Schema markup for medical practice websites: types, properties and Google rules

Schema markup is a block of code, usually JSON-LD in the page head, that labels what a page is about: this is a dental office, this is its address, these are its hours, this person is a physician. Search engines read it to understand a page. Patients never see it. That is also why it goes wrong quietly: nobody notices when the markup says the wrong thing, lists a service the practice dropped two years ago, or claims a star rating the page cannot use.

This guide is for practice owners and the people who build their sites. It covers which schema.org types fit a medical practice, which properties are worth filling in, what Google actually uses, the rules that keep markup out of trouble, two features that are no longer available to practices, and how to test what you have. It does not promise rankings. Google says plainly that markup can make a page eligible for a search feature but does not guarantee it will appear. Google says no special markup is needed for AI Overviews or AI Mode; our AI Overviews guide covers what it does ask for.

What schema markup does and does not do

Google’s general structured data guidelines describe markup as something that enables a search feature, not something that forces one. The guidelines say Google does not guarantee that structured data will show up in search results even when it is correct according to the Rich Results Test, and that the algorithm decides what to show based on many variables.

The same guidelines explain what happens when markup breaks the rules. A structured data issue can lead to a manual action, and Google says that kind of manual action means the page loses eligibility for rich results; it does not affect how the page ranks in web search. So the main risk of bad markup is losing features, and the main benefit of good markup is that Google reads the page correctly. Neither one is a ranking lever you can pull.

Choosing the right type for a practice

Google’s local business documentation tells you to define each business location as a LocalBusiness and to use the most specific subtype possible. If the business fits more than one type, Google says to list them as an array. Schema.org has a whole branch for medical businesses, and it is worth reading the definitions rather than guessing.

• MedicalBusiness is defined by schema.org as a physical or virtual business of an organization for medical purposes. It sits under LocalBusiness and has specialty subtypes, including Dentist, Dermatology, MedicalClinic, Optician, Pediatric, Physician, Physiotherapy, PlasticSurgery, Podiatric, PrimaryCare and Psychiatric, among others.
• MedicalOrganization is defined as a medical organization, physical or not, such as a hospital, institution or clinic. It sits under Organization and carries properties such as isAcceptingNewPatients, medicalSpecialty and healthPlanNetworkId.
• MedicalClinic is defined as a facility, often associated with a hospital or medical school, devoted to diagnosis and healthcare. It appears under both MedicalBusiness and MedicalOrganization.
• Physician is defined as an individual physician or a physician’s office considered as a MedicalOrganization. Its property list includes availableService, hospitalAffiliation, medicalSpecialty and usNPI.
• IndividualPhysician is a more specific type defined as an individual medical practitioner, with practicesAt for the clinics or hospitals where that person practices.
• Dentist appears under both MedicalBusiness and MedicalOrganization.

Illustration: a three dentist office uses Dentist for the location. A dermatology clinic uses Dermatology, or Dermatology together with MedicalClinic if both describe it accurately. A solo physician’s office uses Physician. The physicians’ bio pages can describe each person with IndividualPhysician and point to the office with practicesAt. A practice that offers services it is not medically licensed for, or that is not a medical business at all, should not borrow a medical type to look more clinical; Google’s guidelines list misrepresenting your primary purpose as a violation.

If your practice has several offices, each office gets its own markup on its own location page. Our guide to SEO for a multi-location medical practice covers location pages and profiles in detail.

Properties worth filling in

Google’s local business documentation lists two required properties, name and address, and says to include as many address fields as possible. It then recommends properties such as url (the fully qualified URL of that location, which must be a working link), telephone, geo coordinates with at least five decimal places, openingHoursSpecification and department for a part of the business with its own details. Google also recommends following the Organization fields, since LocalBusiness is a subtype of Organization.

For the practice as a whole, Google’s Organization documentation says adding Organization markup to your home page can help Google understand your administrative details, and it says there are no required properties; you add the ones that are relevant, such as name, url, logo, sameAs links to official profiles, telephone and address. Google notes that some of these can influence visual elements, such as which logo it shows.

Schema.org also defines medical properties that Google’s local business documentation does not list among the properties it supports: medicalSpecialty, isAcceptingNewPatients, healthPlanNetworkId, availableService and usNPI. Other systems that read schema.org may use them, and they help describe the page accurately, but do not expect a Google feature from them. If you use them, the same honesty rule applies to all of them.

1. Accepting new patients. Mark it only if the page says so, and update both when the schedule fills. Stale markup here sends patients to a phone call that ends in disappointment.
2. Specialty. Use the specialty the clinician actually practices. Board certification wording belongs on the bio page, not invented in the markup.
3. Services. List services the practice provides today. A service page you removed should not live on in the markup.
4. NPI. Schema.org defines usNPI as the 10 digit National Provider Identifier issued to health care providers by CMS. Check every digit; a wrong NPI points to a different clinician.
5. Hours. Keep openingHoursSpecification identical to the hours on the page and on your Google Business Profile.

