How to Claim and Optimize Your DrSensory Profile

Search for your practice on DrSensory’s Claim your profile page, tick every location you run, confirm your email with a six-digit code, choose a password and turn on two-factor sign-in. Claiming is free. To put your changes in front of families, start a subscription, fill in the editor and publish; you can publish once every seven days. A strong profile says who you see and how a first visit works, uses only the tags you treat routinely, shows the space rather than patients, and answers reviews without ever confirming that someone is a patient.

How do you claim a DrSensory profile?

In seven steps, and nothing is charged until you choose to subscribe. The first five happen on Claim your profile; the last two in the portal.

1. Find your practice. Go to Claim your profile and search by practice name, address or phone. Tick every location you run. A practice listed for more than one therapy appears more than once, and every one of those listings belongs on the same account.
2. Add any location the directory does not have. Add the name of the location, its street address, city, state, ZIP and phone, and tick the therapies offered there: occupational, physical or speech. If your clinic is not listed at all, first tick “I checked the directory carefully and my clinic is not listed yet”. If every location is already listed, skip this step.
3. Say where to send your code. Enter your name, a phone number if you want to, and the email address you actually read. If your practice has an address at its own domain, add it too: when that domain matches the website on your listing, it confirms you work there straight away.
4. Enter the six-digit code. The code comes from no-reply@email.drsensory.com and is good for 30 minutes. If it has not arrived within a minute, check your spam or junk folder. You can send a new one, and you have five tries.
5. Choose a password. Use at least 12 characters. The account holds every listing you ticked, and you can edit each one as soon as you are in.
6. Turn on two-factor sign-in. Set it up with an authenticator app on your phone. It is not optional, because families send health details through these pages.
7. Subscribe and publish. Start a subscription from Billing, fill in the listing editor, preview the page and publish. The change appears on your profile in about a minute. After that you can publish once every seven days.

Already have an account? Sign in with Account login at the top of any DrSensory page. Stuck at any step, email hello@drsensory.com and a person will answer.

What if your practice is not listed yet?

Add it during the claim; nothing is published until you subscribe. Search a shorter version of your name first, and your phone number: practices are often listed under a slightly different name.

• Tick “I checked the directory carefully and my clinic is not listed yet”, then add the location: name, street address, city, state, ZIP, phone, and the therapies offered there.
• A location you add is saved against your account first, and goes live once you subscribe and publish.
• One location you have and one you do not? Tick the one we list and add the other in the same claim.

How is a claim verified?

By the code, and by your domain when it matches. The six-digit code proves you read the mailbox you gave. An address at the same domain as the website already on your listing is further evidence that you work there, and the claim screen says so when it matches.

• A personal address, such as Gmail, goes straight through too; the code is still required.
• DrSensory is told about every claim, including which listings were ticked and whether the domain matched.
• A listing marked already claimed is on somebody’s account. If that is wrong, email hello@drsensory.com.

How does publishing work, and why only once a week?

Save as often as you like; publish once every seven days. Saving keeps your work in the portal. Publishing is what a family sees, and it needs an active subscription.

1. Fill in the editor’s sections in order: the basics, therapies, who you can see, conditions, services, how you work, availability, opening hours, about and accessibility, then your logo and photos.
2. Press Preview your page to see it as a parent will.
3. Press Publish to my listing. Give it about a minute to appear on your public page.
4. The portal then counts down to your next publish. Corrections DrSensory makes from its side do not use up your week.

The portal’s reason for the limit: search engines need time to pick up a change, and a listing that moves every day teaches them to stop looking. In practice it means one careful publish beats five quick ones.

What do parents see on your profile?

A page about your practice, in this order, built from what you publish.

Three things to know about it:

• Your inquiry email is public. The address you give as your email for family inquiries is also the Email line in your contact panel. Use a practice address, not a personal one.
• Some answers are kept but not shown. The languages you speak, the insurance you take and the age bands you tick are saved with your listing; the public profile does not display them today. Say the ones that matter in your description.
• No competitors on your page. An unclaimed profile lists other clinics nearby; a paid one does not.

