AHPRA Advertising Rules for Healthcare Websites: A Practical Checklist

AHPRA Advertising Rules for Healthcare Websites: A Practical Checklist

If you run a dental, medical, physiotherapy, psychology or allied health practice in Australia, your website is advertising. It is covered by section 133 of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law and by Ahpra's Guidelines for advertising a regulated health service. Plenty of practice websites break these rules without anyone noticing, usually through a reviews widget, a "specialist" claim or a before and after gallery.

This guide sets out what the rules say and what to check on your own site, based on the official guidance as at October 2026. It is general information, not legal advice. Check anything specific with Ahpra, your National Board or your lawyer.

What the law prohibits

Section 133 of the National Law says a person must not advertise a regulated health service, or a business that provides one, in a way that:

• is false, misleading or deceptive, or likely to be;
• offers a gift, discount or other inducement without stating the terms and conditions of the offer;
• uses testimonials or purported testimonials about the service or business;
• creates an unreasonable expectation of beneficial treatment; or
• directly or indirectly encourages the indiscriminate or unnecessary use of regulated health services.

A breach is a criminal offence. Since the 2022 amendments, which applied in every state and territory from mid-2024, the maximum penalty is $60,000 per offence for an individual and $120,000 for a body corporate. Each breach can be a separate offence. Registered practitioners can also face disciplinary action, such as conditions on their registration. Ahpra explains this on its Advertising and the law page. Older Ahpra documents still show the previous $5,000 and $10,000 figures, so do not rely on those.

The advertiser is whoever controls the advertising. If you ask a staff member or a marketing agency to publish content, or you can edit or remove it, you are responsible for it and need to check it.

Which guidelines apply in 2026

The general Guidelines for advertising a regulated health service took effect on 14 December 2020 and are still the current edition. They passed their nominal five-year review point in December 2025, but no new edition or consultation has been published, so check the page again before relying on this guide.

Two sets of cosmetic guidelines sit on top of them. The Medical Board's cosmetic surgery advertising guidelines have applied since 1 July 2023. Guidelines for advertising higher-risk non-surgical cosmetic procedures, such as injectables, dermal fillers, thread lifts and dental veneers, took effect on 2 September 2025 and apply to all advertisers, including businesses and people who are not registered practitioners. Where guidelines differ, follow the most specific one. If your services involve prescription medicines, the Therapeutic Goods Administration's advertising rules also apply.

Testimonials: the rule most websites break

Ahpra defines a testimonial as a recommendation or positive statement about the clinical aspects of a regulated health service used in advertising. A review has a clinical aspect if it mentions a symptom or the reason for seeking treatment, a diagnosis or treatment, or an outcome or the practitioner's skills or experience.

Comments only about customer service, such as friendly reception staff or easy parking, are not testimonials. Comments like "my back pain is gone" or "Dr Smith fixed my smile" are.

• You are responsible for testimonials on your own website and on business social media accounts you control. If a platform will not let you remove clinical reviews, you may need to switch off its reviews function.
• Reviews you embed, quote or feature on your website are under your control, so clinical comments in them count as testimonials in your advertising. This is where review widgets cause problems.
• On third-party sites you do not control, you are not responsible for removing reviews, but responding to them may count as using a testimonial.
• Publishing only positive reviews, or editing out negatives, can be misleading in itself.

A 2022 proposal to lift the testimonial ban was withdrawn, so the ban still applies. Ahpra's testimonial tool walks through whether a particular review counts.

Titles, "specialist" and qualifications

• Only practitioners with specialist registration in a recognised specialty, or the relevant endorsement, may use that specialist title, including in a business name.
• Without specialist registration, words like "specialist", "specialises in" or "specialised" are likely to mislead. Ahpra says phrases such as "substantial experience in" or "working primarily in" are less likely to.
• "Dr" is not a protected title, but practitioners who are not medical practitioners should state their profession, for example "Dr Lee (Osteopath)".
• Since 20 September 2023 (14 May 2024 in Western Australia), a medical practitioner may use the title "surgeon" only with specialist registration in surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, or ophthalmology. Dentists using "dental surgeon" are not affected.
• Qualifications can be stated accurately and factually, but post-nominals must not imply more training or skill than the practitioner has.

