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Know which ads bring patients through the door, without telling Google or Meta who checked in.
Hippo is HIPAA-compliant ad tracking for urgent care centers. It counts the online check-ins, calls and visits your ads produce, in an account you own, and keeps patient identities and reasons for the visit out of what Google and Meta receive.
No annual contracts.
Transparent pricing.
We set it up for you.
An urgent care patient starts as an online check-in or a walk-in, and the check-in usually finishes on someone else's site
Most centers advertise when they open a location or need more patients per day at the ones they have. The patient searches, sees the wait time, and either reserves a spot online, calls or walks in. The check-in usually finishes on the check-in vendor's site, and the visit is counted at the front desk, so the ad account sees the click and not the patient.
That is why many centers bid on clicks: the check-in that should count as the conversion never makes it back to the campaign. What the account counts as a conversion decides whether the numbers mean anything.
What is worth counting:
- an online check-in or a reserved spot
- a call from an ad that becomes a visit
- a telemedicine visit booked
- the check-in that turned into a visit
What isn't:
- clicks
- wait-time views
- page views
A campaign can fill the waiting room with patients who would have walked in anyway.
Here is the sum, with example numbers.
The sum, with example numbers
- Ad spend a month
- $2,000
- Online check-ins
- 100
- Cost per check-in
- $20
- Check-ins that become visits
- four in five
- A visit from your ads costs
- about $25
Example figures. Put in your own. Each line needs a count you trust, and the last one needs the campaign it came from.
Try the sum with your own numbers. If the visits are not tied to campaigns, that is the gap Hippo closes. It records the check-in, the call and the visit, ties each to the campaign that produced it, and sends the conversion to Google and Meta without the name, email, phone number, IP address or reason for the visit.
What urgent care operators and their marketers say
They can't tell what's working
Spend going out, patients coming in, and no line between them.
The room was filled with operators, owners, and leaders—all asking the same question: Why aren’t our patient numbers matching our marketing investment?
Urgent care marketing agency Spend was going out the door without a predictable cost per patient, and there was no clean line from a dollar spent to a patient in the door.
Urgent care marketing agency We simply didn’t have confidence in the data and reporting capabilities of our previous provider and had to invest in more advanced technology, purpose built for the on-demand care space.
Urgent care operator 
They lose track after the click
Check-ins that finish on other sites, and visits counted at the front desk.
‘Trojan horse’ portals that siphon off users who intended to book with your urgent care, and redirect them to an online urgent care ‘aggregator.’
Former CEO, urgent care chain In an urgent care setting, tracking online check-ins can give us similar data. That said, to depend on conversion-based strategies, you need to be consistently and reliably using an online check-in tool that is used by the majority of your patients.
Web agency founder The front desk staff loves online check-in; they can register a patient in two seconds versus the 75,000 steps they had to do before
Physician assistant, urgent care clinic
Google and Meta treat an urgent care site as health content, and that shapes what you can measure
Urgent care ads need no certification, but pages about physical health conditions(opens in a new tab), such as flu, strep or a urinary tract infection, are a sensitive health category, so you cannot use your own audience lists(opens in a new tab) for them: no Customer Match, no remarketing lists, no lookalikes. Health conversions cannot be measured with enhanced conversions(opens in a new tab) or offline uploads, and Google does not offer a BAA for Google Analytics(opens in a new tab).
Hippo changes none of that. It does not change ad approval or audience rules, adds no words, keywords or claims to your site, and changes no ad copy. It measures what happens after the click.
Meta
Meta sorts data sources into categories, and a site with a patient portal(opens in a new tab) is a named example of the health and wellness one. That category can block lower-funnel events(opens in a new tab) such as Lead and Schedule, blocks custom events until they are reviewed(opens in a new tab), flags a custom conversion that names a condition(opens in a new tab), and you cannot change the category Meta assigns(opens in a new tab).
Meta's rules name medical procedures, treatments and testing(opens in a new tab) among the information it must not receive, the rule covers the names of your events(opens in a new tab), and its core setup strips anything in a URL after the domain(opens in a new tab). An event called "UTI visit booked" breaks it. Meta states that its own filters are no substitute for yours(opens in a new tab).
An event name, before and after
"UTI visit booked"Breaks Meta's terms
A neutral event nameWhat Hippo sends
Sent without the patient's
- name
- phone number
- IP address
- reason for the visit
With audiences closed off and lower-funnel events restricted, the events that still flow are what steer bidding. Hippo sends them under neutral names that carry no reason for the visit, no location and nothing that identifies the patient, and keeps a log of check-ins and visits by campaign that is yours whatever Meta blocks.
