September 09, 2026
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Fake doctor reviews tend to offer more detailed personal information and stories, a new study says.
One way to find a new doctor is to scan online reviews. But proceed with caution, a new study says.
The research, published in the journal Internet Research, found that people gravitate toward fraudulent physician reviews, partly because they tend to offer more information than real ones. And artificial intelligence is only aggravating the problem, the researchers said.
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"A real patient might simply say a doctor was helpful, while a fake review tells a detailed story about symptoms, diagnosis and treatment," Aishwarya Deep Shukla, the study's lead author and a business professor at Simon Fraser University in Canada, said in a news release. "People are drawn to stories. Unfortunately, these deceptive reviews have the kind of information real patients don't usually share publicly and can influence decisions about who people trust with their care."
The study analyzed 35,000 reviews on a broad range of medical specialists in India between 2015 and 2017. The researchers identified more than 8,300 fake reviews – posted by people working in healthcare settings – who pretended to be patients.
People impersonating patients went into more detail about symptoms, diagnoses and treatment and got higher scores for trustworthiness than real reviews, the study found.
Advances in AI are making the problem even worse, Shukla said.
"The double-edged sword of AI is that it's helping real people write more complete and useful reviews, but it's also helping bad actors produce detailed fake reviews at scale," he said.
Given the problem, how should patients weed out the fake reviews? The researchers offered these tips:
• Read all the reviews: Look for consistent themes across many reviews rather than focusing on one or two standout stories.
• Be cautious of reviews that reveal unusually detailed medical information that most patients would be uncomfortable sharing publicly.
• Don't dismiss providers who have zero or very few reviews because most satisfied patients do not leave reviews.
• Consider reviews alongside other sources of information, including professional credentials, personal recommendations and direct interactions with a clinic.
