Patients in the US can now ask Google Maps a question like "does this dentist take my plan?" and get an AI answer before they call. Your move is to write clear answers to your most common questions where you control them, with a clinician approving the clinical ones.
Quick answer
- Write down the 20 questions your front desk hears most this week.
- Put each answer on your site, your profile services, or both.
- Have a clinician sign off on every clinical answer.
- Never confirm that a reviewer is a patient in a reply.
- Ask a patient-style question in Maps on your phone and compare.
What did Google actually change?
Google announced Ask Maps on March 12, 2026, and says it answers complex, real-world questions. At launch it was rolling out in the US and India on Android and iOS, with desktop "coming soon". Google says it draws on Maps information about places and on reviews from Maps contributors.
On Q&A, Google's own statements are narrower than agency headlines. The Q&A API change log says the My Business Q&A API was discontinued on November 3, 2025. I found no Google page saying the public Q&A box was removed from profiles.
A December 2025 announcement in Google's Business Profile Help Community says customers can now ask in Maps instead. They get an instant answer "based on your answers and relevant reviews." It adds that owners can keep answering existing questions in the profile's Q&A section.
Google's help page for the feature warns that AI-powered answers can sometimes be incorrect. It also says to check important details in more than one place.
Where can the AI pick up your answers?
Google does not list every source Ask Maps reads, so I play it safe. If an answer is not written clearly somewhere public that you own, the AI has to guess.
How do I find the questions patients ask?
Start with the people who answer the phone. Ask the front desk to tally calls for one week, then write the 20 most common questions in the patients' own words.
Two more free sources need no patient data:
- In Google Search Console, open Performance, then the Queries tab to see what people typed before they reached your site.
- Search your main service plus your area and read the "People also ask" box.
Who should write and approve each answer?
Sort every question by where the answer goes and whether it is clinical. A clinical question is one where a wrong answer could affect someone's care.
| Question type | Where the answer goes | Who signs it off |
|---|---|---|
| Hours, parking, languages | Profile and site | Office manager |
| Insurance accepted, new patients | Profile services, site page | Office manager |
| What a first visit involves | Site page | Clinician |
| Is a treatment safe or painful | Site page | Clinician |
| Billing and payment plans | Site page | Owner |
Illustrative: every number below is made up for an imaginary two-doctor practice, and none comes from a client. The front desk lists 20 questions. Six are about hours, parking and languages, and four about insurance and new patients; those ten go to the profile and the site.
Seven are clinical, so each gets a site page after a doctor signs off. The last three are billing questions for one billing page the owner approves. The check is 6 + 4 + 7 + 3 = 20.
Collecting takes about an hour. Doctor time is clinical answers times minutes per answer: 7 × 3 = 21 minutes.
What do I write in the profile?
Use the fields Google gives you. Google's guidelines say the description may not contain links of any type or focus on promotions, prices and sales.
Services can carry their own text: use Edit services and add a description to each. Google says businesses in certain categories might have this option.
Put the answer first, in plain words. "Most major PPO plans are accepted; call to confirm yours" beats a paragraph about care.
Directories set their own rules for what you may edit, so check what each one lets you change. For a paid booking marketplace, see the Zocdoc alternatives post.
How do I reply to reviews without breaking HIPAA?
Do not confirm that a reviewer was a patient. Even "sorry about your visit last Tuesday" can count as disclosure: HIPAA protects information about a person's care that identifies them.
Three HHS cases show the cost:
- Elite Dental Associates in Dallas paid $10,000 in 2019 over social media disclosures of patients' information.
- New Vision Dental in California paid $23,000 in 2022 over replies to online reviews.
- A North Carolina dental practice got a $50,000 civil money penalty after it disclosed a patient's information on a webpage answering a negative review.
A safe reply says: "Feedback matters to this office. Please call and ask for the office manager." Nothing about the person, the date or the treatment.
In Canada, HIPAA does not apply. In Ontario, PHIPA bars a health information custodian from disclosing personal health information without consent unless the Act permits it. The federal regulator explains PIPEDA and which provinces have their own laws.
Can I ask only happy patients for reviews?
No. Google's policy lists "selectively solicit positive reviews" as prohibited, and also bans incentives such as discounts or free services for a review. Ask every patient the same way, with the same message.
The FTC's rule on reviews, in effect since October 21, 2024, bans buying reviews and insider reviews without disclosure. The FTC's Q&A on the rule says it has no specific ban on asking only happy customers, but that doing so could still violate the FTC Act. In Canada, the Competition Bureau says businesses could be liable for misleading reviews that their employees post.
What can I check on my phone in ten minutes?
- Open Google Maps and look for Ask Maps under the search bar. If it is not there, it may not be available to you yet.
- Ask three of your front desk's questions, naming your practice in each.
- Write down each answer and mark it right, wrong or missing.
- For every wrong or missing one, fix the profile, the site or both.
- Ask again in a week and compare.
I have not seen what Ask Maps says about any practice. Google does not say which kinds of businesses it covers, and the answers may change between asks.
How do I count whether it works?
Open the profile's performance page. It reports calls, website clicks and directions. Bookings appear only when a booking provider handles them.
Put tagged links (UTM parameters, small labels in the web address) on the profile's website and booking buttons. Then your analytics shows which visits came from the profile. Following such a visit through to a booked patient is the patient conversion tracking I set up for an anonymized medical practice.
See medical SEO for the wider setup and being recommended by ChatGPT for the other AI tools.
Sources checked on 2026-10-19.
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Frequently asked questions
Can I add a Questions and answers section to my Business Profile again?
I found no sign of it. The Q&A API was discontinued on November 3, 2025, and a December 2025 post in Google's Business Profile Help Community says owners can still answer existing questions, which may be shown in Maps. Put each answer where you control it as well: services, description, your site.
Do I have to buy anything to show up in Ask Maps?
I found no way to pay for Ask Maps answers or to opt in. Google says Ask Maps draws on information about places and on reviews. The practical lever is accurate profile details, honest reviews and a clear website.
Can a front desk employee answer the questions for the practice?
Yes for logistics such as parking, hours or which insurance you accept. For anything clinical, a licensed clinician should write or approve the answer. Keep a short list of who signed off and when.
Can I reply to a bad review by explaining what happened at the visit?
No. Do not confirm that the person was a patient or describe their care. A short reply that gives no patient detail and invites them to call the office is the safe shape. HHS has settled with dental practices over exactly this.
How do I know if Ask Maps sends me patients?
Google shows no Ask Maps report that I could find. Count what the profile does report: calls, website clicks and directions. Add tagged links so the booking page shows where visitors came from.
Written by
Marketing Analytics & Conversion Tracking Engineer, US and Canada, run remotely
- Media buyer on Google Ads and Meta Ads from October 2023 to September 2025, nearly $700K in spend.
- Set up patient conversion tracking for a New York medical practice (anonymized).
- Upwork Top Rated Plus, 5.0 from 20 reviews.