Winning Back Trust in 90 Days
How Fake Review Defense leveled the playing field in a fiercely competitive healthcare market
Executive Summary
Suspicious reviews are costing U.S. businesses over ~$300 billion a year (Cavazos & Sterling, 2024) in lost revenue and trust. In industries like healthcare, where credibility drives every patient decision, that cost can be catastrophic. For one metropolitan urgent care location within a multi-location healthcare provider, the threat was real. Competitors were artificially inflating their visibility with fraudulent 5-star reviews while they were targeted with fake 1-star reviews designed to damage their reputation and search rankings.
In just 90 days, the healthcare provider turned the tide. By partnering with GatherUp’s Review Defense System, they removed suspicious negative Google reviews harming their credibility and challenged fraudulent positive reviews, giving competitors an unfair advantage.
The impact was immediate and measurable:
- +26 authentic reviews added
- 2 suspicious 1-star reviews successfully removed
- 97 fake competitor reviews disputed, 14 removed
- Review velocity outpaced competitors by 4x (GatherUp Customer 17.5x and Competitors 4.7)
With GatherUp’s proactive monitoring and the power of the Integrity plan, the clinic strengthened its credibility, improved local visibility, and restored consumer trust, proving that ethical reputation management drives measurable market advantage.
Provider Overview
A regional urgent care and primary care provider operating more than 80 locations across the Mid-Atlantic. The featured clinic serves as an example of how transparent, authentic patient feedback can meaningfully improve local visibility and patient trust.
The Challenge
In Spring 2025, the provider's metropolitan area location faced an unfair reputation battle. Competitors were inflating their online visibility with fraudulent 5-star reviews, while the clinic was targeted with fake 1-star reviews intended to damage its credibility.
Despite delivering strong patient care (4.5★ average from 1,472 first-party surveys), its Google Business Profile showed only 4.2★ — a misleading reflection of its true reputation.
Competitors were gaining an artificial edge, with over 50% of their positive reviews flagged as suspicious.
The result was clear: this urgent care location risked losing consumer trust and local search ranking to dishonest practices.
The Tactics
GatherUp activated the Review Defense System, powered by the Integrity Plan, across its Google Business profile. The strategy was twofold:
The Solution
GatherUp’s Review Defense (RD) uses AI-driven detection and automated dispute management to identify, document, and remove inauthentic reviews.
For this health care provider, this meant:
- Authenticity scoring on every new review.
- Automated dispute submissions for reviews flagged for removal.
- Competitor monitoring for 11 local clinics to ensure fair competition.
The team’s use of a proactive “detect, dispute, and defend” cycle gave this GatherUp customer real-time visibility into how review fraud was impacting perception and the data to act fast.
The Results (First 90 Days)
Over the first three months, their metrics told a story of steady, measurable improvement:
*The data shown are the results achieved in each month, not a sum of the results month-to-month. For example, the urgent care clinic added 9 new reviews in Month 1 and 15 in Month 2.
Key performance highlights
- Positive review impressions rose 2.3% while negative impressions fell 2.3%, opposite of competitor trends.
- Their key competitor had 7 fake reviews removed and 111 still flagged as suspicious.
- Their review volume growth outpaced that of all competitors, reinforcing authenticity as a key competitive differentiator.
The Takeaway
In just three months, the healthcare provider evolved from reactive issue management to a proactive, data-backed patient experience strategy.
In just three months, the healthcare provider turned a reactive stance into a data-backed defense strategy. By combining ethical review generation with GatherUp’s automation and insights, they:
- Improved star rating confidence with authentic growth.
- Reduced visibility of fake negative reviews.
- Exposed competitors’ deceptive review tactics.
- Built a stronger, fairer digital reputation foundation.
How Other Agencies Can Replicate This Success
- Start with Transparency: Use GatherUp’s Integrity Plan to benchmark authenticity across clients’ markets.
- Audit Competitors Regularly: Identifying and disputing competitor fake 5-stars is just as critical as removing fake 1-star reviews from your profile.
- Leverage Review Defense: Automate detection, documentation, and disputes for scale.
- Track Impact with Impression Analytics: Use data to prove real gains in trust and visibility.
- Educate Clients on Compliance: Ethical reputation management isn’t just good business; it’s now an FTC requirement.
Conclusion
This healthcare provider’s 90-day journey shows that authenticity wins both with algorithms and with patients. By investing in proactive reputation defense, they reclaimed their online credibility and set the standard for integrity in local healthcare marketing.
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