Medical websites face a higher bar than most when it comes to structured data and SEO. Google categorises health and medical content as "Your Money or Your Life" (YMYL) — content that could directly affect someone's health, and therefore requires stronger evidence of experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T). Structured data is one of the concrete signals Google looks for. This guide covers the specific schema types for medical sites and how to implement them correctly.

1. Schema types for medical websites

Page type	Schema type to use	Notes
Doctor / physician profile	Physician (Person subtype)	Schema.org has a specific Physician type — use it over plain Person
Hospital / NHS trust page	Hospital (MedicalOrganization)	Includes department structure, emergency info
GP practice / clinic	MedicalClinic or MedicalBusiness	Use MedicalClinic for NHS/private clinics
Health article / blog post	MedicalWebPage or Article with medical author	Add medicalAudience and reviewer fields
Health condition page	MedicalCondition	Signs, symptoms, treatment links
Drug or treatment page	Drug or MedicalTherapy	Complex type — requires careful implementation
Symptom checker / tool	WebApplication + MedicalWebPage	Combine both types

2. Doctor / physician profile schema

Schema.org has a dedicated Physician type under MedicalBusiness — but for individual doctor profiles, combining Person with medical-specific properties gives Google the clearest picture of who the doctor is and what they specialise in. It also builds the author's E-E-A-T signals for any health articles they write.

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Person",
  "@id": "https://yourclinic.com/doctors/dr-rachel-patel/#person",
  "name": "Dr Rachel Patel",
  "givenName": "Rachel",
  "familyName": "Patel",
  "honorificPrefix": "Dr",
  "jobTitle": "Consultant Cardiologist",
  "description": "Dr Rachel Patel is a Consultant Cardiologist with 14 years of experience. She specialises in interventional cardiology and cardiac imaging.",
  "image": "https://yourclinic.com/images/dr-rachel-patel.jpg",
  "url": "https://yourclinic.com/doctors/dr-rachel-patel",
  "worksFor": {
    "@type": "Hospital",
    "@id": "https://yourclinic.com/#hospital",
    "name": "St. Andrews Cardiac Centre"
  },
  "hasCredential": [
    {
      "@type": "EducationalOccupationalCredential",
      "credentialCategory": "Medical Degree",
      "educationalLevel": "MBBS",
      "recognizedBy": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "University of London" }
    },
    {
      "@type": "EducationalOccupationalCredential",
      "credentialCategory": "Postgraduate",
      "educationalLevel": "MRCP",
      "recognizedBy": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Royal College of Physicians" }
    }
  ],
  "knowsAbout": [
    "Interventional Cardiology",
    "Cardiac Imaging",
    "Heart Failure Management",
    "Echocardiography"
  ],
  "sameAs": [
    "https://linkedin.com/in/drrrachelpatel",
    "https://www.gmc-uk.org/doctors/YOUR_GMC_NUMBER"
  ],
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "addressLocality": "London",
    "addressCountry": "GB"
  }
}

3. Hospital schema

Hospital is a subtype of MedicalOrganization which is itself a subtype of LocalBusiness. Use it on the main hospital or trust page:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Hospital",
  "@id": "https://yourclinic.com/#hospital",
  "name": "St. Andrews Cardiac Centre",
  "url": "https://yourclinic.com",
  "telephone": "+44-20-7946-0100",
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "streetAddress": "22 Medical Way",
    "addressLocality": "London",
    "postalCode": "EC1A 1BB",
    "addressCountry": "GB"
  },
  "geo": {
    "@type": "GeoCoordinates",
    "latitude": "51.5174",
    "longitude": "-0.1059"
  },
  "openingHoursSpecification": [
    {
      "@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification",
      "dayOfWeek": ["Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday"],
      "opens": "08:00",
      "closes": "20:00"
    }
  ],
  "medicalSpecialty": [
    "Cardiology",
    "Cardiac Surgery",
    "Electrophysiology"
  ],
  "hasMap": "https://maps.google.com/?q=22+Medical+Way+London",
  "image": "https://yourclinic.com/images/building.jpg",
  "sameAs": [
    "https://www.cqc.org.uk/location/YOUR-CQC-ID"
  ]
}

4. Medical clinic schema

For GP practices, private clinics, and specialist centres (not full hospitals), use MedicalClinic:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "MedicalClinic",
  "name": "Oakwood Family Practice",
  "url": "https://oakwoodfp.co.uk",
  "telephone": "+44-1234-567890",
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "streetAddress": "45 Oakwood Road",
    "addressLocality": "Birmingham",
    "postalCode": "B15 2JA",
    "addressCountry": "GB"
  },
  "medicalSpecialty": "General Practice",
  "availableService": [
    { "@type": "MedicalTherapy", "name": "Annual Health Check" },
    { "@type": "MedicalProcedure", "name": "Flu Vaccination" },
    { "@type": "DiagnosticProcedure", "name": "Blood Tests" }
  ],
  "openingHoursSpecification": [
    {
      "@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification",
      "dayOfWeek": ["Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday"],
      "opens": "08:00", "closes": "18:30"
    }
  ],
  "member": [
    {
      "@type": "Person",
      "name": "Dr James O'Brien",
      "jobTitle": "GP Partner"
    }
  ]
}

5. Health article schema and E-E-A-T

For health information articles — whether on a hospital website, a health news site, or a patient information portal — using MedicalWebPage combined with Article gives Google clear signals about the medical context of the content. The key fields for E-E-A-T are author (with their credentials) and reviewedBy (a medical reviewer, if applicable).

