Site Selection & Startups
Less than it used to be — and probably less than you think.
Market Perspective
One of the quickest ways for a space to move up a practice owner’s list is a prominent sign. If thousands of cars pass the property every day, the assumption is that thousands of potential patients will notice the practice.
I’m not convinced that is how people behave anymore.
On many suburban roads, traffic is moving 45 or 55 miles per hour. Drivers are watching the vehicles around them, looking for their next turn, and processing traffic signals, storefronts, billboards, and everything else competing for their attention.
How many of them are actually registering the name of a dental or medical practice they pass? How many will remember it months later when they need care?
Signage still has value. I just think practice owners often give it far more weight than it deserves.
The Evidence
A 2017 peer-reviewed study modeled the likelihood that motorists would view 467 on-premise business signs along U.S. Route 50. Across all the signs studied, the average probability of being viewed was 56.6%. Even the primary signs — the ones most clearly associated with each property — averaged 65.9%.
The research predicted visual attention rather than measuring whether a driver remembered the business or eventually became a customer. But that is part of the point. Seeing the sign is only the beginning. A driver would still need to register the name, remember it later, need that particular service, and then choose the practice over every other option.
Repeated exposure can create familiarity. Someone who passes the same practice twice a day may eventually recognize its name. That is real, but it is difficult to measure — and it is not a patient-acquisition strategy by itself.
How Patients Decide
Think about the last time you chose a dentist, physician, veterinarian, or physical therapist.
You probably searched online, asked someone you trust, checked reviews, looked at the practice’s website, confirmed that the location was reasonably convenient, and then made an appointment. By the time you drove past the property, the decision had largely been made.
Google Maps now serves more than two billion users each month. In 2024, Google says it provided one trillion kilometers of directions. Its arrival guidance can highlight the destination building and entrance, identify nearby parking, and provide walking directions from the car to the door.
Healthcare-provider selection has moved online too. A consumer survey by patient-experience research firm Press Ganey found that 37% of respondents now find their doctors online. It also reported that 2023 was the first year the internet became more important for choosing a doctor than referrals from friends, family, or another physician.
That does not mean referrals have stopped mattering or that everyone starts with Google. It means the roadside sign is entering the decision much later than it once did.
For most appointment-based practices, signage has shifted from a discovery tool to an arrival tool.
Visibility vs. Access
Road visibility and patient convenience are not the same thing.
A property may have an enormous sign but require a difficult left turn. It may sit at a major intersection while forcing patients to circle through another property to reach it. The building may face the road while the actual entrance is hidden around the back.
Meanwhile, a less-prominent building may offer a traffic signal, an easy curb cut, abundant parking, and a clear path from the car to the reception desk.
The easy entrance will affect every patient visit. The large roadside sign may influence only a small portion of patient discovery.
That does not make signage irrelevant. It puts it in perspective.
Specialty Differences
Some healthcare businesses benefit more from road exposure than others.
Urgent care, veterinary emergency services, med spas, and other consumer-facing operations may gain more from spontaneous awareness and repeated exposure. Signage also has a better chance of registering in a walkable district or along a lower-speed road.
An appointment-based general dental practice is different. A referral-driven specialist may depend even less on drive-by discovery because its geography is shaped by referring offices and established professional relationships.
Signage should be evaluated according to how patients actually find and choose that particular kind of practice — not as a universal measure of whether a location is good.
Priorities
When evaluating a healthcare location, I would put several things ahead of road-sign prominence:
Whether the community supports the practice’s patient base or referral network
How easily patients can enter and leave the property
Parking during the practice’s busiest hours
Whether the space can support the clinical layout, utilities, equipment, and future growth
The complete economics of the lease or purchase
Whether a first-time patient can identify the correct building and entrance after navigation brings them there
That last point is where physical signage still matters most. The practice does not need to dominate the road. It needs to be clear and identifiable when the patient arrives.
Due Diligence
None of this means signage should be ignored during negotiation. For a first practice, it belongs on the same list as the rent, the allowance, and the construction language.
The sign shown during a tour may not be permitted by the municipality. Monument space may already belong to another tenant. Building signage may require landlord approval, and the lease may promise far less than the leasing brochure suggested.
Before committing to a location, confirm what is permitted, where the sign can be placed, who pays for it, and whether those rights are actually written into the lease.
Signage deserves due diligence. It just should not be confused with demand.
The Better Question
Most people driving past your practice are focused on driving. Most do not need your services at that moment. Many will never consciously register that the practice is there.
The people actively looking for care behave differently. They search, compare, ask, read, schedule, and navigate. When they arrive, the sign helps them complete a decision that has largely already been made.
The more useful question is not whether everyone driving past can see the practice.
It is whether the right patients can find it when they need it — and whether the real estate works once they arrive.
Related Insights
Region, community, site, and space are separate questions with separate evidence — and the order matters.
Read the guide → GuideThe real estate side of opening a practice: financing, location, lease terms beyond asking rent, and whether to lease or buy.
Read the guide → Market PerspectiveThe access, parking and ownership potential a former branch can offer — and the due diligence it still has to survive.
Read the perspective → Market PerspectiveZoning, noise and municipal approval risks that other medical users often do not face.
Read the perspective →Site Selection
We can help you separate the features that look good on a property tour from the ones that will actually matter to your practice and its patients.
Start a Conversation