Questions & Answers

McGesund is a directory for health, fitness, wellness, cosmetics and lifestyle where you can find and compare providers near you. What makes it special are the reviews: they are submitted on site via QR code, cryptographically signed and can be checked for authenticity by anyone. Care facilities also use the signal system, through which residents, relatives and staff send feedback from everyday care directly to the ward.

McGesund has been around since 2006 – in 2026 we are celebrating our 20th anniversary. During this time, the platform has evolved from a traditional health portal into a European directory with tamper-proof on-site reviews. To mark the anniversary, businesses also receive a discount on all plans (see “Is there a discount at the moment?”).

McGesund is operated by Organon Informationssysteme GmbH, a family-run German IT company that has been developing software in Germany for more than 36 years. Development, operation and data storage are therefore all in one pair of hands and are subject to German and European law. You will find full details of the operator in the legal notice (Impressum).

McGesund is organised into five topic areas, each divided into main categories and subcategories:

• Health: medical practices, hospitals, care, therapy, pharmacies
• Fitness: gyms, personal trainers, yoga, sports classes
• Wellness: hotels, spa, massage, sauna
• Cosmetics: hairdressers, beauty salons, nail care, skin care
• Lifestyle: coaching, nutrition, travel, meditation

You can narrow down each topic area by city or region.

McGesund is available in Germany at mcgesund.de, in Austria at mcgesund.at and in Switzerland at mcgesund.ch. You can find providers from other European countries via mcgesund.eu. Each country site shows the providers in that country with the relevant regions and cities; you can switch to another country at any time using the country selector.

McGesund is available in 24 European languages – from German, English and French to Maltese and Irish. You choose your language using the language selector, and your choice is kept as you click through the site. Categories, navigation and notices are translated; profile texts appear in the languages that each business maintains.

No, McGesund is completely free for consumers. You can search for providers, view profiles, and read and submit reviews without paying anything and without registering. The platform is funded by the plans that businesses can book for extended profile features.

No. You do not need an account to search, read or review – you submit a review directly in your browser via QR code. An account is only needed by businesses and care facilities that want to maintain their own profile, generate QR codes, view statistics or publish job adverts. Registration for this is free of charge.

All data is stored in ISO-certified data centres in Germany. We do not use any US cloud services, and no personal data is transferred to third countries. Storage and processing are therefore fully subject to the GDPR and German data protection law. Details of purposes, retention periods and your rights can be found in our privacy policy.

No. The content on McGesund, such as provider profiles, news and reviews, is for information purposes only and does not replace medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you have health problems, please consult a doctor; in an emergency, dial 112, and outside surgery hours in Germany you can reach the medical on-call service on 116 117.

Choose a topic area at the top, for example Health, and then a category within it such as doctors or pharmacies. You can then narrow down the list by city or region; if you wish, the filters under “Trust & verification” show only providers with reviews verified on site. Alternatively, enter a name, a medical specialty or a place directly into the search. If there is no suitable entry in that place, we show you providers in the surrounding area.

Yes. With the “Search by voice” feature, you simply speak your search, for example “dentist in Cologne” or “physiotherapy near me”, instead of typing it. McGesund converts your voice input into a search and shows you the matching providers. This is particularly handy when you are out and about with your smartphone.

Entries that a business has not created itself come partly from our former portal and partly from OpenStreetMap (ODbL licence). This means you can also find providers that have not yet registered. If such an entry belongs to you, you can request it via “Claim” on the profile and then maintain it yourself – with your own texts, images, opening hours and review QR code.

The order in the lists follows fixed rules that are the same for everyone, which we disclose on our ranking transparency page. There we explain which criteria are used for sorting and how they are weighted. This allows you to understand why a provider appears higher up or further down.

When you are at the provider’s premises, scan the McGesund QR code with your smartphone camera. The review page opens in your browser; there you give 0 to 5 hearts for each of four criteria and can optionally write a short account of your experience. After you submit it, we automatically check that you were actually on site and cryptographically sign your review. The whole thing takes less than a minute.

