Health practitioners on social media: testimonials and claims

Who counts as the advertiser

The rules bind anyone who advertises a regulated health service: registered practitioners, people who are not registered at all, and companies. Ahpra says an advertiser has control of an ad when it publishes or authorises the content, or directs someone else to draft or publish it, and it names a staff member or a marketing agency as that someone. So a post an agency writes is still the clinic’s to check before it runs.

Advertising, in Ahpra’s guidelines, covers spoken, printed and electronic communication that promotes a regulated health service and seeks to draw people to it. Two things sit outside it: what a practitioner tells a patient about treatment or costs during a consultation, video calls included, and public health information from public health services.

Ahpra’s social media guidance says the National Law, each Board’s code of conduct and the advertising guidelines apply online just as they do in person.

What Ahpra counts as a testimonial

The ban is in section 133(1)(c) of the National Law, and it is about advertising a regulated health service. The Law gives the word no definition, so Ahpra and the Boards use its everyday meaning, narrowed to statements about clinical aspects.

A clinic’s own words can fall foul of a neighbouring rule. Ahpra says patient journeys, or the advertiser’s own anecdotes about the benefit someone got from treatment, may create an unreasonable expectation of benefit, because one person’s result need not be another’s.

Reviews on pages a clinic runs, and pages it doesn’t

Ahpra draws the responsibility around control:

• An advertiser is not responsible for removing testimonials on platforms it does not control, or on sites that don’t advertise a regulated health service.
• On social media it does control, the clinic owner or practitioner who holds that control still answers for keeping testimonials out, and Ahpra notes one way is to switch off the review or testimonial functions.
• Advertisers are responsible for removing testimonials from advertising they control, and Ahpra’s example is a clinic’s own social media page.

Before and after pictures

Ahpra asks for care with before and after images, because they can mislead and can leave people expecting a result they may not get. Its summary says such advertising may breach the National Law if it isn’t clear how the advertised treatment is responsible for, or directly caused, the benefit the image shows.

Claims, titles, offers and prices

Evidence

Claims in advertising must be supported by acceptable evidence, or they may be treated as false, misleading or deceptive. Ahpra gives a single case study as one example of evidence that could be unacceptable. Its social media guidance gives an example set on one platform: an unsubstantiated claim about a treatment’s effectiveness, on a page advertising a practitioner or clinic, is misleading and a breach of section 133.

Titles

Only a practitioner with specialist registration in a recognised specialty may use a specialist title in advertising, and Ahpra warns that words such as ‘specialises in’ or ‘specialised’ are likely to mislead when that registration is missing. A 2023 amendment, section 115A, limits ‘surgeon’ among medical practitioners to those with specialist registration in surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, or ophthalmology, and Ahpra says medical practitioners without that registration must remove every reference to ‘surgeon’ from their advertising, social media included. The section applies only to registered medical practitioners: it leaves unchanged the title rules for dental and podiatry specialists, and for dentists who call themselves ‘dental surgeon’. Ahpra’s summary adds that the change is expected to take effect in NSW, SA and WA after state legislative processes.

Gifts, discounts and urgency

An ad that offers a gift, discount or other inducement must state its terms and conditions, in plain language, somewhere people can find them without hunting or asking. Ahpra notes that people take ‘free’ to mean absolutely free, so an offer paid back through a price rise elsewhere, or through Medicare, is not free. Phrases like ‘don’t miss out’ or ‘for a limited time only’ create urgency, and Ahpra says they may be unlawful where they are tied to unsupported claims that a person’s health could suffer without the service.

Prices

Price information in an ad should be clear, accurate and honest, and include the total price rather than only the opening cost.

Patients in the background

The social media guidance asks practitioners to check the background of a photo before sharing it. It points out that small details which reveal nothing alone can, added together, be enough to identify a patient or someone close to them.

What a breach can cost

Breaching an advertising requirement is a criminal offence, and a court can impose a fine; a current or former registered practitioner may also face disciplinary action. A 2022 amendment raised the maximum penalty per offence to $60,000 for an individual and $120,000 for a body corporate, and since July 2024 those maximums apply in every jurisdiction, Western Australia included.

The rules here are about what an ad says and shows. A post about a medicine or medical device can also be an ad under the TGA’s code, which bars testimonials and endorsements from current or former health practitioners; the medicines and therapeutic goods guide sets that out.