Claim Your NPI, Doximity, and Healthgrades Profiles
Directory profiles about you will exist whether you claim them or not. Between Match Day and July 1, take control of them.
Here is something many new physicians find out by accident: profiles about you show up online whether or not you ever create them. Directories build physician listings from public data, and once you have an NPI, your name starts appearing in places you have never visited.
That is not a problem if you get there first. The weeks between Match Day and the start of residency are the right time to claim these profiles and make them say the same thing.
Why These Profiles Matter
When someone searches for a physician, directory sites often appear near the top of the results. And when AI tools like ChatGPT or Google's AI Overviews describe a doctor, they compare what different sources say. When your profiles agree on your name, specialty, and training, you look like one clear, credible physician. When they conflict, or are blank, you look uncertain, or you do not show up at all.
AI tools trust physicians whose records agree with each other.
Start With Your NPI
Your National Provider Identifier is a public record that many directories draw from. If you do not have one yet, you can apply for free through the NPPES website, and many residency programs will ask for it during onboarding. If you already have one, review your name and details carefully. An error here can spread to every directory that copies it.
Then Claim the Big Profiles
Doximity
Doximity is the professional network most U.S. physicians use, and it is widely seen by colleagues and recruiters. Claim your profile, add your residency program, your training history, and a professional photo.
Healthgrades, WebMD, and Vitals
These patient facing directories may create a profile for you from public data. If yours exists, claim it and correct anything inaccurate. If it does not exist yet, check again after you start residency.
Not a medical directory, but it ranks highly for names. Keep it consistent with everything else.
Search your name every few months. You cannot control everything Google shows, but you can make sure the sources it relies on are accurate.
The Consistency Checklist
On every profile, use the same:
- Name format, including middle initial and degree.
- Specialty wording, such as "Internal Medicine" rather than a mix of abbreviations.
- Training history, with matching institution names and years.
- Photo, so you are recognizable everywhere.
- Website link, pointing back to one site you own.
Give Every Profile One Home Base
Directories are useful, but none of them belong to you. A personal physician website at your own domain becomes the source the other profiles point to and the record AI tools can use to confirm who you are. It is the one profile that you write, you own, and you keep for your whole career.
See how we build websites for newly Matched doctors, or read our complete digital playbook for new physicians.
Build your presence while the window is open.
Personal physician websites for newly Matched doctors, residents, and fellows. Built to rank for your name and follow you for your whole career.
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