Running a practice
What you need to know about setting a practice address
Listing inaccurate business addresses for your practice can actually do more harm than good.
March 27, 2026
4 min read
When you’re growing or building your therapy practice, it’s only natural to look for every competitive edge you can find. Some providers might be inclined to add practice location addresses — on maps, search engines, directories, and other spots — where they don't actually meet with clients in the hopes of being discovered by patients in those areas.
It’s an understandable instinct. But it’s also one that can backfire — on your clients, on your standing with insurers, and ultimately on your practice.
Here’s what practice addresses are actually for, and why padding your location can hurt your practice more than help it in the long run.
What a practice address is (and isn’t)
Your practice address serves a primary purpose: helping clients who want in-person care find someone within a reasonable distance of where they live or work. It's a piece of information that patients rely on when finding vital care.
It’s easy to think that more addresses would mean a better ranking — that’s how SEO works in a lot of contexts. But on Headway, your practice address doesn't affect how you show up in telehealth search results. Of all of the signals Headway considers matching, only two geographic factors are part of the equation:
- The state where the client is located
- The state where the provider is credentialed
Put simply, your listed addresses don’t enter into the equation or impact your discoverability for telehealth clients on Headway at all.
For people seeking in-person care, having an address in a given area does mean you’ll show up for clients looking for a nearby provider. But that only matters if you’re actually there to see them. A listing without a real practice behind it doesn’t offer in-person care in the way the client wants. It just confuses them.
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Why inaccurate addresses hurt therapists and clients
Adding extra or inactive locations to your profile might seem like a low-stakes marketing hack. But it creates real problems for your clients, your payer relationships, and your practice growth. Here’s how.
They create a negative experience for people seeking care
Put yourself in a potential client’s shoes: they search for a nearby in-person therapist, find you, and reach out — only to learn you’re not actually available anywhere near their area. That’s a frustrating experience that erodes trust before the relationship even starts, often leading to cancellations and early drop-off. These prospective clients are seeking care in a moment of need and courage, so false addresses can be an added obstacle for them.
Overall, it doesn’t game search results — it just makes prospective clients feel duped (and can make your practice look untrustworthy).
They put you and your payer relationships at risk
Insurers are under serious regulatory pressure to maintain accurate provider directories. Inaccurate or inflated address lists contribute to what’s known as “ghost networks” — directories full of providers who aren’t actually available to clients in a given area.
Payers have faced significant litigation over this issue and, as a result, they’re scrutinizing directory data more carefully than ever. Listing addresses where you don’t actually see clients can flag your profile for audits, create payment friction, or in more serious cases, put your paneling with insurers at risk.
They don’t benefit you or the client
As we covered above, extra addresses don’t actually improve your visibility in Headway search results for telehealth clients. And while they might help you show up in more in-person searches, that doesn’t mean anything if it can’t lead to an actual appointment.
It’s also easy to overlook the ongoing cost of maintaining these listings. Keeping fake locations up to date across all of these directories demands time and energy — and those are hours you’re not spending on clinical care, genuine marketing, or the things that really matter for your practice.
Plus, you might be matched with prospective clients who ultimately are not a good fit for what you’d like to see in your practice (like a client seeking in-person care when you only offer telehealth). This adds up to wasted energy and resources for you, since you’re having to review matches that are a poor fit and take discovery calls that don’t lead to clients because of logistics that could’ve been screened out sooner.
How to handle your practice addresses the right way
Fortunately, the bar for what counts as a legitimate practice address is straightforward: It’s a HIPAA-compliant place where you see clients in person. If that isn’t true, it shouldn’t be on your profile. (Headway providers, for example, don’t need their practice mailing address or their home address listed on their profiles.)
It’s smart to audit your listings periodically — on Headway, in your insurance directories, and anywhere else you appear — and remove any addresses that aren’t actively in use. It’s a small maintenance task that benefits you in the form of cleaner profiles, less admin overhead, and stronger standing with the payers you depend on for reimbursement.
We’ve actually built this process directly into Headway. If a practice address hasn't been used for an in-person appointment in six months, we'll flag it in your provider portal and send you a reminder email, so you always have a chance to confirm you're still seeing clients there before anything changes. If you are, a single click keeps the address active. If you don't respond and the address remains unused, we'll archive it for you. This keeps your profile accurate without requiring you to stay on top of it manually. And if your circumstances change and you start seeing clients at an archived location again, you can always add it back.
Location, location, reputation
Your practice address list might seem like a small thing, but it carries real weight. Being honest and accurate protects your clients from frustrating dead ends, keeps your payer relationships on solid ground, and frees you from the admin slog of maintaining listings that were never going to benefit your practice anyway.
Of course, your address list is just one of the many moving parts you need to manage. Headway handles a lot of the administrative legwork of running a private practice so you can spend even more time on what matters: your clients.
This content is for general informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute clinical, legal, financial, or professional advice. All decisions should be made at the discretion of the individual or organization, in consultation with qualified clinical, legal, or other appropriate professionals.
© 2026 Therapymatch, Inc. dba Headway. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission.
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