Rules that keep markup out of trouble

Google’s general structured data guidelines set the ground rules. They apply to every type above.

• Mark up only what readers can see. The guidelines say not to mark up content that is not visible to readers of the page. If the markup lists Saturday hours, the page shows Saturday hours.
• Be relevant. Structured data must be a true representation of the page content.
• Put it on the page it describes. The office markup goes on the location page, and a physician’s markup goes on that physician’s page.
• No misleading content. The guidelines name fake reviews and content unrelated to the page as examples, and they prohibit impersonating a person or organization or misrepresenting ownership, affiliation or primary purpose.
• Use the most specific type. The guidelines ask for the most specific applicable schema.org type and property names.

Two health specific habits follow from those rules. First, never put patient information in markup. Schema describes the practice and its clinicians, not anyone who visited. Second, treat claims in markup like claims in an ad. A description property that says a treatment is safe, painless or permanent is still a claim, and it needs the same support the page copy needs. Our healthcare marketing rules hub collects the advertising rules that apply.

Review stars: not for your own practice

Star ratings under a search result are the feature practices ask about most, and Google’s review snippet documentation closes that door for a practice marking up its own reviews. It says that if the entity being reviewed controls the reviews about itself, its pages that use LocalBusiness or any other type of Organization structured data are ineligible for the star review feature. Google’s example is a review of a business placed on that business’s own website, either directly in the structured data or through an embedded third party widget, such as a Google Business reviews widget.

Google’s local business documentation says the same thing from the other side: aggregateRating is only recommended for sites that capture reviews about other local businesses. A practice website is not one of those. You can still show genuine reviews on the page, following the FTC rules our guides on replying to patient reviews and top doctor awards explain, but leave the rating markup off. Adding it will not earn stars, and fake or edited reviews in markup are named in the guidelines as misleading content.

FAQ rich results are gone

For years, practices added FAQPage markup hoping to show expandable questions under their result. Google narrowed that feature in September 2023 to well known, authoritative government and health websites, according to its documentation updates page. On May 8, 2026, Google added a deprecation notice and said the feature would no longer appear in Google Search starting May 7, 2026. On June 15, 2026, it removed the FAQ rich result documentation, saying the feature is no longer shown in Google Search results.

What that means in practice: FAQPage markup no longer produces an FAQ result in Google Search. A good questions section is still useful to patients reading the page, so keep it if it helps them. If you keep the markup, the general rules still apply: the questions and answers in the markup must match what is visible on the page. Do not pay anyone to add FAQ markup for search visibility.

Breadcrumbs and other page level markup

BreadcrumbList markup describes where a page sits in the site, such as Home, then Services, then Dental implants. Google’s documentation updates page records that on January 22, 2025, Google limited breadcrumbs in results to desktop, because they get truncated on small screens; the breadcrumb documentation says the feature is available on desktop. It is still a cheap, accurate signal about site structure, and it should match the visible breadcrumb trail if you show one.

Articles on your blog can carry Article markup with the author and dates. If a clinician reviewed a post, say so on the page in plain words before putting it in any markup. Our guide to AI generated content in healthcare marketing covers Google’s advice to fact check AI generated content before publishing, which Google says also covers structured data.

How to test and maintain it

1. Run the Rich Results Test. Google’s tool shows which Google rich results a page may be eligible for and flags errors in the types it supports.
2. Run the Schema Markup Validator. The validator at validator.schema.org, run by schema.org, checks schema.org markup in general, so it is the place to check the medical types and properties Google’s tool does not cover.
3. Compare markup with the page. Name, address, phone, hours and services in the markup should match the page and your Business Profile word for word.
4. Check Search Console. Google’s guidelines point to the Manual Actions report in Search Console to see whether a structured data manual action applies to your site.
5. Add it to your change routine. When hours, clinicians, services or an address change, update the markup in the same edit as the page. Most stale markup comes from a page edit that skipped the code.

If you are reviewing a whole site, our medical practice website checklist puts structured data alongside speed, accessibility and the other basics.

How we help

We add schema markup as part of building and maintaining practice sites: the most specific type for each location, Organization markup on the home page, physician pages that match their markup, and breadcrumbs that match the navigation. We check it with both testing tools and keep it in step with the page. It is one part of local SEO for practices, and we do not promise rankings or rich results, because Google does not either.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• schema.org: MedicalBusiness
• schema.org: MedicalOrganization
• schema.org: MedicalClinic
• schema.org: Physician
• schema.org: IndividualPhysician
• schema.org: Dentist
• Google Search Central: Local business structured data
• Google Search Central: Organization structured data
• Google Search Central: Review snippet structured data (self-serving reviews)
• Google Search Central: Breadcrumb structured data
• Google Search Central: General structured data guidelines
• Google Search Central: Latest documentation updates (FAQ rich result deprecation May 8, 2026 and removal June 15, 2026; breadcrumbs January 22, 2025)
• Google Rich Results Test
• Schema Markup Validator

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