How do patients find a physiotherapist now? SEO for AI search

Mr Lim's knee, and the whole brief he typed

The clinic has done the hard part. The therapists are good and the waiting room is calm. The trouble is that the newest patient chooses before he ever sits in it.

Mr Lim, an illustration of a question rather than anyone's patient, has a knee still stiff after surgery. He opens Google AI Mode or ChatGPT and types it all in one go:

Physio for my knee after ACL surgery, near Tampines MRT, Saturday mornings, my surgeon gave me a referral letter and I want to claim on company insurance, therapist who speaks Mandarin, reply on WhatsApp.

We read 68 Singapore physiotherapy, chiropractic and wellness clinic sites as text on 9 and 10 October 2026. Our read found care after surgery on 29, an MRT station on 15 and the referral on 7. We did not split them by profession. Chiropractors are covered here too, though the two professions are not regulated alike.

Not long ago Mr Lim would have typed "physio near me". Today the knee is the search: in the US, Google says, AI Mode queries run three times longer than the old kind ¹.

A waiting room persuades people already inside. A referral letter works before anyone meets, in a few plain lines. The AI reads a clinic's site the way a therapist reads that letter. It takes only what is written.

The Act lists physiotherapists; chiropractors are not on that list

The Allied Health Professions Council (AHPC, which registers five professions under the Allied Health Professions Act 2011) lists physiotherapists among them. They must be registered and hold a valid practising certificate (the licence to practise); practising without both is an offence ². Anyone can search the register online by name or registration number ³.

Chiropractors are not among the five. In a 2019 written answer to Parliament, MOH called chiropractic a complementary and alternative treatment, not licensed under the Private Hospitals and Medical Clinics Act, with chiropractors encouraged to self-regulate through their associations. It cited the Chiropractic Association's estimate of about 150 chiropractors ⁴.

So a physiotherapy clinic can write that its physiotherapists are registered with the AHPC, and a patient can check it. A chiropractic clinic should state the qualifications and memberships it really holds, not wording that belongs to another profession.

In other words: write the line a patient can verify.

Of 68 sites we read, 15 mention registration and 7 the referral

Our read takes the homepage and up to four linked pages as text, without running scripts. "Not found by our read" is not "absent": a fact may sit deeper in, or inside an image.

The reply channel is solved. Who treats him, and whether his letter counts, are the least written down.

The facts sit in the text; the labels a machine reads are rarer

Structured data (markup in the page code that reads, to a machine, "clinic, open these hours") is thinner than the text.

We also scored the 78 sites; 71 earned a published score on both scales, with a middle Search score of 73 and a middle AI score of 72. The 36 that declare the clinic as a business in markup (EN1) had a median AI score of 80; the 35 that do not, 65. A correlation, not a cause; the checks are in the rubric.

The advertising rules forbid praise, not facts

A clinic is not a shop, and the objection is fair. The aim is not to turn care into marketing. It is to write down what a referral letter would carry.

For a licensee under the Healthcare Services Act, the advertisement regulations bar before-and-after pictures, laudatory statements, superlatives, and reviews or testimonials outside narrow exceptions ⁵. The AHPC's code asks registered professionals to make sure any advertising is truthful, accurate and does not induce unnecessary demand ⁶.

Nothing below needs a testimonial, a result photograph or the word "best". A fact is not a boast. It is the line the AI was looking for.

Seven lines Mr Lim needed, in the order he asked

1. Name the conditions. Back pain, sports injuries, rehab after surgery, each as a heading. 29 mention care after surgery.
2. Say who treats, in checkable words. AHPC registration for physiotherapy; for chiropractic, the qualification you really hold. 15 of 68 use registration wording.
3. Answer the referral question. Needed or not, and whether a doctor's letter is welcome. 7 do.
4. Write the money down. The first-visit fee, then the insurers or panels you accept. 21 show a price.
5. Place the clinic. The nearest MRT station. 15 name one.
6. Write hours and languages. 40 give hours, 19 languages.
7. Keep the WhatsApp. 59 already do.

A two-minute test before the first patient arrives

Type a brief like Mr Lim's into ChatGPT or Google AI Mode for your own district: the pain, the nearest MRT, a day you are open, the referral, the insurance, the language. Read what the AI says about your clinic. Being left out is an observation, not a diagnosis; one search proves little.

Then count the clauses your homepage answers in plain text. That is your referral letter.

Making a site answer a brief like his, within the advertising rules, is the work we do. A free scan shows which of the seven lines yours already states.

Questions people ask

Does this apply to chiropractic clinics?

Yes, with one difference. Physiotherapists are registered with the AHPC ². MOH has described chiropractic as a complementary and alternative treatment, with chiropractors encouraged to self-regulate ⁴. A chiropractic site should state the qualifications it really holds.

Is stating our AHPC registration enough?

It is a start. A patient can search the AHPC register ³, but the AI can only repeat what your own page says. Name the therapists, say they are registered, and give their qualifications. Our read found registration wording on 15 of 68 sites.

Can we put patient reviews on our website?

Where a clinic is licensed under the Healthcare Services Act, the advertisement regulations allow reviews and testimonials only in narrow cases ⁵. We never advise them. For the AI, a plain fact such as the hours or the nearest station does more work than praise.

Should a clinic publish its first-visit fee?

Your call. Our read found a price on 21 of 68 sites and a fees page on 7. A first-visit fee with what it covers, and whether insurance or a panel applies, answers the money clause of a brief.

Will this get my clinic recommended?

Nobody can promise that, and we do not. The checks show whether the AI can read the facts a patient's brief needs. That measures readiness to be read, not a ranking, and no check can promise one.

Sources

1. Google, How AI Mode is changing and expanding the way people search, 19 May 2026. Accessed 2 October 2026.
2. AHPC (Allied Health Professions Council), Registers of Allied Health Professionals, undated. Accessed 10 October 2026.
3. AHPC via Ask.gov.sg, How do I find a registered Allied Health Professional?, undated. Accessed 10 October 2026.
4. MOH (Ministry of Health), Qualifications of and Complaints against Chiropractors Practising in Singapore, 4 November 2019. Accessed 10 October 2026.
5. Singapore Statutes Online (Attorney-General's Chambers), Healthcare Services (Advertisement) Regulations 2021, 30 December 2021. Accessed 10 October 2026.
6. AHPC (Allied Health Professions Council), Regulations, Guidelines and Circulars: Code of professional conduct, undated. Accessed 10 October 2026.

Our own counts come from our physiotherapy, chiropractic and wellness batch of 9 and 10 October 2026, 78 sites, one scan and one text read each, scored with the published rubric. Not a market survey.