Ranking Policy

How Are Results Ordered?

Before anything is ranked, we narrow the list to clinics that can actually treat you: the clinic must be open to new patients through Bookimed, have a current agreement with us, and be in the country you are looking at.

After that, one thing matters far more than the rest.

What has actually happened with other patients. How many patients we have sent to that clinic for this specific treatment, how many of those went ahead with it, and how recently. We give particular weight to patients traveling from the same part of the world as you, because a clinic that regularly treats people from your region is usually better set up to treat you. Taken together, this is the large majority of what decides the order.

The remaining factors adjust that order rather than drive it:

• how consistently the clinic sends a treatment plan when a patient asks, and how quickly;
• how often it accepts rather than declines the cases we send it;
• patient reviews and the clinic's average score;
• whether its programs, prices, and profile are kept up to date;
• the specific procedure you asked about, and the country you are traveling from.

We do not publish fixed percentage weights, because they are not fixed. Part of our ranking is a model that is retrained regularly on which clinics patients actually chose, so the balance between these factors shifts over time. The order above reflects their relative influence, not a formula.

Two things worth knowing.

A clinic that is new to Bookimed has almost no history for the system to read, so it will usually appear below an established clinic even if it is excellent. If you are comparing options, it is worth looking past the first few results.

For oncology, we do not apply the personalized model at all. It gave us no better answers than our general ranking did, so for oncology we show the general ranking instead.

Why Do My Results Differ From Someone Else's?

Results are shaped by the country you are searching from, the treatment you asked about, and the details in your request. If you arrived from a particular clinic's page, that clinic is more likely to appear near the top of what you see next.

Some things you might reasonably suspect play a part do not. Our ranking system holds no data about any of the following:

• How much a clinic pays us. There is no field in the ranking system for commission, contract value, or partner status. Commission is calculated after a booking is made and has no connection to ranking.
• What a clinic spends on promoting its offers with us. Promotion and ranking are separate systems — see below.
• Asking us to remove a bad review. Clinics cannot delete, hide, or reorder reviews about themselves. They can reply publicly and can report a review that breaches our Review & Comment Policy — reporting one does not change their position.
• Complaining about a competitor. We have no mechanism for this.

How Can I Tell If an Offer Is Paid Promotion?

Clinics can pay to have an offer promoted in our listings. Paid offers are labeled "Ad" in our clinic listings, on desktop and on mobile. Payment is a fee per patient inquiry, not a payment for a position in the ranking.

What paid promotion does not do: it does not change the order of organic results, and it does not feed into the ranking system in any way. Promotion is applied on top of results that have already been ordered.

More on how we earn: Finance Policy.

What Do We Know About the Clinics We List?

Clinics provide their own accreditations, licenses, and their specialists' qualifications, and are responsible for keeping that information accurate. Accreditations are shown with the name of the accrediting body so you can check them at the source.

We are not an accreditation body, and we do not audit clinical standards. If accreditation matters to your decision — and for surgery it should — verify it directly with the organization that issued it.

A clinic's position in our results is not a medical recommendation and not a quality certificate. See our Medical Disclaimer.

How Do Reviews Fit In?

A clinic's average review score is one of the factors above, though not among the strongest. Reviews come only from patients who booked through Bookimed and attended the clinic, and we publish critical reviews as readily as positive ones. The rules are in our Review & Comment Policy.

What affects your position: the volume and recency of patients we have sent you for a given treatment and how many of them went ahead, how reliably and quickly you send treatment plans, how often you accept the cases we send, your patient reviews, and how current your programs, prices, and profile are.

What does not: your commission rate, your contract value, what you spend on promoting offers, and any request to remove a review.

If your clinic is new to the platform, expect to rank below established clinics for a while — the system has little history to work with. Keeping your offers, prices, and profile current, and responding quickly, is what builds that history fastest.

Promoted offers are a separate product from ranking. Promotion places a labeled offer in listings; it does not move your organic position.

Questions about your position: partner-support@bookimed.com.

How Do We Update This Policy?

We adjust how ranking works as the platform develops, and part of it is retrained regularly. The date at the top of this page shows when we last updated this description.

Who Do I Contact With Questions?

Patients: care@bookimed.com. Partner clinics: partner-support@bookimed.com.