, week two, when people usually return to work and to exercise. This is what patients search at midnight, and it is a question an assistant answers by quoting a practice.
A consultation page
What a consultation costs, how long it takes, whether it is virtual or in person, and what happens afterwards.
Surgeon biographies
Medical school, residency, fellowship, board certification with the certifying board named, hospital privileges and society memberships. Credentials are how an assistant decides whether to name a surgeon at all.
The directories AI reads for plastic surgeons
Aesthetics has richer third-party records than almost any local industry, and assistants use them heavily because they look authoritative.
RealSelf
The most cited consumer source in aesthetics. Claim the profile, answer questions on it, keep the procedure list and the pricing guidance current.
ASPS and ABPS surgeon finders
The society and board directories. These are what an assistant checks when a person asks for a board certified surgeon, which is one of the most common phrasings there is.
Healthgrades
Widely cited in health answers. Claim it and keep procedures and credentials aligned with your website.
Castle Connolly
If you hold a listing, make sure the practice details on it match. If you do not, do not claim it anywhere.
Google Business Profile and Bing Places
Category, hours, procedure list and photos. Bing matters because ChatGPT search runs on it, and it is the listing almost nobody claims.
Being everywhere is not the goal. Being identical everywhere is. One stale address is enough for an assistant to name a practice it is more sure about.
Reviews, photo consent and the claims to avoid
Reviews are read as text. She explained the risks of a facelift and did not push me toward it is a sentence an assistant can use. Amazing, five stars, is not. Ask at the post operative visit, with a direct link, and ask patients to name the procedure.
Never confirm that a reviewer is a patient or discuss their care in a public reply. In aesthetics that is a privacy problem and a reputational one at the same time.
Before and after photographs need documented consent for marketing use, and that consent is separate from consent to treat. Whatever your existing policy is, this work runs inside it. We never touch consent, and neither should any agency.
Keep outcome claims off the page. No best, no guaranteed, no natural results promised, no permanent. Say which procedures you perform, what the ranges are, what the recovery usually looks like and what the risks are, and let the credentials and the reviews do the persuading. Your medical director or the operating surgeon should sign off every procedure page before it goes live.