About 1 in 6 (17%) medical group leaders said their organization pays for listings or bookings on third-party platforms such as Zocdoc or Healthgrades, while more than three-quarters (77%) said they do not, according to a Sept. 15, 2026, MGMA Stat poll. Another 6% were unsure. The poll had 251 applicable responses. 

The relatively low adoption rate fits what respondents said about where new patients actually come from. Across users and nonusers of third-party platforms, provider referrals, physician-to-physician relationships, word of mouth and patient referrals were the most common answers. Many also pointed to their own websites, Google Business Profiles, online reviews and social media. 

Among practices that pay for third-party booking services, only a minority named the platform itself as their most reliable source of new patients. 

That does not mean the platforms lack value. They may be useful for a new practice, location, service line or clinician with an open panel. But for organizations already dealing with provider shortages, staffing constraints or long appointment waits, generating more demand may not be the immediate problem. 

Other MGMA data reinforces that tension. While 51% of groups reported adding net-new APP positions during the past year, nearly half said new-patient wait times were unchanged and 28% reported longer waits. The 2026 MGMA DataDive Financials and Operations dataset also shows median third-next-available appointments for new patients at roughly two weeks across many specialties. 

 For practice leaders, the question is less whether a platform can generate appointments than whether those appointments solve a specific business problem. 

Know what you are paying for 

Third-party platforms do not all work the same way. Practices should review the current terms of each service rather than treating directories and marketplaces as interchangeable. 

Zocdoc offers one example. Its Marketplace model has no upfront or subscription fee. Instead, practices pay a one-time fee when a new patient books through the marketplace, with the amount varying by specialty and location. The fee is generally incurred when the appointment is booked, even if the patient later does not show. Existing patients seeing a provider they have seen before are not charged a new-patient booking fee, and appointments booked through a practice’s Zocdoc booking link or Google Business Profile are not subject to the marketplace fee. 

That makes appointment source important. Practices should distinguish paid marketplace bookings from appointments generated through their own website, Google profile or another no-fee channel. 

It also means bookings alone are a weak measure of return on investment. A practice paying for patient acquisition should know how many booked patients actually complete a visit. For specialties built around ongoing relationships, it may also make sense to track whether those patients return. For a surgical consultation, diagnostic visit or other episode of care, repeat visits may be less useful as a measure. 

Match the platform to the access problem 

A marketplace can help when a practice needs more demand: a newly recruited physician has open slots, a new location has little local awareness, or an added service line has not yet built a referral base. 

The calculation changes when a provider already has a long wait for new-patient appointments. Paying to create more demand can simply feed an existing access bottleneck. 

Practices may get more useful answers by evaluating these services provider by provider rather than only at the organization level. The same platform might help fill one clinician’s schedule while adding little value for another whose panel is already full. 

The poll responses point in the same direction. Even among organizations that pay for third-party services, referrals, reputation and community presence remained the most dependable sources of new patients. Paid marketplaces may function best as a supplemental channel when a practice has specific capacity to fill, rather than as a replacement for established referral networks. 

The vendors are moving beyond listings 

The decision is also becoming broader than whether to buy a provider listing. 

Zocdoc supports scheduling through provider websites and Google Business Profiles. In 2025, it also launched Zo, an AI phone assistant that can answer calls and book into participating practices’ scheduling systems. At launch, the service cost $2 per successfully booked appointment, including for organizations that were not Zocdoc Marketplace customers. 

 That creates a different vendor question: Is the practice buying patient acquisition, scheduling technology or both? 

As vendors take on more of the patient-access process, practices should understand what data is shared, how systems integrate and what operational dependencies the arrangement creates. Those are ordinary vendor-management questions that belong in your due diligence. 

AI is changing patient discovery 

Third-party directories also sit inside a much broader search environment. 

A June 16, 2026, MGMA Stat poll found that 55% of medical groups did not have a strategy for improving their visibility in AI searches, while 35% said they did and 11% were unsure. The poll had 218 applicable responses. Practices working on AI visibility commonly cited familiar basics: current website information, detailed physician profiles, Google Business Profile updates and patient reviews. 

Other MGMA reporting has shown why those basics matter. In one analysis of about 4,950 patient-style ChatGPT searches involving 200 independent practices sampled from NPPES, none of the practices were both named and cited. A later analysis of more than 33,000 ChatGPT citation events found that AI tools drew from many sources, including practice websites, hospital rosters, specialty organizations and state medical boards — not only large national provider directories. 

Vendor research points in the same direction: rater8’s 2026 Patient Choice Report found that 47% of 992 respondents had used AI to research or find a healthcare provider, up from 31% in its prior survey nine months earlier. 

The lesson is straightforward: Patients now have more ways to find a practice. Names, specialties, locations, insurance information, services and scheduling options need to be accurate wherever patients — and the systems answering their questions — may find them. 

Must-have numbers for your next renewal 

Before renewing a paid listing or booking service, practice leaders should be able to answer a few basic questions: 

• What does each completed new-patient visit cost? Divide platform spending by completed visits, not bookings, to account for cancellations and no-shows. 
• How does that compare with other sources? Track referrals, organic search, the practice website, payer directories, paid advertising and third-party platforms separately where possible. 
• Do those patients return when ongoing care is expected? Use follow-up visits or another appropriate measure of patient value by acquisition source. 
• Which providers actually need more demand? Review third-next-available appointments and open capacity before paying to send more patients toward a schedule. 
• Are paid and free booking channels measured separately? Know whether appointments came from the marketplace, the practice website, Google or another no-fee source. 
• What else is the vendor responsible for? A relationship that began as a listing may now include scheduling integrations, phone calls, intake or other parts of patient access. 

This poll’s findings suggest that third-party platforms are not the main source of new patients for most medical groups, including many that pay for them. Referrals, word of mouth and local reputation still carry much of that load. 

That makes renewal less of a yes-or-no question about whether a platform “works” and more of a capacity question: Which providers need more patients, what does it cost to bring those patients in, and is the platform filling a gap the practice actually has?