No. You need neither an app nor an account – your smartphone camera and an up-to-date browser are enough. The QR code opens the review page directly in your browser, and you do not have to provide your name or e-mail address. Your review therefore remains pseudonymous, and the barrier to honest feedback is as low as possible.

Instead of the usual stars, on McGesund you give hearts: 0 to 5 per criterion. The four criteria produce the overall rating, which is shown on the profile as an average heart score. The separate criteria also show where a provider is particularly impressive – for example in friendliness – and where there is room for improvement.

Four criteria are rated: friendliness, hygiene standards, reliability and professionalism. They cover what matters day to day with health, fitness and wellness providers – from how you are treated, to cleanliness and punctuality, to professional quality. Each criterion receives 0 to 5 hearts, and together they make up the overall rating.

Yes. All four criteria – friendliness, hygiene standards, reliability and professionalism – are weighted equally in the overall rating. No criterion counts more than another, and the provider cannot influence the weighting. The individual scores remain visible on the profile, so you can decide for yourself which criterion matters most to you.

Yes. In addition to the hearts, you can optionally write an account of your experience describing what went well or what bothered you. The text appears together with your review on the profile and helps others make their decision. Please refrain from including names, health data and insults; honest, objective criticism is expressly welcome.

The location request is used to check that you are actually submitting the review on site at the provider’s premises. Your browser asks for permission once, and your position is only compared with the provider’s address. McGesund does not store your position, only the result of the check. Only through this comparison can a review receive the “Geo-verified” label.

Yes, you can also review online without a QR code, for example if you are no longer on site. Such online reviews first go into a review inbox and are only published after manual inspection; if there is a well-founded suspicion of manipulation, we may reject them. Because there is no proof that you were actually on site, they do not count towards the overall average but towards a separate online average that can be displayed on its own.

No. Only reviews that were verifiably submitted on site count towards a provider’s overall average. Online reviews without this proof have their own average, which you can display separately on the profile. This keeps the main score undistorted, while you still see all feedback.

No. Reviews appear on McGesund in pseudonymised form, and your name is not displayed. As you review without an account, you usually do not provide it in the first place. This allows you to report openly on your experiences without anyone being able to draw conclusions about who you are. Please make sure not to include any details in your text that could identify you.

No. Real names are not visible to the provider or to other users. The provider sees your review in the same pseudonymised form as all other visitors and can reply to it publicly, but cannot find out who wrote it. This protects you so that you can describe critical experiences honestly too.

Unfortunately not. As you review without an account and without an e-mail address, we have no contact details we could use to inform you. Online reviews without a QR code only appear after a manual check, which can take a few days. Reviews that break our rules – for example with insults or false statements – are not published.

Product reviews do not relate to the provider as a whole but to an individual product, such as a care product or a food supplement. You submit them via a dedicated product QR code, which the business places on the packaging, for example. Instead of four criteria, you give just one row of hearts for the product.

You submit event reviews via a QR code that the provider displays at one of its own events, for example a health day, a workshop or a trade fair. The review bears the name of the event and appears on the provider’s profile. This means that offerings outside the provider’s own premises can also be reviewed honestly.

McGesund secures reviews on three levels:

• QR code on site: reviews are submitted where the service was provided.
• Geolocation: the location at the time of submission is compared with the provider’s address.
• Cryptographic signature: every review is signed and additionally anchored in the Bitcoin blockchain.

This means that subsequent changes are noticed, and you can check the authenticity of every review yourself.

“Geo-verified” means that the review was verifiably submitted at the provider’s location. On submission, the reviewer’s browser transmitted the position with their consent, and it matched the provider’s address. The position itself is not stored, only the result of the check.

“Display-verified” means that the review was submitted via the provider’s reception display. A QR code appears there that changes continuously and is valid for one review only. A photographed code will have long expired before anyone could scan it at home – this is the strongest proof that the review was created directly on site.

The reception display is the access that lets you show a constantly changing single-use QR code on a tablet or screen at reception. Each code is valid for one review only, so reviews are verifiably created on site and cannot be submitted more than once. Such reviews carry the “Display-verified” label. The reception display is available from the Classic plan upwards.

