How Zavis is building a verified review system
Trust in UAE healthcare cannot be borrowed from a scraped star rating. This page explains what Zavis will verify, how, when, and — just as importantly — what we will never fake. No reviews are live yet.
The problem with most healthcare reviews
Most healthcare reviews on the internet are impossible to trust. Anonymous users can rate providers they have never visited. Competitors can leave malicious one-star reviews. Public-relations vendors can quietly seed five-star listings. Review farms will sell a patient-shaped review for a few dirhams. None of these problems are solved by adding more review text — they are solved by proving that a real patient, who actually visited a real provider, is the one leaving the review. Without a booking gate, an appointment loop, or a verified check-in, every review on a directory page is a claim that cannot be audited. Zavis has, until now, avoided this failure mode by not publishing patient reviews at all. What you see on provider pages today is the Google aggregate rating number, not a Zavis review. This page explains how we plan to earn the right to publish reviews of our own — and the operational commitments we are taking before a single review goes live on zavis.ai.
Why Zocdoc is our benchmark
In the United States, Zocdoc has spent more than fifteen years building what is, to our knowledge, the strongest closed-loop verified review system in healthcare. Zocdoc only accepts reviews from patients who actually booked an appointment through their platform, and every review is checked against a human moderation queue before it goes live. The reason it works is not the review form — it is the booking loop underneath the review form. Zavis is not copying Zocdoc's exact product, and we are not imitating the "Zocdoc Verified" badge. We are adopting the principle: a review is only useful if the reviewer was provably a patient. Everything below is the UAE-specific version of that principle.
The Zavis verification framework
Zavis will publish reviews under five verification tiers. Each tier is independent: a provider can carry one, several, or none of them. A review without any tier will never appear on a Zavis provider page.
- 01
Verified Visit
Verified VisitPatient proved they actually visited the provider via SMS-OTP, QR code, or insurance claim.
- 02
Verified Prescription
Verified PrescriptionPatient uploaded a PII-redacted prescription or discharge summary confirming treatment.
- 03
Zavis Gold
Zavis GoldInsurer-surfaced and co-branded: the payer has independently confirmed the provider meets network quality criteria.
- 04
Editorial Review
Editorial ReviewThe Zavis editorial team has reviewed this provider's claim history, credentials, and public record.
- 05
License Verified
License VerifiedZavis confirmed a current, active DHA, DOH, or MOHAP license number for this provider.
What Zavis will never do
- Generate fake reviews, sample testimonials, or "placeholder" patient quotes of any kind.
- Republish the full text of Google Reviews or scrape them for display on Zavis provider pages.
- Auto-generate review text using a language model, even if the underlying facts would be accurate.
- Accept payment from providers in exchange for positive reviews, review placement, or review suppression.
- Claim a provider is "accepting new patients" in any structured data or visible UI surface unless the claim is backed by a real data source and an update loop.
- Display review counts we cannot trace back to a specific verification tier on this page.
Moderation policy
Every review that reaches Zavis will enter a human moderation queue before publication. Moderators are trained Zavis staff — not the providers themselves, and not an automated pipeline. The queue enforces the following policies:
- Appeals window: providers have a 12-month dispute window from the date of publication. Appeals go to [email protected].
- Provider response window: 7 days of private response before a review goes live.
- Velocity caps: no single provider may receive more than a set number of reviews per rolling 24-hour period without a secondary verification flag — a standard anti-gaming guard against coordinated campaigns.
- Content rules: no PII, no named clinicians unless they are the profile subject, no specific medical outcome claims we cannot verify, no defamation, no hate speech.
- Removal triggers: reviews are removed if the patient withdraws consent, if the provider produces contradicting primary evidence, or if the content violates published rules.
Data privacy & PDPL compliance
The Zavis verified review system will operate under UAE PDPL Federal Decree Law No. 45 of 2021. That means: explicit, granular opt-in consent before any SMS is sent; a clear privacy notice on the review form that names the data controller, the purposes, the retention period, and the patient's rights; mobile numbers stored only as a salted hash, never as plaintext; a 12-month retention window; and a documented right to erasure that we honor within 30 days of a valid request. A Data Protection Officer contact will be published on this page before any intake form goes live, and an independent PDPL audit of the SMS-OTP flow is listed as a hard gating milestone below.
