Your own website or rehab directory listings: where should a treatment center put its effort?
Not either or. The question is which one carries the weight, and which one points to the other.
- Last reviewed
- 7 primary sources, linked
- No agencies ranked
Both, in order. Claim the listings that cost little and stay honest, starting with FindTreatment.gov (opens in a new tab) through SAMHSA's annual survey (opens in a new tab) and a free Google Business Profile (opens in a new tab), and make your own website the page every listing points to. A directory rents you a spot on someone else's page, beside your competitors, under its rules. Your website is the only page where the name, the number and the claims are certainly yours. Be careful with any directory that charges per call or per admission.
At a glance
| Factor | Your own website | Directory listings |
|---|---|---|
| Who controls the page | You: copy, photos, claims and layout | The directory: layout, order and who appears beside you |
| Whose phone number | Yours | Check: it may be a number the directory controls |
| Cost | Build and upkeep; organic visits cost nothing per visit | Free for a Google Business Profile, $29.95 a month for a clinician on Psychology Today; read every fee term |
| Reach on day one | Only what your rankings and ads earn | The directory's audience: FindTreatment.gov drew over 5.1 million views in 2025 |
| AI answers | Cited 7 times among 56 sources in KhanWork's test of 24 ChatGPT answers | Rehab directories cited 16 times among the same 56, the biggest group |
| Keeping it current | Every page kept current by you or your builder | Each listing on its own schedule: FindTreatment.gov needs the survey every year |
| Legal shape of the fee | No referral fee involved | Florida excepts some information-service fees set in advance at fair market value; fees based on a patient's value fall outside |
| When you stop | The site stays yours | Paid listings disappear; free ones stay, framed by the directory |
Read across a row. Every outside figure in the table is listed with its source at the foot of the page.
Which to choose
Put the effort into your website if
- Families already find you, and the page they land on does not convert.
- You run ads, which need a landing page you control.
- Directories describe your programs or insurance wrongly and you cannot fix them fast.
- You want rankings and AI citations that point to your own name.
Lean on directories first if
- You are a new program with no search presence yet.
- The listing is free or a flat fee, and you can keep it accurate.
- You are a clinician in private practice and a therapist directory fits how you take new clients.
- The directory shows your own phone number and never routes callers elsewhere.
What decides it
A listing is someone else's page
On a directory, the layout, the order and the competitors beside you are the directory's choice. The worst version is the one the FTC described in a 2025 complaint (opens in a new tab): search ads showing the names of clinics, with the calls routed to a call center whose staff posed as the clinic or as a centralized admissions office. Before you pay for any listing, call the number it shows for your center and see who answers.
Directories now feed AI answers
When KhanWork asked ChatGPT 24 rehab questions across 12 cities on 1 October 2026, the answers cited 56 sources: rehab directories 16 times, the biggest group, and treatment centers' own websites 7 times. When a directory said a center accepted a plan or offered detox, ChatGPT repeated it (the study). An out-of-date listing is now an out-of-date AI answer, which is a reason to keep listings accurate, not to stop building your site.
How a listing fee can cross the line
Florida's patient brokering law makes paying for referrals a felony, but it expressly excepts (opens in a new tab) payments to a health information service that gives consumers information free of charge, does not steer them toward a particular provider, does not diagnose or counsel, does not arrange transport, and charges fees set in advance, consistent with fair market value and not based on the potential value of a patient. A flat listing fee can fit that shape. A fee per admission cannot. Federal law adds EKRA (opens in a new tab) on top, and the pay-per-admission comparison covers it.
Where directories genuinely win
Reach on day one, and a voice in AI answers. A new program has no rankings, and FindTreatment.gov alone drew over 5.1 million views in 2025 (opens in a new tab). In KhanWork's own test, directories were cited more than twice as often as treatment centers' websites in ChatGPT's answers. Skipping the honest listings to pour everything into a website would leave you out of both.
Where KhanWork fits
We build the website every listing points to: the program, insurance and admissions pages a family checks after finding you somewhere else. Our SEO work includes Google Business Profile alignment and consistent details everywhere your center is listed, because in our ChatGPT test the answers repeated what the listings said.
Foundation Partner ($1,000 a month) builds the landing page and refreshes the brand around it, then adds one new page a month. Growth Partner ($2,500 a month) builds the whole site, with a monthly AI visibility report on who gets named for your city. Cornerstone Healing Center saw 20 percent more website conversions after our redesign.
Read deeper
- How ChatGPT and Perplexity recommend treatment centers
what 24 answers cited, and why directories lead
- Rehab marketing without buying leads
including the free FindTreatment.gov listing
- Insurance verification pages
why yours is losing admissions
Sources
Every outside fact on this page, about a platform, a law or a market, comes from one of these primary sources, each opened and read on 2026-10-15. Figures from KhanWork's own published research are listed separately below.
- SAMHSAFindTreatment.gov (opens in a new tab)Supports: The federal treatment locator itself.
- SAMHSAN-SUMHSS, National Substance Use and Mental Health Services Survey (opens in a new tab)Supports: Facilities must complete the survey every year to keep a FindTreatment.gov listing; over 5.1 million views in 2025.
- GoogleGoogle Business Profile (opens in a new tab)Supports: Creating a Business Profile and listing your business on Google is free.
- Psychology TodayJoin Psychology Today (opens in a new tab)Supports: Members pay a fixed monthly fee of $29.95, with no contracts.
- Federal Trade CommissionFTC sues to stop Mercury Marketing and others from deceptively advertising substance use disorder treatment (June 24, 2025) (opens in a new tab)Supports: The alleged search ads showing unaffiliated clinic names, calls routed to a call center, and treatment clinics named as defendants (allegations, not findings).
- The Florida SenateFlorida Statutes § 817.505, Patient brokering prohibited; exceptions; penalties (2024) (opens in a new tab)Supports: What is unlawful, the felony tiers and fines by number of patients, and the exception for health information services.
- Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School18 U.S.C. § 220, Illegal remunerations for referrals to recovery homes, clinical treatment facilities, and laboratories (EKRA) (opens in a new tab)Supports: The offense, the penalty per occurrence, the exception for employees and contractors, the carve-out for conduct covered by the Anti-Kickback Statute, and the statement that EKRA does not occupy the field.
KhanWork's own research cited here
- How ChatGPT and Perplexity Recommend Treatment Centers (KhanWork, 1 October 2026)Supports: 24 ChatGPT answers across 12 cities cited 56 sources: rehab directories 16 times, treatment centers' own websites 7 times.
Last reviewed
Frequently asked questions
For an eligible facility, yes. It is SAMHSA's treatment locator, it drew over 5.1 million views in 2025, and a facility keeps its listing by completing SAMHSA's N-SUMHSS survey every year.
Be very careful. A fee tied to patients is the shape federal and state anti-kickback laws are written against, and Florida's exception for information services only covers fees set in advance at fair market value that are not based on the value of a patient. Have a healthcare attorney read the terms first.
Claim and correct the free listings first, because they are quick and they feed AI answers. Then fix the website, because every listing sends families to it, and a page that does not convert wastes every one of them.
Still deciding? Start with the page you already have.
Send your URL for the free funnel review. Within two business days you get a 3-minute video on the page your traffic lands on, the three places it is losing inquiries, and what ChatGPT and Perplexity say about your center. No call attached.