No. Any tablet or screen with an up-to-date browser is enough for the reception display – no special app or dedicated hardware is needed. You open the display page once in the browser, after which the QR code changes automatically. So a tablet you already have at reception can be used at no extra cost.

“PQ-signed” means that, in addition to the classic method, the review is signed using a post-quantum method. Such methods are considered secure even against future quantum computers, which could theoretically break today’s signatures. This means the authenticity of the review can still be proven many years from now.

“Quantum-resistant” means that a method is designed to withstand attacks by future quantum computers too. Since May 2026, we have therefore been signing reviews not only with the classic method but additionally with post-quantum algorithms. Even if classic signatures were to become vulnerable one day, the authenticity of the reviews could still be proven via the second signature.

McGesund uses several methods side by side:

• Ed25519 as a proven classic method
• Falcon (FN-DSA) and ML-DSA-87 (FIPS 204) as post-quantum methods
• “Dual PQ” means that both post-quantum methods run in parallel

The combination ensures that a review can still be verified even if one of the methods should be considered insecure in future.

“Blockchain-anchored” means that signing keys and reviews are anchored with a timestamp in the Bitcoin blockchain via OpenTimestamps – usually within one to two hours of submission. Because the blockchain cannot be changed retrospectively, this proves that a review existed in exactly this form at a specific point in time. Any subsequent changes are therefore noticed.

No. We do not carry out Bitcoin mining, nor do we trade in cryptocurrencies. We use only the timestamp function of the blockchain via the open service OpenTimestamps, which bundles many timestamps together. This causes no significant energy consumption on our side and serves solely to prove that reviews have not been changed afterwards.

Yes. Under every signed review you will find the “Verify authenticity” button. It recalculates the verification steps – signature, key and blockchain timestamp – directly in your browser and shows you the result. You do not have to trust McGesund for this: the check uses open methods and runs entirely on your own device.

No. The check runs entirely in your own browser and not on our servers. Your device recalculates the signature and timestamp itself, using publicly documented methods. Even if we wanted to change a review afterwards, the check would show this as an error.

“Under review” means that the review is still being checked and is not yet fully verified. You can see at any time which verification steps – signature, key and blockchain timestamp – have already been successful by using the “Verify authenticity” button on the review. Once the check is complete, the review is labelled accordingly.

Not every review meets the requirements for the overall average. These include older reviews from the time before cryptographic signing (“Legacy”), reviews whose check has failed and online reviews without proof that they were created on site. Such reviews remain visible but are labelled accordingly and are not included in the main score.

No. Providers can neither delete nor change reviews, not even with a paid plan. If a provider considers a review to be inadmissible, all they can do is report it. Only McGesund decides on removal, based on fixed rules. This means that critical but honest reviews also stay up.

As a provider, you report a review with one click from your account in the “Reviews” section and briefly state why you consider it inadmissible. We examine every report in accordance with Art. 16 of the Digital Services Act and usually get back to you within a few working days. Multiple reports do not speed up the check – an objective description in the comments field helps us most.

We remove reviews that break our rules – for example with insults, demonstrably false statements, political influence or without any actual customer contact. There is no pre-censorship: honest criticism stays up, even if the provider does not like it. Every removal takes place after examination of the individual case and not merely at the provider’s request.

Yes. Providers can reply publicly to any review, for example to say thank you, to describe a matter from their point of view or to point out improvements. Advertising, personal attacks and patient data are not permitted in replies. An objective reply to criticism often seems more convincing to other visitors than a flawless review.

Register free of charge and then create your Basic entry in your account: name, address, category, contact details and opening hours. The entry is initially saved as a draft so that you can complete it at your leisure. As soon as you publish it, your business appears in the directory and you receive your review QR code. The Basic plan is free of charge permanently.

If your business is already listed, for example from our former portal or from OpenStreetMap, do not create a second entry. Instead, submit a request using the “Claim” button on the profile. We check whether you are authorised to manage the entry and inform you by e-mail. Once approved, you maintain the entry yourself just like a newly created profile.

