Last updated: May 2026. Reflects the current Guidelines for advertising a regulated health service and the 2023 Medical Board cosmetic surgery reforms.
The AHPRA advertising guidelines (officially the Guidelines for advertising a regulated health service) explain how section 133 of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law applies to healthcare advertising in Australia. If you're a registered health practitioner or a business advertising a regulated health service, these guidelines govern what you can publish, where you can publish it, and how claims must be substantiated.
Our team has spent over a decade working inside this framework. This guide is the practical version: what the rules actually look like in production, what triggers AHPRA notifications, and where the genuine grey areas sit. For the broader context on the regulator itself, see our What is AHPRA? explainer.
What Counts as Advertising
AHPRA takes a broad view. Advertising isn't just paid ads. It's any public communication intended to promote your practice:
- Your website and all its content
- Social media profiles and posts
- Google Ads, Meta Ads, and other paid campaigns
- Directory listings and Google Business Profile
- Brochures, business cards, and signage
- Email marketing and newsletters
- Videos, podcasts, and media appearances
Even content you didn't create, like third-party reviews or shared content, can become your responsibility if you feature it in your marketing or take actions that endorse it.
The Main Restrictions
Healthcare advertising works differently from other industries. Tactics that are standard practice elsewhere can cause problems here. These are the key areas to understand.
Testimonials
This is the biggest difference from regular marketing. You cannot use testimonials, which AHPRA defines as any statement that:
- Recommends your practice or services
- States or implies someone benefited from treatment
- Gives a positive appraisal of your practice
Patient quotes, case studies identifying patients, video testimonials, before/after comparisons with outcomes: these are off limits.
Reviews on independent third-party platforms like Google Reviews are generally acceptable. The distinction is that you're not featuring them in your own advertising.
Outcome Claims
You cannot guarantee or imply specific treatment outcomes. Marketing must acknowledge that results vary between individuals.
Instead of "we will fix your back pain", use qualified language like "may help with", "designed to address", or "aims to improve." This acknowledges individual variation while still communicating what you do.
Comparative Claims
Claims like "best", "leading", or "number one" require substantiation. Unless you have verifiable evidence, avoid these. Focus on factual statements about your qualifications and experience instead.
What You Can Say
The restrictions sound limiting, but there's still plenty of room for effective marketing. You can communicate:
- Qualifications and registrations. Your credentials, certifications, and professional memberships.
- Experience. Years in practice, areas of focus, patient populations you work with.
- Services and conditions. What you offer and what you treat, stated factually.
- Practice information. Location, hours, contact details, fees, payment options.
- Educational content. Information about conditions and treatments that demonstrates expertise.
Marketing that focuses on education and expertise often performs better than promotional claims anyway. When you position yourself as knowledgeable and helpful, patients trust you. The restrictions actually push you toward more effective marketing.
Working Within the Rules
This is where experience matters. We've run thousands of healthcare campaigns across every type of practice. We know what works within the guidelines, and we know the grey areas where practices sometimes stumble.
When you work with an agency that understands healthcare, compliance becomes invisible. You don't have to think about it because it's built into how we work. Your campaigns get approved first time. Your website content doesn't trigger concerns. Your Google Ads run without policy rejections.
That's what happens when you work with specialists rather than generalists learning on your budget.
"We know the rules. We know what gets approved. And we've never had an AHPRA notification across any of our healthcare clients."
Let Us Handle This
Understanding AHPRA guidelines is useful background, but you don't need to become an expert. That's what we're here for. When you work with Medical Marketing Group, we build compliance into everything we do. Campaigns are reviewed before they go live. Content is written with the rules in mind from the start.
It's one less thing to worry about. Contact us to talk about your practice.