Testimonials, Before-and-After Photos, and $60,000 Fines: The AHPRA Advertising Rules Every Health Practitioner Needs to Understand

If you are a registered health practitioner in Australia, your advertising is governed by rules that most small business owners never encounter. The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) enforces advertising restrictions under Section 133 of the National Law that go far beyond what the average business considers when creating an ad. The penalties for getting it wrong increased dramatically in 2022, and they now apply nationwide.

The Five Prohibitions You Must Know

Section 133 of the National Law sets out five clear prohibitions. Advertising of regulated health services must not:

1. Be false, misleading, or deceptive. This covers any claim that could create an inaccurate impression about your qualifications, experience, or the outcomes of your services.

2. Offer inducements without terms and conditions. If you offer a discount, free consultation, or bonus, you must clearly state all terms and conditions.

3. Use testimonials or purported testimonials. This is the rule that catches the most practitioners. Any recommendation or positive statement about the clinical aspects of your service is prohibited in advertising. Clinical aspects include anything relating to symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, or outcomes.

4. Create unreasonable expectations of beneficial treatment. You cannot imply that a particular outcome is guaranteed or highly likely when individual results vary.

5. Encourage the indiscriminate or unnecessary use of health services. Your advertising should not push people towards treatments they do not need.

The Testimonial Ban Is Broader Than You Think

The testimonial prohibition trips up practitioners constantly, especially on social media. Here is what counts as a testimonial under the National Law:

A patient sharing their positive treatment outcome on your clinic's Facebook page. A Google review that describes clinical results, even if you did not solicit it. Re-sharing a patient's story on your Instagram. "Liking" a positive review that mentions clinical outcomes. Allowing tagging on social media if the tagged content promotes a clinical outcome.

You are responsible for removing testimonials from advertising you control, including your social media pages. If a patient posts a review describing how your treatment helped their condition, and it appears on your clinic's Facebook page, you need to remove it.

Not all positive comments are testimonials. Comments about customer service, wait times, or communication style that do not reference clinical aspects are permitted. The distinction is whether the comment relates to symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, or outcomes.

Before-and-After Photos: The Rules Are Specific

Before-and-after photos are permitted but heavily regulated.

Photos must be of genuine patients. Stock photos or photos from other practitioners are not acceptable.

No editing or filtering. You cannot minimise bruising, enhance results, or apply filters that alter the appearance of outcomes.

The "before" image must appear first. In a composite image, the pre-treatment state must be shown first to avoid creating unrealistic expectations.

A results-vary warning is mandatory. All outcome images must include a prominent warning that results vary for every patient.

No idealising or sexualising. Photos cannot include lifestyle settings like beaches or pools, oiled bodies, or sexualised clothing. The images must be clinical, standardised, with identical lighting and positioning.

For cosmetic procedures specifically, additional rules apply. Advertising must not target anyone under 18, and the Medical Board of Australia introduced specific guidelines for cosmetic surgery advertising in 2023.

The Penalties Are No Longer Token

Before the 2022 amendment to the National Law, the maximum penalty for an advertising breach was $5,000 for individuals and $10,000 for businesses. These amounts were so low that some practitioners treated fines as a cost of doing business.

That has changed dramatically. The current maximum penalties are:

$60,000 per offence for individuals. $120,000 per offence for bodies corporate.

If the breach involves unlawful use of a protected title, the penalties escalate further: up to $60,000 plus up to three years imprisonment for individuals, and up to $120,000 for businesses.

Beyond financial penalties, AHPRA can place conditions on your registration, require supervised practice or further education, refer you to a tribunal for disciplinary action, or prosecute you in court. A 12-fold increase in maximum penalties signals that the regulator is serious about enforcement.

Social Media and Influencers: Your Responsibility

If your clinic uses influencers to promote services, you are legally responsible for the content they produce. The influencer's posts must comply with the same ban on testimonials and avoid promoting prescription-only medicines.

The guidelines extend to user-generated content on your platforms. Practitioners must actively monitor and moderate comments on their social media, removing any that could constitute prohibited testimonials.

This creates a practical challenge. A busy practitioner running their own Instagram account needs to monitor every comment and review for potential testimonial content. It is time-consuming, but the alternative is a potential $60,000 fine.

How to Advertise Your Practice Compliantly

Compliant advertising is still effective advertising. You can promote your qualifications, experience, areas of focus, location, hours, and the types of services you offer. You can use before-and-after photos if they meet the requirements. You can share educational content about conditions and treatments.

What you cannot do is let patients sell your services for you through testimonials, make promises about outcomes, or present an idealised version of results.

Practical steps:

Audit your existing social media for testimonial content and remove anything that references clinical outcomes. Set up comment moderation on your Facebook and Instagram pages. Brief any influencers or marketing partners on the specific restrictions. Review every ad and post against the five prohibitions before publishing.

AdProof checks your ad creative against AHPRA, TGA, ACCC, and Meta advertising standards before you publish. For practitioners juggling clinical work and marketing, an automated compliance check can catch the issues that slip through when you are busy seeing patients.