How should you write your About text?

Answer the questions a parent would otherwise phone to ask, in plain words, within 1,200 characters. The tags are the summary; the description is where you say it properly. DrSensory shows it in your own words, breaking it into paragraphs at sentence ends and changing nothing else.

DrSensory is told when you publish and may look at the page, but it does not approve your text before it goes live. What you publish is your statement about your practice.

What does a good About text look like?

Three examples, written for this page. They describe no real practice; replace everything in brackets and keep only what is true of yours. Each is under 1,200 characters.

Notice what they have in common: who the practice sees in the first sentence, problems named the way a parent would name them, what happens at the first visit, how to pay. None promises a result, names a patient or quotes a family.

Which service tags should you pick?

The ones you treat or offer routinely, and no others. Your tags are what a parent scans under Services and specialties, and a tag you cannot back up costs you the family it attracted.

The portal offers tags in three groups, and only for the therapies you ticked, so a speech-only practice never sees the physical therapy list. Ticking the 18+ age band adds the adult conditions.

• Credentials are tick-only. Tags such as Ayres Sensory Integration (ASI) — certified, PROMPT trained, Hanen certified and LSVT LOUD are never matched from your wording. Tick one only if someone at this location holds that training.
• Fewer, truer tags beat a long list. If a condition is something you see twice a year, mention it in the description instead.
• Missing a tag? Use Request another tag at the end of How we work. DrSensory reads every request by hand.
• Before you claim, your tags were matched from the words the directory held about you. Once you publish, the ones you tick replace them.

What are the photo and logo rules?

A logo of any shape, and up to five photos of the practice, each with a caption and your consent. Both appear on your page the next time you publish.

What to photograph: the front door a family will walk through, the waiting room, a treatment space, the equipment a child will use. A photo of an empty room is enough to tell a nervous parent what to expect.

Patients are the exception. A full-face photograph is one of the identifiers HIPAA lists, and using a patient’s image to promote your services needs a written authorization; for a child, it comes from the parent or guardian.^1,4 The consent tick in the portal is your confirmation, not a substitute for that authorization. The caption is read aloud by screen readers and read by search engines, so write it as a plain description: “Sensory gym with a platform swing and climbing wall”, never a child’s name.

How do reviews work on DrSensory?

Families write them on your profile, DrSensory checks each one before it appears, and you can reply. Reviews appear only on paid listings.

• A family picks a star rating, writes the review and verifies their email address with a six-digit code. The email is not published.
• Every review is read before it appears. Your profile shows the average rating, the number of reviews and the reviews themselves, and the same average and count are given to search engines.
• A negative review is not removed for being negative. DrSensory removes reviews that identify a child, read as a medical record about a named person, are not about a visit to you, are abusive, were written by a competitor, an employee or you, or make a factual claim that can be shown to be false.
• You can report a review once, from the Reviews page. It stays visible while a person reads it; anything naming a child is dealt with the same day, and you get the decision and the reason in your Messages.

How do you reply to a review without breaching HIPAA?

Reply as the practice, about the practice, and never confirm that the reviewer is or was a patient. That someone received care from you is itself health information about them: HIPAA’s definition covers information that relates to “the provision of health care to an individual” and identifies them, and a covered practice may disclose it only as the rule permits. A public reply is not one of those uses.¹ The rule binds covered entities: providers that send health information electronically for transactions such as insurance claims. A self-pay practice owes families the same discretion, and loses the same trust without it. The review is the family’s to write; the reply is yours to keep general.

On DrSensory, every reply is read before it appears, and an edit to a published reply is read again. Replies can run to 2,000 characters; to take one down, clear the box and save, and it disappears at once. DrSensory will come back to you rather than publish a reply that names a family or confirms someone was a patient, but the safest reply is the one that never needed catching.

Can you ask families for reviews?