New profiles are initially saved as drafts. This allows you to set up texts, images and opening hours completely before visitors see your profile. It only becomes public when you explicitly publish it in your account. A prerequisite is that a plan has been assigned to your location – the free Basic plan is sufficient for this.

For publication, a plan must be assigned to your location. The free Basic plan is sufficient for this; a paid plan is not required. On publication, your profile becomes visible in the directory and you receive your review QR code. You can book a higher plan later at any time if you want to use additional features.

The short description can be up to 160 characters long, and this is the same in all plans. It appears in lists and search results under your name and is often the first thing interested people read about you. Use it to state briefly what you offer and what sets you apart – detailed information belongs in the profile text.

In the Basic plan, your profile text can be up to 250 words long, and from the Classic plan upwards up to 500 words. In the profile text, you describe your services, your areas of focus, your team and the way you work in detail. A meaningful text helps visitors make their decision and is also taken into account by search engines.

How many images you can upload depends on your plan: 3 in the Basic plan, 10 with Classic, 25 with Pro and 50 with Premium. Images of your premises, team and services give a first impression and make your profile much more appealing. You can find out which technical requirements apply under “What are the requirements for images?”.

The following requirements apply to images:

• JPEG, PNG or WebP formats
• a maximum of 5 MB per image, at least 800 pixels wide
• an image caption is mandatory
• people shown must have given their consent

The image caption describes what can be seen; it helps people who use screen readers, as well as search engines. As the provider, you are responsible for obtaining the consent of the people shown.

Yes. You can enter your regular opening hours for each day and also specify special opening hours, for example for public holidays, holiday closures or extended consultation hours. The times appear on your profile and are included in the overviews on the category pages, such as which providers in a city are open on Saturdays. Up-to-date opening hours save your customers wasted journeys.

Yes. In addition to German, you can offer an English version of your profile in every plan. Further languages are available from the Classic plan upwards. Visitors then see your profile in their language, provided you have added a translation – an advantage especially in cities with many international guests or patients.

You receive your QR code after publishing your profile, in your account in the “Reviews” section. Each location receives a wall QR code that is valid for two years. You can download it as a PNG or SVG or print it as a ready-made PDF table stand. Place it where it is clearly visible, for example at reception or in the waiting area.

The product QR enables reviews of individual products instead of your business as a whole. For this, you generate single-use codes that you place on packaging or inserts, for example; each code is valid for one review. You can generate up to 500 codes per run. The product QR is available from the Classic plan upwards.

With the event QR, you collect reviews at your events outside your business premises, for example at health days, classes or trade fairs. It is available from the Classic plan upwards. The following applies:

• one event per calendar week, lasting a maximum of 7 days
• can be scheduled up to one year in advance
• at least 500 m away from your business address

The reviews bear the name of the event.

Yes, from the Pro plan upwards you can manage several locations in one account. Each location has its own profile with its own address, opening hours, QR code and reviews. In the “Locations” section of your account, you switch between locations and keep track of everything. The plan is charged per location.

Yes. As soon as your profile has been published, you invite team members in the “Team” section of your account via an e-mail link. The invited person accepts the invitation via the link and receives the role you assign to them. This means nobody has to share login details, and you can change or revoke rights at any time.

Owners or administrators have full access, including the plan, invoices and team management. There are also management, care and staff roles with graduated rights, for example for maintaining the profile or handling signals. This way, each person receives exactly the rights they need for their tasks.

In the “Statistics” section, you can see your profile visits for the last 30 days as well as the clicks on phone, website and widget – with bots filtered out. Depending on your plan, further analyses are added:

• from Classic upwards, an A/B comparison of the widget variants
• from Pro upwards, separate click figures and the most important referral sources

This shows you how interested people become aware of your profile.

The review widget is a component for your own website that displays your McGesund reviews. You embed it with a short code snippet and choose a light or dark appearance; the texts appear in 24 languages. This way, visitors to your website can see at a glance how you are rated.

