Getting Found on HealthEngine and Booking Directories: What's Worth the Listing Fee

05 September 2026·5 min read

Quick answer: HealthEngine and similar booking directories are usually worth paying for if your clinic has spare appointment capacity and does short, high-volume consult types — physio, dental check-ups, general allied health. They're rarely worth it for niche or long-consult modalities like psychology or specialist paediatric therapy, where the lead cost per booked hour of clinician time often doesn't stack up. The only way to know for sure is to actually track it, source by source. 📈

Clinics tend to fall into one of two camps with directory listings: list on everything out of FOMO, or ignore them entirely because "our Google Business Profile is enough." Both are guesses. The clinics that get real value out of HealthEngine and its competitors are the ones who actually treat it as a paid channel with a cost-per-booking to justify — not a box to tick because a competitor down the road is on there. 💖

What most clinics get wrong

The most common mistake is not tracking which bookings actually come from which directory, and specifically not tracking the no-show rate by source. Directory-sourced bookings — especially free, no-deposit online bookings — tend to have a noticeably higher no-show rate than a booking made after a phone call or a GP referral, and that gap changes the real ROI a lot. The second mistake is assuming star ratings on a directory profile substitute for genuine SEO or reputation work. And the mistake we have to be direct about: using patient testimonials to dress up a directory profile. For AHPRA-registered professions, testimonials about clinical services aren't something you can use in advertising — full stop. The better move is a short, de-identified case study ("a 34-year-old recreational runner with recurring ITB pain returned to full training load within eight weeks") or letting genuine star ratings about the booking experience do that work instead.

Please note: general information, not medical/clinical advice — check current AHPRA advertising guidelines and your board's specific requirements before relying on it.

The directory ROI worksheet (copy this)

Step 1 — Cost: Monthly listing fee + any per-booking fee, added up over a full month.

Step 2 — Bookings: Count of bookings that came specifically from that directory (use a unique booking link, phone number or UTM tag so you're not guessing).

Step 3 — Show-up rate: What percentage of those bookings actually attended, tracked separately from your overall clinic show-up rate. This is the number most clinics have never actually pulled.

Step 4 — Consult value: Your average revenue per completed consult for that service type.

Formula: (Bookings × Show-up rate × Consult value) compared against (Monthly fee + booking fees). If the directory isn't returning at least 3–4x its cost once no-shows are factored in, it's not pulling its weight — and that's before counting the admin time spent managing yet another booking inbox.

Suburban physio clinic: Doing genuinely well on HealthEngine because the consults are short (30 minutes), the clinic has real gaps in its evening and weekend schedule, and the directory fills exactly those low-friction slots. The maths works here because the service type suits impulse, low-commitment booking.

Established dental practice, booked three weeks out: The directory fee wasn't worth it once we actually ran the worksheet — the practice had no spare capacity to fill, so every directory-sourced booking was just displacing a booking that would have come through the website anyway. Budget was redirected to a referral program instead.

Psychology practice: Found HealthEngine leads had a noticeably higher no-show and early-cancellation rate than referral-based enquiries — understandable, given how much more personal a first psychology appointment is compared to a physio session. It's still worth testing rather than writing off entirely, but it needed a deposit and clear cancellation policy attached specifically to directory-sourced bookings before the numbers made sense.

How to actually work through this

Start by auditing which directories you're already listed on, including old free listings you may have forgotten about — accuracy matters more than presence, and a stale profile with wrong hours does active harm. Set up a unique tracking link or phone number for each directory so you can actually attribute bookings and no-shows correctly. Optimise the profile itself: correct service categories, clear descriptions written for the person searching (not clinical jargon), and photos of the space and team rather than anything resembling a before/after clinical image. Where no-shows are an issue, attach a deposit or cancellation policy specifically to directory-sourced bookings rather than changing your policy clinic-wide.

💡 Track no-show rate by source before you judge ROI on booking volume alone. A directory that sends you twenty bookings a month sounds great until you realise only twelve show up, while your website's eight bookings all attend. Volume without a show-up rate attached is a vanity number.

Mistakes to avoid

Listing on every directory out of FOMO instead of testing and tracking each one.
Judging a directory by booking volume alone, without tracking its specific no-show rate.
Using patient testimonials to strengthen a directory profile — not permitted for AHPRA-registered clinical services. Use de-identified case studies or genuine service-experience ratings instead.
Letting a profile go stale — wrong hours, outdated services or old team photos actively cost you bookings.
Applying a directory-wide policy change (like deposits) clinic-wide when the no-show problem was only ever coming from one source.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to be on HealthEngine at all in 2026?

Honestly, it depends on your modality and location. Competitive urban physio and dental markets still see real volume through it. Niche practices, or those in areas with strong existing referral networks, often find it does very little — this is genuinely a "test it, track it, decide" situation rather than a universal yes.

Can we use star ratings on our directory profile?

Star ratings about the booking and service experience are generally treated differently from written testimonials about clinical outcomes, but the line can be fine — check your specific board's current advertising guidance rather than assuming, and never solicit reviews that comment on clinical treatment or outcomes.

What's a reasonable no-show rate before I give up on a directory?

There's no single industry number to point to, which is the honest answer — compare it against your own clinic's baseline no-show rate for other channels. If a directory's no-show rate is meaningfully higher than your average and a deposit policy doesn't close the gap, it's a fair signal to stop.

Should case studies replace testimonials entirely on our website too, not just directories?

For AHPRA-registered professions, yes — the same restriction on clinical testimonials applies across your website and social channels, not just directory listings. De-identified case studies, clearly framed as illustrative rather than a guarantee of outcome, are the safer and genuinely more informative option anyway.