Guidelines for Clinics & Practices
Practice Name
Why it’s important: Name is the primary parameter basis of which patients search on our platform.
Guidelines:
- Practice name should always match the signage outside the practice
- We do not add locality and city name in the practice names. Eg: “Apollo Bannerghatta Road Bangalore” is not allowed, as Bannerghatta Road is captured in locality field and Bangalore in the city field
- We do not put up establishment taglines & establishment types in the name of the practice. Eg: “Ayurvaid Clinic – Ayurveda” is not allowed – Ayurveda is captured in specialization field
- Practice names in all caps should be avoided since it’s not mobile friendly
- Practice name can’t be generic like “Clinic”, “Test” or “Hospital” – these names cannot be searched by patients
- If the practice name contains the name of a doctor, either the registration certificate copy, photo of a printed prescription or photo of an invoice should be provided to make the profile live on Practo
Updation Time: 24 hours
Practice Logo (optional)
Why it’s important: Just like the name, the logo is another crucial factor to identify a practice. It’s present everywhere alongside the practice name on Practo
Guidelines:
- If there is no logo for a practice, we use the below-indicated placeholder image
- Every logo bears a Practo watermark in the background, to ensure it’s not used illegally at other places
- Doctor, building, or practice board photos cannot be used in place of logos
Updation Time: 24 hours
About Section for the Practice (optional)
Why it’s important: Most of the patients on your profile will read this before booking an appointment. Mentioning details of clinic amenities or other exclusive facilities can help patients make choice.
Guidelines:
- All information should be written in passive voice to maintain a neutral tonality. Eg: “My hospital was founded in 1985”, is not allowed – it should be “XYZ Hospital was founded in 1985.”
- This section is not for promotion of any doctor working in the practice, as per MCI guidelines. It should only have information about the practice’s basic history, facilities, services, etc.
Updation Time: 24 hours
Phone Number (mandatory)
Why it’s important: Phone number provided to us will connect patients coming on Practo.com to book with the practice through a virtual number. This is mandatory since the core reason for Practo is to help connect patients to you
Guidelines:
- The direct practice contact number is never shown on Practo.com and is only used for redirecting patient calls and for internal communication purposes
- Every practice is assigned virtual numbers which direct the call to practice phone number
- If a practice provides with multiple numbers where end user can call and book appointment, the virtual number tries connecting to either of those numbers, in case the call is not answered on one
Email ID (optional)
Why it’s important: This is a very important channel to get all updates from Practo regarding your profile. This is solely for internal communication purposes.
Updation time: 24 hours
Ownership Proof (optional)
Why it’s important: This information helps us ensure that only the right person has access on control on the public profile of a clinic or hospital. It helps us prevent cases of misrepresentation.
Guidelines
Add details
Payment Mode (optional)
Why it’s important: Patients often have preferences for payment modes like card or cash when they look for practices. Payment modes is displayed on clinic profile pages
Guidelines:
Add the different payment modes accepted in your practice here, e.g. Cash, credit card, debit card, etc.
Updation time: Immediate
Practice Business Hours (mandatory)
Why this is important: Open hours of a practice, is a crucial information for the patient to make a choice and book appointments for consultation.
Guidelines: Practo eases the effort of booking appointments by following the below criteria:
- We follow a 12-hour format (AM/PM). The standard format we follow to show practice timings is: Day, Start Time – End Time
Updation time: 24 hours
Practice Address (mandatory)
Why this is important: Accurate address helps patients choose a healthcare establishment as per their convenience and reach your establishment without trouble.
