A traceable collection route
Email invitations use a secure one-time link tied to the invited inbox and expire after 30 days. Public review-link, QR and in-person submissions are recorded and labelled as those routes.
VP
Our core rule: a genuine, relevant and lawful review is eligible for publication whatever its star rating or sentiment. Privacy and authenticity checks protect people; they are never a way to select only favourable feedback.
Verification
What happens before a review appears
Each label describes the collection route and safeguards actually used. It is specific and auditable, not a claim that any technical check can prove identity with absolute certainty.
Mechanical safeguards
The system records the submission source, applies repeat-submission checks and flags a reviewer IP address that matches the practitioner’s last login IP.
A fair publication window
A review collected through VerifiedPractitioner has a seven-day moderation window. It can publish immediately, or automatically when no valid privacy or policy concern is reported. A review a client sent the practitioner privately works differently: it stays unpublished until that client confirms they wrote it, and it never publishes on its own.
Privacy without rewriting
For sensitive or third-party details, the reviewer can revise their own wording through a secure link. The practitioner cannot rewrite the review, and its star rating stays unchanged.
Ratings
Two sources, kept deliberately separate
Visitors can compare reputation across VerifiedPractitioner and Google without either figure being misrepresented or counted twice.
VerifiedPractitioner Rating
All published reviews on the profile ÷ how many there are
The VP score is the simple arithmetic mean of every published review shown on that practitioner's profile. Every review carries equal weight, and each one keeps a visible label showing how it was collected.
Where a practitioner has imported their Google reviews, those reviews sit inside this number and the separate live Google box is switched off, so the same feedback is never counted twice. Where they have not, Google stays a separate live figure and is not part of this number.
The score is recalculated whenever a published review is legitimately added or removed.
Google Rating
Displayed live from Google Maps
Where a practitioner has connected a public Google business and has not imported their Google reviews, Google supplies its current rating and review count in a separate, clearly attributed display.
Live Google data is never copied into the VP review database. Imported Google reviews are stored and labelled as Google, and they count towards the VP score only for practitioners whose live Google box is switched off. Google reviews are never included in the structured review data VerifiedPractitioner publishes for search engines.
Labels and policy
How reviews are described and protected
What each review label means
Verified
Collected through VerifiedPractitioner, by email invitation, the practitioner's public review link, a QR code or in person. All four routes show this same badge. A review a client sent the practitioner privately, by email or message, also earns it, but only once that client has personally confirmed they wrote it using a secure link sent to them. We hold it unpublished until they confirm. The email invitation and that private confirmation both prove someone opened a link sent to a particular inbox. The other routes do not, so Verified means we recorded how the review reached us, not that we identified the person.
Google review
A review the practitioner earned on Google and brought across, shown with Google's own mark so the source is credited. When these are shown, the separate live Google rating box is switched off, so the same reviewers are never counted twice.
Imported
Brought across by the practitioner from another platform and checked against a screenshot of that platform's own total and average. It is not presented as collected by VerifiedPractitioner.
Valid reasons to report a review
- Sensitive personal or clinical information
- Third-party identification or information
- Authenticity concerns supported by facts
- Spam or duplicate content
- Abusive, threatening, discriminatory or unlawful content
- Undisclosed incentives or conflicts
- A documented reviewer request for removal
Commercial relationship
Practitioners may pay to use VerifiedPractitioner. Payment never affects whether a review is published, its rating, its position, or how it is moderated.
Historical and imported reviews
The fair-publication workflow applies prospectively to reviews submitted from 19 July 2026. Historical reviews already discarded, rejected or unpublished remain untouched. Historical reviews already public remain visible and contribute to the VP score.
An import must represent the complete available set from the chosen source, not a favourable selection. The practitioner states that platform's own total and average and uploads a screenshot of it. A set that matches goes live labelled for spot-check. A set that does not match is held, and none of it appears publicly until an administrator has reviewed it.
Where a practitioner's Google reviews are imported, the separate live Google box is switched off for them automatically, so the same feedback cannot appear in both places.
Reviewer privacy and rights
Reviewers choose their public display name. Email addresses are encrypted at rest and never displayed. Reviewers can request access to or deletion of their personal data using secure links in review emails, or contact VerifiedPractitioner. Factual privacy and policy concerns can be reported through the practitioner and administrator workflow.
Common questions
Clear answers, without fine print
What do the review labels mean?
Reviews collected through VerifiedPractitioner all carry a single Verified badge. That covers four routes: a secure one-time email invitation tied to the invited inbox, the practitioner's public review link, a QR code, and in-person submission. A review a client sent the practitioner privately also earns the badge, but only once that client has confirmed they wrote it through a secure link. We hold it unpublished until they confirm. The email invitation and that private confirmation both prove someone opened a link sent to a particular inbox; the other routes do not. So Verified means we recorded how the review reached us, not that we identified the person. Reviews brought across from another platform carry an Imported badge, and reviews brought across from Google are shown as Google reviews with Google's own mark.
Can a practitioner remove a critical review?
No. A genuine, relevant and lawful current-policy review is eligible for publication whatever its rating or sentiment. Reports are limited to defined privacy, authenticity, spam, safety, incentive and reviewer-withdrawal reasons.
How is the VerifiedPractitioner rating calculated?
It is the simple arithmetic mean of every published review shown on that practitioner's profile, with each review carrying equal weight. Where a practitioner has imported their Google reviews, those reviews are part of this number and the separate live Google box is switched off for them, so the same feedback is not counted twice.
Does the live Google rating count towards the VP score?
No. Where the live Google box is shown, that rating and count come straight from Google as a separate source and are not part of the VP score. The two are mutually exclusive: a practitioner either shows the live Google figure separately, or has their Google reviews imported and counted in the VP score, never both. Google reviews are never included in the structured review data VerifiedPractitioner publishes for search engines.