The two badge variants of the widget are also included in the free Basic plan. The pop-up with the full list of reviews is available from the Classic plan upwards, and custom branding of the widget from Premium. So you can start free of charge and extend the widget later if you want to show more reviews directly on your website.

No, the widget does not set any cookies, so you do not need any additional consent from your visitors. It loads asynchronously and therefore does not slow your site down. It also provides structured data (JSON-LD) that search engines can use to recognise your reviews and, in some cases, display them directly in the search results.

Yes, an API is available in the higher plans, which you can use to retrieve data from your account automatically and integrate it into your own systems. You control access via a personal API token from your account, which you should treat like a password. You can find the exact scope for each plan under “Products and pricing”.

There are four tiers for businesses: the free Basic plan as well as Classic, Pro and Premium with an increasing range of features – such as more images, the reception display, multiple locations or job adverts. For care facilities, there are also the Signals plans for feedback from everyday care. You can find an overview of all features for each plan under “Products and pricing”.

The Basic plan is free of charge permanently and has no minimum contract term. With it, you publish your profile with a short description, a profile text of up to 250 words and up to 3 images, receive your review QR code and can use the badge variants of the widget. Additional features such as the reception display, further languages or more images are available from Classic upwards – you can switch at any time.

Classic costs €69 per month or €690 per year, in each case plus VAT and per location. Compared with the Basic plan, you receive, among other things, the reception display for Display-verified reviews, product and event QR codes, a profile text of up to 500 words, up to 10 images, further languages and the widget pop-up with a list of reviews.

Pro costs €149 per month or €1,490 per year, in each case plus VAT and per location. In addition to Classic, you manage several locations in one account, upload up to 25 images, publish up to 5 job adverts and see separate click figures and the most important referral sources in the statistics.

Premium costs €349 per month or €3,490 per year, in each case plus VAT and per location. It is our most comprehensive plan: you upload up to 50 images, publish up to 20 job adverts and design the review widget with your own branding. All features of Classic and Pro are included.

Yes. The annual price corresponds to ten monthly payments, so you get two months free – with Classic, for example, you save €138 a year. The range of features is identical for monthly and annual payment. Annual payment is particularly worthwhile if you want to use McGesund on a long-term basis.

No. All prices are subject to 19% VAT. Classic therefore costs, for example, €69 net or €82.11 gross per month. Your invoice shows the net amount, VAT and total amount separately, so you can claim input tax as usual.

Yes, the price is charged per location. For example, if you run two practices, each needs its own plan – but in return, each also has its own profile, its own QR code and its own reviews.

You pay by credit card or PayPal via our payment service provider Mollie; subsequent payments are then collected automatically, so you do not have to worry about anything else. Alternatively, you can pay on invoice by bank transfer.

You can find all invoices in your account under “Account” in the “Invoices” section. They are available there for download as PDFs, and you can see at a glance which invoices have been paid and which are still outstanding. The owners or administrators of your account have access to the invoices.

Yes. To mark McGesund’s 20th anniversary, you receive 20% off all plans with the code 20JAHRE. The code is valid until 31 December 2026. Enter it in the voucher code field when booking your plan; the discount is then applied directly to the price.

You cancel your plan yourself in your account under “Account” in the “Plans & subscriptions” section. The cancellation takes effect at the end of the paid term: until then, you continue to use all the features of your plan. After that, your location is automatically switched to the free Basic plan, and your profile remains online.

At the end of the term, your location is automatically switched to the free Basic plan and remains online. Your profile and your reviews are still visible. Features that were only included in your previous plan – such as the reception display or job adverts – are then no longer available. You can book a higher plan again at any time.

Yes, from the Pro plan upwards you can publish job vacancies: up to 5 job adverts at the same time with Pro and up to 20 with Premium. Drafts and closed adverts are included in this count. Your vacancies appear on the job board and on your profile, so interested people who find you via McGesund anyway can see straight away that you are looking for staff.