Guidelines: We use the following criteria to make your practice easily searchable:
- Following information is mandatory to provide address – Street Adress, Locality, City, Country, Zipcode, Latitude, Longitude
- Providing a landmark is optional but highly useful to guide patients visiting you for the first time
- Latitude and longitude help us give an exact map location such that patients can use tools like Google Maps to locate you
- Neither the address nor the landmark should consist of short forms like St. for Street, No. for number
- We don’t add other hospitals as a landmark to a hospital, as it affects search. However, a hospital can be added as a landmark for clinics in the vicinity. Eg: Megha Dental Clinic, near AIIMS, Delhi is acceptable
Updation time: 24 hours
Clinic or Hospital Photos (optional)
Why this is important: Clinic photos showcase hygiene and amenities at the premises. Patients often look at pictures before booking appointment. Please add photos of entrance, reception, waiting lounge, and equipment area.
Guidelines:
- Photos which show the entrance, reception area, general rooms, waiting area are the most frequently checked photos by patients – we recommend uploading these photos
- Only photos with a resolution greater than 1200 x 800 are allowed
- Horizontal photos are preferred: because of our page layout, vertical photos should be avoided
- Photos with lot of dark regions or direct flash are not allowed
- Grainy, blurred and tilted photos are not allowed
- Photos that have copyright tags or watermarks of other companies are not allowed, as that would be copyright infringement
- Images with patients in them are not allowed
- Photo collages are not allowed as these do not allow for a clear view of the practice facilities
- Websites, phone numbers, and other text should not be superimposed on the photo
Updation time: 24 hours
Practice Specialisation (mandatory)
Why this is important: Most patients on Practo select the healthcare establishment of their choice on the basis of the specializations offered. If a specialization is added in the practice, the practice will appear on Practo.com when patients search for it.
Guidelines:
Updation time: Immediate
Practice Services (optional)
Why this is important: Several patients on Practo look for specific services when selecting a doctor. Example of services is: Cochlear Implant, High-Risk Pregnancy Care, Tooth Extraction, Marriage Counselling, Laser Hair Removal – Face. Adding services will ensure that patients can discover you.
Guidelines: Practo BlueBook holds the complete list of all services that a doctor can add to his/her profile – this exhaustive list of services has been made in collaboration with a large set of medical experts. Any new service which is added, is checked by a team of medical experts and then added to Practo.com
Updation time: Immediate
Practice Awards & Accreditations (optional)
Why this is important: Practo provides you an opportunity to showcase the awards and recognition earned by a practice. These add credibility to the practice profile and help patients in making an informed decision.
Guidelines:
- Every award must have the conferment year with it. An award without the year in which it was granted, is not allowed
- Practices can’t promote awards given to individual doctors practicing in the establishment on the practice profile – only awards given to the practice are allowed
- Awards not relevant to the field of medicine are not acceptable on the practice profile
Updation time: Immediate
Practice Facilities (optional)
Guidelines:
- The facilities which are shown on Practo.com include availability of Wi-Fi, parking, pharmacy, ramp for the physically challenged, cafeteria, blood bank, ATM, ICU, general wards, guest visiting policies, emergency services and contact number, prayer room, laundry services, travel desk, and money exchange
- Details of timings for pharmacy and number of beds and ambulance can also be updated and will be shown on Practo.com
- These can be updated by getting in touch with our support team at support@practo.com
Updation time: Immediate
Guidelines for Doctors
Doctor NameSalutation
Why it’s important: Name is the primary parameter basis of which patients search on our platform.
Guidelines:
- The name entered here is the name with which your profile will be created. Make sure to enter your complete name with correct salutation
- In the case of a change in salutation (due to new qualifications or change in marital status) we will require corresponding proof to make this change.
Updation Time: 24 hours
Gender (optional)
Why this is important: Several patients choosing their doctor on Practo have gender preferences which they provide to us using the Gender Filter
Updation time: 24 hours
City (mandatory)
Why this is important: Details of your residing city is important for us to determine your city of practice to connect with relevant patients
Updation time: 24 hours
Profile Photo (optional)
Why this is important: This helps create a sense of trust among patients
Guidelines:
- Please provide photos with a resolution greater than 250 x 300
- Photos with dark regions or direct flash are not allowed
- Grainy, blurred and tilted photos are not allowed
- Photos with copyright tags or watermarks of other companies are not allowed, as that would be copyright infringement
- Profile photo should be passport type photo with only area above the chest visible
- Group photos, photos taking awards or full length photos are not allowed
- Photos with websites, phone numbers, hospital logo, and other text are not allowed
Updation time: 24 hours
Not providing your photo will result in a placeholder photo like the one on left to be placed on your card
Doctor years of experience (mandatory)
Why this is important: Years of experience is a direct indicator of a doctor’s growth and expertise in their field and is an important factor for patients.
