How the Real Vet Score works
Every clinic's score is a number from 0 to 100 built only from ratings people actually gave and what they actually wrote. We never add ratings, edit them, or let clinics pay for a better score. Each clinic page shows the exact numbers behind its score under “How this score was calculated.”
1. Every real rating, weighted
- Google and Yelp. We use each platform's own average and review count, so every rating counts, including reviews whose text we haven't collected. Each rating is one vote, whichever site it's on.
- Facebook. Facebook has recommendations instead of stars: a recommendation counts as a 5-star rating and a “doesn’t recommend” as 1 star.
- The same person reviewing a clinic on two sites counts on both. A review a site lists twice counts once.
- Member reviews on Real Vet Reviews count 1.5 times, because each author confirmed an email address and can review a clinic only once.
- Member reviews with a bill a moderator checked count 3 times.
- Member reviews older than two years count half as much.
2. Recent experience matters
When a clinic has at least 5 reviews from the last 24 months, their average makes up a quarter of the result. A clinic that changed owners or staff shouldn't be judged only on what happened years ago.
3. Small samples are pulled toward the middle
Three 5-star reviews prove less than 400 reviews averaging 4.7. We blend each clinic's result with the average across all clinics, as if it had 20 extra typical reviews. The more real reviews a clinic has, the less this matters. Clinics with fewer than 10 ratings get no score at all.
4. What reviewers actually say
Stars don't tell the whole story, so an AI model running on our own servers reads each review and notes which topics it discusses and whether it's positive or negative about each: cost and billing, explaining options, gentle with pets, front desk and staff, wait times and booking, treatment results, clean facilities. Topics that matter most for your pet's health count most: treatment results three times; gentle with pets and explaining options twice; cost and front desk once; wait times and clean facilities half as much. A clinic whose reviews consistently praise or criticize its care moves by up to 0.4 stars. Clinics with only a few analyzed reviews move less.
5. Serious concerns
When a reviewer describes serious harm, like a missed diagnosis, an injury, a death or unsafe practice, the AI flags it and a person on our team checks it. Once confirmed, the concern is shown on the clinic's page in the reviewer's own words, and counts as one strongly negative review in step 4. A single concern never triggers the concern penalty: 3 or more confirmed concerns within 24 months lower it by up to half a star. We can't verify what happened in any single visit, and clinics can reply to every member review.
6. Converting to 0–100
Most vets sit between 4 and 5 stars, so the scale is stretched where the real differences are: 3 to 5 stars maps to 20–100, and 1 to 3 stars to 0–20. A clinic at 4.9 scores 96; one at 4.6 scores 84.
7. How sure we are
Each score comes with a likely range, for example “likely 88–94”. It is narrow when a clinic has hundreds of ratings and wide when it has a dozen, so you can see how much evidence stands behind the number. We work it out from how spread out ratings can be around that average and how many ratings we have.
Rankings
Each clinic is ranked against the other scored clinics in its city. Where a city has fewer than 8, it is ranked within its county, then its state. Rankings use the low end of each clinic's likely range, so a clinic needs a high score and enough reviews behind it to rank near the top; a handful of perfect reviews can't outrank years of consistently good ones. “Top 10%” and “Bottom 10%” labels appear only in areas with at least 10 scored clinics.
What the score leaves out
Prices don't change the score: a clinic isn't better because it's cheaper. Prices appear separately in “What people paid,” built only from bills members report and amounts quoted word for word in reviews.
How often it updates
Every day we check a share of clinics for new reviews, so each clinic is re-checked on a rotating schedule, and we look for new clinics every week. Scores and rankings are recalculated every night. A clinic's score also updates as soon as a member posts a review; rankings update overnight. This is version 6 of the method.
Questions about a score? See how we keep reviews honest.