Claims, evidence and words to avoid

Claims about the effectiveness of a treatment need acceptable evidence, which mostly means peer-reviewed research. Anecdotes, self-assessment studies and uncontrolled before and after studies generally do not count. On a practice website, that has some practical consequences:

• Long, unqualified lists of conditions you "treat" or "help with" can mislead if the evidence does not support each one.
• Comparisons with other practitioners, professions or prices must be accurate and supported. Claims to be the best or superior are risky.
• Words like "safe", "painless", "pain-free", "risk-free", "guaranteed" or "miracle" can create an unreasonable expectation of benefit, especially without information about risks.
• Urgency such as "don't delay" or "limited time only", tied to unsupported health claims, can encourage unnecessary use. Routine public-health check-ups, such as dental check-ups, are treated differently.

Before and after photos

Ahpra says before and after images are less likely to mislead when both photos match in angle, background, framing, lighting, posture, clothing and make-up, the treatment is the only visible change, and any alteration is explained. Edited or non-genuine images may breach the law. For cosmetic procedures the rules are stricter: genuine images only with no filters, the "before" image shown first, a prominent "results may vary" message, the time after the procedure stated, and no images of anyone under 18.

Offers, discounts and prices

• State the terms and conditions of any offer in plain language, or link clearly to them.
• "Free" must mean free. It is not free if the cost is recovered through other fees or through Medicare.
• If you advertise a payment plan, state the total cost, not just the instalment.
• For cosmetic surgery and higher-risk non-surgical cosmetic procedures, discounts, packages and prizes used to encourage treatment are not allowed.

Cosmetic procedures and prescription medicines

Under the 2025 non-surgical cosmetic guidelines, advertising that names a practitioner must show their registration number. Descriptors like "magic hands" or "world's best" are out, risk information must be easy to find, procedures cannot be competition prizes, social media advertising must be marked as adult content, and you must not target people under 18.

Separately, advertising prescription-only medicines to the public is banned under the Therapeutic Goods Act, including indirect references through brand names, nicknames, hashtags or acronyms. The TGA's cosmetic injections FAQs say public price lists for anti-wrinkle injections or fillers, and online booking menus listing prescription-only treatments, are likely to be unlawful. An "educational purposes only" disclaimer does not fix it. What you can promote is the consultation itself.

A checklist for your practice website

• Remove or switch off any reviews feed, widget or quote on your site that includes clinical comments.
• Check every use of "specialist", "specialises", "expert" and "surgeon" against each practitioner's registration.
• Search your pages for "safe", "painless", "guaranteed", "best" and "cure", and add risk information or rewrite.
• Check that every condition list and outcome claim is supported by acceptable evidence.
• Review before and after galleries against the image rules, especially for cosmetic work.
• Add plain-language terms to every offer, and remove inducements for cosmetic procedures.
• For cosmetic services, show registration numbers where practitioners are named and remove any reference to prescription-only medicines, including in booking menus and price lists.
• Remember that your blog, landing pages, Google Business Profile posts and social channels are advertising too.
• Use Ahpra's self-assessment tool before you publish new pages.

How problems get found

In its 2024/25 annual report, Ahpra said it assessed 775 advertising complaints, that 74% of practitioners it contacted corrected their advertising early, and that it trialled AI tools to scan websites and social media for breaches. Most issues are resolved by fixing the advertising, but it is far easier to fix your site before a complaint than after one.

Consumer law applies as well. The ACCC's guidance on online reviews says businesses must not create fake reviews or remove genuine negative ones in a way that misleads, and HealthEngine was ordered to pay $2.9 million over misleading conduct involving patient reviews and referrals.

Conclusion

A compliant healthcare website can still be persuasive. It explains services in plain language, shows qualifications accurately, states risks and costs clearly and makes booking easy, which is what patients want anyway. If you would like a second pair of eyes, request a website and SEO review and we will check your practice site against this list alongside its design and search performance. We are a design and SEO studio, not lawyers, so we flag issues and suggest compliant alternatives, and you confirm anything uncertain with Ahpra or your adviser.