Guidelines: Years of experience is calculated in compliance with the medical authority organisations as below:
- For a general physician, it is calculated from the year of completion of first degree to current year, e.g. If a doctor completed MBBS in 2010, then years of experience will be 7 years as of 2017, if s/he is a general physician
- For a specialisation, it is calculated from the year of completion of the specialised degree to current year, e.g. If a gynecologist completed MBBS in 2010 and MD in Gynecology in 2014, then years of experience will be 2 years as in 2016
Updation time: Immediate
About section for a doctor (optional)
Why this is important: Most patients read this before booking appointments so this is a good spot to give out information you want to highlight.
Guidelines:
- All information must be written in third person to maintain a neutral tonality. Eg: “I did my education from AIIMS in 2000and started working for dental healthcare.” is wrong. It should be “Dr. Mahesh Narayan did his education from AIIMS in 2000 and started working for dental healthcare.”
- Any content which promotes a doctor to lure patients is not allowed such as discounts, etc.
- Contact information cannot be put in this section
- Any marketing or promotion of the clinic or hospital is not allowed
Updation time: 24 hours
Doctor contact number (mandatory)
Why this is important: To help connect patients from Practo.com and app to you. Your direct number will not be provided on our website; a virtual number will connect to your phone.
Guidelines: The primary contact number will be used to route patients to you as well as provide product updates and important updates about your Practo Profile. These contact information is never open for public viewing on Practo.com and is solely used for internal communication purposes. Any additional numbers provided are only incase you are unreachable on the primary number.
Updation time: 24 hours
Email ID (optional)
Why this is important: This is a very important channel to get all updates from Practo regarding your profile. This is solely for internal communication purposes.
Updation time: Immediate
Medical Degree, Institute and Year (mandatory)
Why this is important: This information is also used by Practo to verify the specialization practiced by you as per the Practo Bluebook. It is mandatory to have at least 1 educational qualification on the profile.
Updation time: 24 hours
Medical Registration Number, Council, Year & Proof (mandatory)
Why this is important: This information helps us do a basic check to ensure that you are a genuine medical practitioner. This data is completely secure and is not shared with any external parties. Doctors with verified profiles get >95% patient views on Practo.
Guidelines:
- Share scan copy or clear photograph of the medical registration certificate as proof
- Every registration detail submitted to us is verified against different medical councils across states, before making the profile live on Practo
- This is not mandatory for practitioners of the following specializations – Dietitian/Nutritionist , Sports Nutritionist, Clinical Psychologist, Embryologist, Podologist, Psychotherapist, Hypnotherapist, Alternative Medicine, Sexologist, Obesity Specialist, Occupational Psychologist, Neuropsychologist, Health Psychologist, Forensic Psychologist, Educational Psychologist, Counselling Psychologist, Occupational Therapist, Pediatric OT, OT For Mentally Challenged, Geriatric OT
Updation time: 24 hours
Identity Proof (optional)
Why this is important: This information helps us ensure that only the right person has access on control on the public profile of a doctor. It helps us prevent cases of identify theft and impersonation.
Guidelines:
- Following are accepted as ID proofs: passport, aadhar card, voter ID card, driving license, PAN card, ration card
- Share scan copy or clear photograph of the document as proof
Specialisation (mandatory)
Why this is important: Patients often for doctors on the platform based on specialisation they want to visit. Your profile will be visible if any one of your listed specialisations match with what patients are looking for.
