A brief, one-sentence assurance from a physician in response to an allergic reaction significantly reduced participants’ ratings of itchiness/irritation compared to a control condition that received no assurance (Fig. 1). Importantly, this effect was achieved without offering medication or other treatment. These results provide empirical support for the clinical utility of assurance alone and suggest that reassuring patients who consult for minor complaints may not only equip patients with helpful information—it may assist in alleviating patients’ symptoms. We suspect the present study is a conservative test of this effect since participants were healthy volunteers whose allergic reactions were unlikely to be highly stressful or concerning, and allergic reactions were expected to decline over time even without intervention. Physician assurance is a component of medical care that is surely familiar to physicians, yet is under-researched and often under-appreciated. Although meeting with patients for issues not ultimately requiring medication or treatment may be seen as costly or unnecessary from a health economics perspective, this study highlights the critical yet rarely quantified healing effect of visits in which the physician’s sole role is to assure patients they will soon feel better.