Yes: ask every family, in the same way, and offer nothing for it. The FTC’s rule on reviews leaves “generalized solicitations” to all your customers alone, and forbids the practices below.²

• No reward for a good review. The FTC rule bars any compensation or incentive conditioned on a review expressing a particular sentiment.² Google goes further and bars incentives for any review at all, including discounts and free sessions.⁵ The simplest rule: offer nothing.
• No picking the happy families. Google does not allow businesses to selectively solicit positive reviews or discourage negative ones.⁵ Send the same request to everyone.
• No reviews from inside. An owner or manager who reviews their own business must clearly disclose the relationship; on DrSensory, a review written by you, a colleague or a competitor is removed.²
• No pressure on unhappy reviewers. Threats, intimidation and groundless legal threats to stop or remove a review are prohibited.² A calm reply does more.

Good ways to ask: a line in the letter or email that closes an episode of care, a card at reception, a sentence on your website. Link to your DrSensory profile and say that honest reviews, good or bad, help other families decide.

What should your profile have before you publish?

Eleven checks, in the order the editor asks for them. Since you can publish once a week, run through them before you press the button.

Not yet subscribed? See what it costs in DrSensory for pediatric therapists, and whether it pays for itself in Are paid therapy directories worth it?.

Sources

1. HIPAA Administrative Simplification, 45 CFR §160.103: individually identifiable health information is information that relates to “the provision of health care to an individual” (among other things) and that identifies the individual or could reasonably be used to; a covered entity includes “A health care provider who transmits any health information in electronic form in connection with a transaction covered by this subchapter.” §164.502(a): “A covered entity or business associate may not use or disclose protected health information, except as permitted or required by this subpart”; §164.502(g)(3): a parent or guardian with authority to make health care decisions for an unemancipated minor is treated as the minor’s personal representative. Text as published in the eCFR. Checked October 6, 2026.
2. Federal Trade Commission. Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, 16 CFR Part 465 (89 FR 68077, August 22, 2024). §465.4: it is unfair or deceptive for a business “to provide compensation or other incentives in exchange for, or conditioned expressly or by implication on, the writing or creation of consumer reviews expressing a particular sentiment, whether positive or negative”; §465.2(d): the purchased- and insider-review provisions do not apply to “generalized solicitations to purchasers to post reviews or testimonials about their experiences”; §465.5: an officer or manager who writes a review of their own business must clearly disclose the relationship; §465.7: no one may use “an unfounded or groundless legal threat, a physical threat, intimidation, or a public false accusation” to stop a review or have it removed. Text as published in the eCFR. Checked October 6, 2026.
3. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Code of Ethics (effective March 1, 2023), Principle of Ethics III: “Individuals shall not misrepresent their credentials, competence, education, training, experience, or scholarly contributions”; “Individuals’ statements to the public shall adhere to prevailing professional standards and shall not contain misrepresentations when advertising, announcing, or promoting their professional services, products, or research.” Checked October 6, 2026.
4. HIPAA Privacy Rule. 45 CFR §164.508(a): a use or disclosure not otherwise permitted needs “an authorization that is valid under this section”, and “a covered entity must obtain an authorization for any use or disclosure of protected health information for marketing”; §164.508(c): the authorization “must be written in plain language” and carry the “Signature of the individual and date”, or a personal representative’s signature with a description of their authority. §164.501 defines marketing as “a communication about a product or service that encourages recipients of the communication to purchase or use the product or service.” §164.514(b)(2)(i)(Q) lists “Full face photographic images and any comparable images” among the identifiers. Text as published in the eCFR. Checked October 6, 2026.
5. Google. Prohibited and restricted content (Maps User Generated Content Policy), Fake engagement. Merchants may not “Offer incentives – such as payment, discounts, free goods and/or services - in exchange for posting any review”, nor “Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers”; they may “Solicit or encourage the posting of content that does represent a genuine experience, without offering incentives to do so or attempting to influence the rating or the contents of the review.” Checked October 6, 2026.

Medical disclaimer. This page is for general educational purposes and does not constitute medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. It describes DrSensory’s claim flow and portal as they work on October 6, 2026. The HIPAA and FTC points are general information, not legal advice; your own compliance adviser is the person to ask about your practice.