Sources: Google, Health in personalized advertising(opens in a new tab) · Google, Personalized advertising(opens in a new tab) · Google, Customer data policies(opens in a new tab) · Google, HIPAA and Google Analytics(opens in a new tab) · Meta, Data source categories(opens in a new tab) · Meta, Data sharing restrictions(opens in a new tab) · Meta, Restrictions on custom conversions(opens in a new tab) · Meta, About prohibited information(opens in a new tab) · Meta, Core setup(opens in a new tab). As of 10/7/26.
HIPAA covers your center, and the wiretap laws are where the suits came from
Federal
HIPAA
An urgent care center that submits claims electronically(opens in a new tab) is a covered entity. HHS names the pages that matter: tracking on a page that permits individuals to schedule appointments(opens in a new tab) can reach PHI, and a tracking vendor receiving it is a business associate, and a BAA is required(opens in a new tab). HIPAA has no private right of action, which is why the cases below came under other laws.
Federal
Federal Wiretap Act
$10,000It allows statutory damages of $10,000 per plaintiff, and no proof of harm. A clinic's own consent to the tracking is no defense when the disclosure itself breaks HIPAA: in the Midwest Express case the court said the revenue could only be gained by committing a HIPAA violation(opens in a new tab).
State
California
$5,000The state's privacy law(opens in a new tab) sets $5,000 per violation with no proof of harm, and its medical confidentiality law adds nominal damages of $1,000(opens in a new tab). Both survived a motion to dismiss against a Southern California urgent care chain.
State
Washington
The My Health My Data Act(opens in a new tab) covers health data HIPAA does not, including the visitor who checked a wait time and never came in.
Enforcement in Urgent Care
Exer Urgent Care(opens in a new tab)
Settled
A patient alleged that tracking tools on Exer's booking site shared patients' data with Meta and Google without consent. In January 2025 the court let the wiretap and medical-privacy claims proceed(opens in a new tab), and in July 2026 Exer resolved the suit(opens in a new tab): the patient's own claims were dismissed after a settlement, and the class claims were dismissed without prejudice. No amount was disclosed.
NextCare(opens in a new tab)
Settled
A patient alleged that the Meta pixel, Meta's server-side feed, Google Analytics and DoubleClick on NextCare's site sent booking data to third parties. After the parties reported a settlement, the court dismissed the patient's claims(opens in a new tab) in June 2026, with the class claims dismissed without prejudice. No amount was disclosed.
Midwest Express Clinic(opens in a new tab)
Pending
A patient alleges that Midwest Express, an urgent care operator in Illinois and Indiana, sent what she did on its booking site to Meta and Google through the Meta Pixel, Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager. The court refused to dismiss the case(opens in a new tab) in August 2025. The claims are allegations.
CityMD(opens in a new tab)
Pending
Patients allege that CityMD(opens in a new tab) disclosed information from its appointment-scheduling flow to Meta, Google, LinkedIn and Microsoft, and that it also ran Meta's server-side Conversions API. The consolidated case is in discovery. The claims are allegations.
CareNow(opens in a new tab)
Pending
Patients allege that CareNow(opens in a new tab) ran Google Analytics and DoubleClick on the website where patients schedule urgent care appointments, and on its patient portal and app, sending their health information to Google. The case was filed in June 2026. The claims are allegations.
Call-On-Doc(opens in a new tab)
Proposed
Call-On-Doc, an online urgent care service, agreed to a proposed settlement(opens in a new tab) of claims under California privacy laws over tracking pixels on its web pages, with class members who file a claim receiving up to $20 each. The settlement site still says the court has to decide whether to approve it.
What the cases have in common:
The pages were booking and check-in pages.
Where a patient picks a location, a time and a reason for the visit.
The tools were ordinary.
The Meta Pixel, Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager, and in one case Meta's server-side feed. Server-side is not a defense.
The defendants were regional chains.
Operators with tens of centers, not national systems.
The federal Wiretap Act reaches any urgent care with an online check-in, and California and Washington add their own damages.
See what your check-in page sends to Google and Meta →(opens in a new tab)How Hippo works
Your website
Book your appointment
Book now
Call us
Booking
Call
Hippo
Records events
Removes identifying information
Sends clean conversion data
Excluded from conversion events
Names
Conditions
IP addresses
Clean conversion events only
Google / Meta
Booking
Call
Remove the pixels that send PHI.
Take the Google and Meta pixels off your site.
Paste one snippet.
