The man at the front desk at 7:45 a.m. isn't coughing. He isn't hurt. He drives a truck, his medical card expires Friday, and without a new one he can't work next week. He wants three things: an examiner who's allowed to sign the form, a card in his hand before he leaves, and a price he knows before he walks in.
His card lasts up to two years, so if the visit goes well he's back when it runs out. And an urgent care ad account can easily treat him exactly like a parent with a feverish toddler. Same campaign, same ads, same budget, same hours. It's a different business hiding inside the same building, and it needs its own campaign.
Drivers Search for a DOT Physical 90,500 Times a Month, and the Number Barely Moves With the Seasons
In Google's Keyword Planner, "dot physical near me" draws about 90,500 searches a month across the US and about 1,600 in our example market, Philadelphia. "Drug test near me" draws about 74,000 nationally and about 1,300 in Philadelphia.
What makes these searches different is the calendar. Chapter 11 showed flu searches running five times higher in December than in July. Over the same twelve months, "dot physical near me" never dropped below 74,000 or rose above 90,500. Drivers' cards expire on their own schedule, not the flu's.
The market already knows this is a business. Six of the twelve urgent care and walk-in websites we profiled sell DOT physicals, and at least two run ads just for them. One Philadelphia center's ads promise a "Same Day DOT Medical Card." Published prices for a DOT physical in our sample run from $110 to $150.
The Driver Needs a Registry Examiner and a Card, Not a Diagnosis
The federal trucking regulator sets the terms. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration says a DOT physical has to be done by a licensed medical examiner listed on its National Registry, and the resulting certificate is good for up to 24 months.
That tells you what the ad needs to say, and it's nothing like an illness ad:
- Certified examiners on site, because a driver who picks a center without one has wasted a morning. One chain in our sample lists every provider at its center as a DOT certified medical examiner.
- Card the same day, because the card is the whole point of the visit.
- The price, if you publish it, because it answers the first question before anyone has to call.
- The hours, because the visit has to fit around a shift.
Wait times matter here too, and the reviews show how. The complaints in our sample about physicals and drug tests were about the same thing illness patients complain about, but sharper, because the test itself takes minutes: "Waiting almost two hours to pee in a cup."
Two Buyers Walk Through One Door: the Driver and the Company That Sends Them
Occupational medicine has two customers. One is the driver or new hire who needs the exam. The other is the company that needs the result: the trucking firm, the warehouse, the HR manager who sends every new hire for a drug screen and the safety manager who calls after a forklift injury.
Patients notice. In the reviews we read, 46 were about physicals and drug tests, and the complaints read like the patient knew they weren't the real customer: "This is a place employers send their employees."
The two buyers search differently. The driver searches "dot physical near me" from a phone in the cab. The employer searches for an occupational health provider, a drug testing account or a workers' comp clinic. Concentra, the national occupational health chain in our sample, builds its location pages around both: a form that asks up front whether you're a patient or an employer who wants to set up an account.
The search numbers show how lopsided the two are. The driver's searches are big: 90,500 a month for "dot physical near me" nationally. The employer's are small. "Occupational health near me" drew about 1,600 a month across the US and about 50 in Philadelphia, and "pre employment physical near me" about 880 nationally and 30 in Philadelphia. One employer account can send many patients, but its searches are few. That's why the employer side needs its own ad, its own page and its own conversion, even though it will never be the biggest line in the account. A form built for an HR manager asks about the company, how many employees it has and which services it needs, not about symptoms.
Occupational Medicine Gets Its Own Campaign, Budget and Hours
Everything above points to one structural decision: occupational medicine runs as its own campaign, never as an ad group inside the illness campaigns.
Its own budget. In January, flu searches can eat every dollar an urgent care campaign has. A DOT campaign with its own budget keeps showing to drivers while the waiting room fills with coughs, and it keeps running in July when the flu campaign has room to spare.
Its own hours. Occupational services can keep narrower hours than the rest of the center. Concentra's Center City location in our sample posts weekday hours only. Another center posted shorter weekend hours for drug screening than for walk-in care. The campaign's ad schedule, from Chapter 9, should match the service's hours, not the building's. And if the campaign is off on weekends, Chapter 9's warning about whole-day schedules and monthly spend applies: set the daily budget from the monthly goal divided by 30.4.
Its own keywords and pages. DOT physicals, drug tests, pre-employment physicals and workers' comp each get an ad group with exact-match keywords, the way Chapter 6 built the services, pointing to a page that says certified examiner, same-day card, price and hours.
A Booked DOT Physical and an Employer Inquiry Are Two Different Conversions
The two buyers also convert differently. A driver books or checks in for a physical, and that's a conversion you can count the same day. An employer fills out a form or calls to set up an account, and that inquiry might be worth dozens of physicals and drug tests over the next year.
Count them as separate conversion actions, and give the occupational campaign its own goal. Chapter 10 covered how a campaign-level goal overrides the account's defaults. Here it keeps the bidding honest: the illness campaigns learn from check-ins, and the occupational campaign learns from booked physicals and employer inquiries, without one diluting the other.
If your check-in system can't tell a DOT booking from a sore throat, fix that first. A separate check-in link for occupational services, or a separate booking page, is enough for Google to count them apart.
Workers' Comp Searches Are Rare in Philadelphia and Priced Like a Specialist
One occupational search behaves differently from the rest. Keyword Planner puts "workers comp doctor near me" at roughly 20 Philadelphia searches a month. Google rates the competition high, and its estimate for a top-of-page click reaches $21.39. Across the US it drew about 1,300 a month, with estimates up to $13.13.
That's a small, expensive search. With so few people typing it, workers' comp is mostly an employer relationship for an urgent care, not a search campaign: the same employer inquiry from the section above does more of the work than any keyword.
Next: Self-Pay Prices
The last chapter turns to the patients who ask about price before they ask anything else: the uninsured and the self-pay. Chapter 16 covers where to show a price, what the rules require when you do, and why "how much?" often comes before "where?"
The service ad groups here follow the pattern from Chapter 6, and the separate goal comes from Chapter 10. The urgent care guide home lists the rest.
When urgent care groups hire us for Google Ads management, occupational medicine gets its own campaign on day one, with its own budget, its own hours and its own definition of a win.