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "MedicalWebPage",
  "name": "High Blood Pressure: Symptoms, Causes, and Treatment",
  "description": "A guide to understanding high blood pressure — what causes it, symptoms to look out for, and evidence-based treatment options.",
  "url": "https://yourclinic.com/conditions/high-blood-pressure",
  "datePublished": "2025-11-01T00:00:00Z",
  "dateModified": "2026-02-20T00:00:00Z",
  "author": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "@id": "https://yourclinic.com/doctors/dr-rachel-patel/#person",
    "name": "Dr Rachel Patel"
  },
  "reviewedBy": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Dr Mark Williams",
    "jobTitle": "Consultant Physician"
  },
  "medicalAudience": {
    "@type": "MedicalAudience",
    "audienceType": "Patient"
  },
  "about": {
    "@type": "MedicalCondition",
    "name": "Hypertension",
    "alternateName": "High Blood Pressure",
    "code": {
      "@type": "MedicalCode",
      "code": "I10",
      "codingSystem": "ICD-10"
    }
  },
  "publisher": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "St. Andrews Cardiac Centre",
    "@id": "https://yourclinic.com/#hospital"
  }
}

6. What NOT to include in medical schema

✗ No patient data

Never include patient names, medical record numbers, treatment details, or any personally identifying health information in structured data. Patient data is private and confidential.

✗ No unverified diagnostic claims

Do not mark up symptom checkers or AI diagnosis tools as MedicalCondition schema with definitive diagnoses. Schema should describe your content, not make health claims.

✗ No fabricated credentials

Author credentials in schema must match the actual credentials of the real person. Listing "MBBS, PhD" in schema for an author who does not hold those qualifications is misleading and will undermine trust.

✗ No overgenerous specialties list

A general practice listing every specialty in the MedicalSpecialty field (Cardiology, Neurology, etc.) when it only does general practice is inflated. Use only the accurate specialties.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does medical schema improve Google rankings?▼

Not directly. Schema is not a confirmed ranking factor. However, for YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) medical content, schema signals like reviewedBy, author credentials, and Organisation identity are used by Google to assess E-E-A-T, which directly influences how prominently pages are surfaced.

What is the most important schema for a doctor's website?▼

Person schema with medical credentials (hasCredential) for individual doctor pages, and either MedicalClinic or Hospital for the practice page. Together these build entity authority for both the doctors and the organisation.

Is there a dedicated schema type for medical conditions?▼

Yes. Schema.org has MedicalCondition with properties for signs, symptoms, treatment options, and ICD codes. Use this on condition pages, then reference it from MedicalWebPage using the about property to link the article to the condition entity.

How do I show medical credentials in schema?▼

Use the hasCredential property on a Person schema. Each credential is an EducationalOccupationalCredential with credentialCategory (e.g. "Medical Degree") and recognizedBy (the issuing organisation). This is the primary way to signal author expertise to Google for medical content.

Can structured data demonstrate E-E-A-T for medical content?▼

Yes. The key fields are: author (with @id to a credentialled Person entity), reviewedBy (a second medical expert), dateModified (currency of information), and publisher (a recognised medical organisation). These structured signals complement but do not replace high-quality content.

What schema should an NHS GP practice use?▼

Use MedicalClinic as the primary type (a subtype of MedicalBusiness) with medicalSpecialty set to "General Practice". Include openingHoursSpecification, telephone, address, and the member property to list GP partners. For NHS trusts, use Hospital instead.

Should every health article have a medical reviewer in schema?▼

Not every article, but any article making clinical claims ideally should. The reviewedBy field in MedicalWebPage schema signals to Google that the content has been verified by a qualified medical professional — which significantly strengthens E-E-A-T for YMYL health content.

Can I use MedicalWebPage for all health content on my site?▼

MedicalWebPage is for pages whose primary purpose is conveying medical information (condition guides, treatment explainers, clinical articles). For general blog posts that touch on health topics tangentially, plain Article schema is fine. Use MedicalWebPage for clinical content that directly advises on health decisions.

Validate Your Medical Site Schema

Enter any page URL from your medical website. We check every schema type against Google's requirements and flag missing E-E-A-T fields.

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Medical Schema Markup: Physicians, Hospitals, and Health Content