Schema App has recorded two separate declines in review snippets for its healthcare customers, and Google has not said why. Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable reported the finding on October 7, based on observations by Andrea Badder at Schema App, a structured data vendor. No Google announcement, documentation change, or statement accompanies it.
Badder described the pattern in writing. “Across our healthcare customers, we’ve observed a drop in Review Snippet visibility since late May, with another drop occurring in early August for some organizations.” She backed it with a chart from the Search Console performance report, filtered by search appearance.
The vendor first checked whether its own work caused the loss. According to Badder, the customer success team tried several variations: connecting aggregateRating to the page entity in other ways, using different property paths, and typing healthcare entities as Product as well. None of it brought the stars back. That result points away from a markup bug on the customer side, though it does not prove a deliberate change on Google’s end.
Schwartz adds his own reading, and it is separate from the Schema App data. He notes that Google has a record of switching off particular rich results, sometimes for whole industries, and he wonders whether the medical category is the latest. He also says he does not personally see review stars when searching for doctors or dentists, except in local results. That is one observer’s spot check plus speculation. It is not a measurement, and the local-results exception matters because it suggests the reviews shown there come from a different system than the review snippet tied to page markup.
The more useful signal is how Schema App’s customers responded. Some agreed to more testing. Many declined to alter markup that correctly describes their physicians, locations, services, and specialties just to chase the rich result. Badder’s own conclusion was that “Rich results are still valuable when Google awards them.”
For a healthcare SEO team, the first step is verification, not rewrites. Open the Search Console performance report, apply the Search appearance filter for review snippets, and chart the history against the late May and early August windows Schema App cites. Then split the data by page template, because physician profiles, location pages, and service pages may behave differently. If your own curve drops at similar points, you are seeing the same effect. If it does not, look at your markup and page eligibility before blaming Google.
Resist the urge to rewrite accurate markup to recover stars. Schema that correctly states who the physicians are, where they practice, and what they treat serves search engines and AI systems whether or not a star rating renders. Reshaping the data to fit a rich result that may no longer be offered to the category risks making entity descriptions less truthful, and that is a poor trade for a display feature Google can withdraw.
The Google side of this remains open. The company has not said whether healthcare is excluded, whether eligibility changed, or whether this is a temporary fluctuation. Search Console data from a single vendor’s client base also cannot show how widespread the loss is across the web.
Healthcare teams should baseline their review snippet impressions now, keep the markup accurate, and stop reporting star appearance as a performance target until Google documents what is eligible.
Search Engine Roundtable (Barry Schwartz), October 7, 2026, reporting observations by Andrea Badder at Schema App.