Guidelines: To ensure that Practo connects verified doctors to patients on the platform, following checks are made:
- Any specialization added to the profile is checked for corresponding degrees/ diplomas/ certifications that have been provided to us. This matching is governed by the Practo Bluebook – a guiding tool made in collaboration with large set of medical experts to ensure that all relevant doctors can be found easily by end user
- If your specialisation is not approved even after adding relevant qualifications, you can suggest this at https://www.practo.com/bluebook/india. Once it’s validated by our panel of experts, it will be added to the database and you can update it on your profile. This is a step to help us make the BlueBook more robust with your collaboration and to ensure that patients only find genuine doctors on our platform
Updation time: Immediate
Doctor Fees (mandatory)
Why this is important: Patients often have fees preferences while choosing a doctor. Having consultation fees on your profile can help them pick you.
Guidelines:
- A doctor can have different fees in different practices on the Practo Profile
- Practo only displays the consultation fees for a doctor – follow-up fees, procedure/ treatment fees is not displayed, e.g. For psychiatrist, the fees varies, depending on the duration of consultation- this is not shown currently on Practo
Updation time: Immediate
Doctor Practice Timings (mandatory)
Why this is important: Availability of doctor in a particular practice, is a crucial information for end user to make a choice and book appointments for consultation.
Guidelines: Practo eases the effort of booking appointments with doctors by following the below criteria:
- A doctor’s practicing timing cannot overlap between multiple clinics on the same day. If a doctor visits a clinic/hospital seldom and this overlaps with his/her fixed timings in any other practices, we recommend displaying “On-call” in the consulting practice
- We follow a 12-hour format (AM/PM). The standard format we follow to show practice timings is: Day, Start Time – End Time
- We indicate a lead time on a doctor’s profile that will let the patients know that they need to book an appointment in advance to ensure that the appointment is honoured. This is indicated in days.
Updation time: Immediate
Consultation Duration (optional)
Why this is important: This helps us determine the number of consultation slots you can have during your practicing hours
Guidelines: Duration currently accepted on Practo is 5mins, 10mins, 15mins, 20mins, 30mins, 1 hour, 2 hours
Updation time: Immediate
Professional Experience (optional)
Why this is important: Work experience helps a patient understand the wide spectrum of a doctor’s expertise other in the past, and get some history of his/her career.
Guidelines:
- Following fields are captured: Organization, role, start date to end date
- It is displayed as a list with the latest work experience on top on your doctor profile page
- Work experience 3 years before the completion year of first degree (internship experiences will be shown if any), is not shown on Practo, as this is not relevant for the patients choosing doctors
Updation time: 24 hours
Services offered by a doctor (optional)
Why this is important: Several patients on Practo look for specific services when selecting a doctor. Example of services are: Cochlear Implant, High-Risk Pregnancy Care, Tooth Extraction, Marriage Counselling, Laser Hair Removal – Face. Adding services will ensure that patients can discover you.
Guidelines: Practo BlueBook holds the complete list of all services that a doctor can add to his/her profile – this exhaustive list of services has been made in collaboration with large set of medical experts. Any new service which is added, is checked by a team of medical experts and then added to Practo.com
Updation time: Immediate
Doctor Awards & Recognition (optional)
Why this is important: Awards can help doctors display what they are best known for
Guidelines:
- We collect the following information pertaining to each award: Award name, Year in which award was conferred
- Every award must have the conferment year with it. An award without the year in which it was granted upon is not displayed on Practo
- Only awards conferred to the individual are shown on doctor profile page. Awards given to a practice in which a doctor works, are not allowed
- Awards not relevant to the field of medicine are not allowed
Updation time: 24 hours
Doctor Memberships (optional)
Why this is important: Memberships can help the doctors display their dedication to their field of medicine
Guidelines:
- We allow doctors to choose from an exhaustive list of medical associations. You can find the list here <insert link here>
- If a new medical association is added by a doctor, this will be verified by a team at Practo before going live on Practo.com. This is to ensure we don’t show non-medical or invalid associations to the end user
Updation time: 24 hours