Rollout timeline — launching Q3 2026
- Q2 2026Publish this policy page. Open public comment to [email protected]. Begin moderation-team hiring.
- Q2 2026PDPL legal review of SMS-OTP flow and consent language. Appoint Data Protection Officer. Sign SMS provider with DPA.
- Q3 2026Pilot with 20–40 consenting providers in Dubai. Verified Visit tier only. No public visibility during the pilot.
- Q3 2026Public launch of Verified Visit + License Verified tiers across Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Publish first Trust Report with moderation statistics.
- Q4 2026Add Verified Prescription and Editorial Review tiers. Expand to Sharjah and the Northern Emirates.
- 2027Zavis Gold tier, launched in partnership with consenting insurers. Expand to the rest of the GCC.
Frequently asked questions
Why doesn't Zavis have patient reviews yet?+
Zavis intentionally does not display patient reviews at launch because we have not yet built an appointment loop that can prove a reviewer actually visited the provider. Unverified reviews have well-documented problems — fake ratings, competitor attacks, review farming — and the UAE has strict defamation and data-protection rules that make publishing unverified patient complaints risky. We would rather show zero reviews than show untrustworthy ones.
Why not just display Google Reviews next to each provider?+
We show the Google rating count as a reference signal, but we do not re-publish the full Google review text. Google's Terms of Service restrict large-scale republication, the reviews are not PDPL-compliant on our surface, and re-publishing them would create a second defamation exposure layer for Zavis. The Google rating number stays; the raw text stays on Google.
What is SMS-OTP verification and why use it?+
SMS-OTP (One-Time Password) verification is how we will prove that a reviewer actually visited the provider. The provider captures the patient's mobile number at check-in, Zavis sends a one-time code to that number, and the patient uses the code to unlock the review form — but only within a 30-day window after the visit. It is the same pattern used by banks, and it meets UAE PDPL Federal Decree Law No. 45 of 2021 consent requirements.
How will I appeal a negative review once the system launches?+
Providers will get a 7-day private response window before any review goes live, plus a 12-month dispute window after publication. Disputes go to [email protected] and are reviewed by a human moderator, not an automated system. Reviews that violate our published content policy — defamation, PII, medical outcomes we cannot verify, hate speech — are removed. Reviews that the provider simply disagrees with are not.
Will Zavis display Google Reviews?+
Zavis displays the Google aggregate rating count as a reference number on provider pages, because it is one of the only independently sourced signals available in the UAE right now. We do not republish the full review body. Once the Zavis verified review system is live, the Zavis-verified rating will appear alongside the Google rating so patients can see both.
How will Zavis handle PDPL compliance?+
Every review flow will follow UAE PDPL Federal Decree Law No. 45 of 2021: explicit opt-in consent before we send any SMS, clear privacy notice on the review form, data minimization (we never store the full mobile number in plaintext — only a hash), a documented 12-month retention window, and a right to erasure on request. A Data Protection Officer contact will be published on this page before any intake goes live.
Will providers be able to respond to reviews?+
Yes. Every published review will have a single, clearly labeled provider response field. Responses are limited to one per review, cannot contain patient PII, and are moderated against the same content policy as reviews themselves. Providers who respond inside the 7-day private window will have their response go live the same moment the review does.
When does the verified review system launch?+
Target launch is Q3 2026. That schedule depends on (1) operational moderation capacity being staffed, (2) the SMS-OTP provider integration being PDPL-audited, (3) the 5 verification tiers described on this page being legally reviewed, and (4) a pilot cohort of 20–40 providers agreeing to participate in the first 90 days. We will update this page as those milestones land.
Contact & policy updates
Questions, corrections, appeals, or policy feedback: [email protected].
This policy is reviewed and updated at least quarterly, and whenever a rollout milestone changes. Last updated: 11 April 2026. Arabic version: النسخة العربية.