You apply directly to the business via the job board: open the job advert, fill in the application form and submit it. The application goes straight to the business that posted the vacancy. Providing a phone number is optional. Our terms of use for applicants apply to the processing of your application.

Businesses can advertise positions as full-time, part-time, working student, internship, mini-job, freelance or apprenticeship. For each position, they also specify whether the work takes place on site, remotely or in a hybrid model. This allows you to see at a glance whether a position suits your circumstances before you apply.

You report inadmissible job adverts using the report function directly on the advert. Briefly describe which content you consider to be illegal. We examine every report in accordance with Art. 16 of the Digital Services Act (DSA) and inform you of the outcome if you provide your contact details.

McGesund signals are a system for care facilities: residents, relatives and staff send feedback via QR code – for example about wait times, pain or needs. Each signal appears directly in the shift dashboard as a task and can be handled there. This way, concerns reach the people responsible immediately instead of ending up in a complaints form.

Anyone who scans the QR code at the bed, in the room, on the ward or at the entrance can send a signal – residents, relatives, visitors or staff. No login and no app is needed. The code is linked to the place, not to a person; the facility therefore sees where a concern arose, but not who sent it.

There are six types of signals: wait time, pain, need, complaint, praise and other. The fixed classification helps staff to recognise urgent concerns such as pain immediately and to distinguish them from general feedback. Via “Praise”, positive feedback also reaches the team on the ward directly.

Each signal becomes a task in the shift dashboard with the statuses “New”, “In progress” and “Done”. This makes it visible to everyone in the team which concerns are open and who is currently dealing with them. Only the care home management can dismiss signals – so uncomfortable feedback does not simply disappear from the list.

Yes. From the Signals Classic plan upwards, you can create PDF reports for the last 30, 90, 180 or 365 days. The reports summarise the signals for the selected period and are suitable for submission to the Medical Service (Medizinischer Dienst) in Germany or for internal quality management.

The Signals plans cost per month: Basic €0, Classic €69, Pro €199 and Premium €499, in each case plus VAT. With annual payment, you pay ten times the monthly price and therefore get two months free. You can see which features are included in which plan under “Products and pricing”.

You sign in with your e-mail address and password – the password must be at least 8 characters long – or via Google or Microsoft. Both methods can be combined: for example, you can additionally link an existing account to your Google account. For greater security, we also recommend two-factor authentication.

When you sign in via Google or Microsoft, the respective provider learns only your name, your e-mail address, your account ID and the fact that you have signed in to McGesund. Your reviews, signals, profile data or other activities on McGesund are not passed on to these providers.

Yes. In the “Security” section of your account, you set up two-factor authentication – via an authenticator app or via a passkey or hardware key (FIDO2). You also receive 10 single-use emergency codes that you can use to sign in if your second factor is ever unavailable. Keep these codes in a safe place, separate from your device.

We process personal data exclusively in accordance with the GDPR and the BDSG (German Federal Data Protection Act) and host all data in Germany. We only collect what is necessary for the respective purpose – reviews, for example, are submitted without an account and appear in pseudonymised form. Which data we process for which purpose, how long we store it and what rights you have is set out in detail in our privacy policy.

You can delete your account yourself at any time and without notice in the account settings. You must end any running subscriptions beforehand. Deleting the account also deletes your locations together with their reviews, signals, statistics and job adverts. Invoice data is retained for statutory retention reasons. The deletion cannot be undone.

Yes, through our partner programme. You recommend McGesund by sharing your personal link or coupon code, for example with practices, gyms or facilities from your network. If a referred business books a paid plan, you receive a commission. The partner programme is suitable, for example, for consultants, agencies or associations.

Taking part in the partner programme costs nothing, and there are no minimum sales. The amount of the commission is agreed with you individually. A commission is considered confirmed as soon as the referred customer’s invoice has been paid. You can see your commissions and credits in your account in the partner programme section.

You can reach us via the contact form on the website or by e-mail at info@mcgesund.de. If you are already a customer, it is best to use the support ticket in the “Support” section of your account – then we have your location and your plan right in front of us and can help you more quickly. We read every enquiry and reply personally.