Hippo records visits, bookings, and calls, then removes patient names, health details, and IP addresses from the conversion events sent to Google and Meta.
Send clean conversions back to Google and Meta.
Google and Meta receive conversion signals they can use to optimize your campaigns. Patient names, health details, and IP addresses stay out of those events.
With your check-in tool, your EMR and your phones untouched. Hippo runs on your own domain and records the check-in, the call and the visit. Your check-in tool, your EMR and your phone system stay as they are; what changes is what leaves the page. If an agency runs your ads, they keep their reporting and you keep the data and the accounts.
When the check-in finishes on your check-in vendor's site, Hippo counts it through its scheduling connections, so a spot reserved off your site still lands on the campaign that produced it.
Supported integrations
Hippo works with the ad platforms and website tools your practice already uses.
Conversion
Hippo
What you get
Check-ins and visits, by campaign
See which campaigns led to consult requests and bookings, and what each one cost.
Your numbers, in your account
An independent record of results in an account you own. If you change agencies, it stays with you.
Call tracking
Calls that start from an ad are counted as conversions alongside forms and bookings.
A record of what was sent
A log of every event that went to Google and Meta and what was removed from it first.
Pricing
1,000 visitors/month
$99/month
Month to month.
Start now, no demo call1,000 visitors/month(opens in a new tab)2,000 visitors/month
$199/month
Month to month.
Start now, no demo call2,000 visitors/month(opens in a new tab)10,000 visitors/month
$299/month
Month to month.
Start now, no demo call10,000 visitors/month(opens in a new tab)
Every plan includes:
- BAA signed at checkout
- No setup fees
- Cancel anytime. No compliance add-on that locks you in the day you enable it.
Server-side conversion tracking under a BAA, at a price a practice can actually pay.
Frequently asked questions
Our online check-in happens on another site. Can you count it?
Yes. Most check-in tools run on the vendor's own site, reached from a "Save my spot" button on yours, so your page's tags see the click and nothing after it. Hippo counts the click and the call from your pages and the completed check-in through its scheduling connections, so the campaign report shows check-ins, calls and visits together.
Most of our patients walk in. What counts as a conversion?
The check-in and the call are the conversions you can measure; the walk-in is the visit you tie them to. Hippo records the check-in and the call by campaign and, when your check-in and EMR data are connected, which of them became a visit. A campaign judged on clicks cannot tell a patient from a browser.
Our agency runs Google Ads for us. Who installs this, and who owns the data?
We install it for you on a subdomain of your own domain; the agency keeps running the campaigns and sees the same conversions in Google Ads and Meta. The account, the conversions and the log are yours, whichever agency runs the ads next year.
Meta cut our appointment and lead events. Can Hippo get them back?
No. Hippo cannot lift a category Meta has assigned, and you cannot change it(opens in a new tab) either; under the health and wellness category Meta blocks specific mid- and lower-funnel events(opens in a new tab). What a compliant feed changes is what still flows: a check-in sent with no reason for the visit, no URL path and nothing that identifies the patient, and a log of check-ins by campaign that is yours whatever Meta blocks.
The lawsuits are against big chains. We have a few centers.
The defendants so far are regional operators with tens of centers, not national systems, and every complaint is built on the booking or check-in flow, which a single center's site has too. The question that splits the courts is whether a HIPAA violation removes the clinic's consent defense under the federal Wiretap Act, and at least one court has said it does.
We already have call tracking. Is this the same thing?
No. A call tracker records calls and can push them into Google Ads; it does not replace the Meta pixel or your analytics, and it does not carry the online check-in. Keep it if you use it. Hippo ties the call, the check-in and the visit to the campaign and sends Google and Meta a conversion with nothing that identifies the patient.
We have a cookie banner. Isn't that consent?
Not for what the check-in page sends. HHS says a cookie banner is not a HIPAA authorization(opens in a new tab), and one of the urgent care complaints is built on a site that kept asking visitors to accept cookies until they did. Hippo waits for consent where it is required and removes identifiers before anything reaches Google or Meta.
Patients log in to see results and pay bills. Do those pages matter?
Yes. HHS says tracking on a patient portal's logged-in pages(opens in a new tab) generally has access to PHI, and that part of its guidance still stands. Hippo keeps ad tags off logged-in pages and sends nothing from them, so the portal stays out of what Google and Meta receive.
Should we talk to a lawyer about the tracking on our website?
Yes, if you want to know how these laws apply to your centers. This page describes laws, policies and court cases for general information and is not legal advice. Hippo handles the tracking; an attorney can advise you on your obligations.
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