Your practice website is advertising, so if you’re a registered health practitioner, section 133 of the National Law and AHPRA’s advertising guidelines apply to every page you control. In practice that means no testimonials about clinical care, no effectiveness claims without acceptable evidence, accurate titles, clear terms beside any offer, and unedited before-and-after images.
Most AHPRA advertising problems we find on practice websites weren’t written by the practitioner. They came in with a review widget a previous developer installed, a blog post a marketing contractor wrote in 2019, or an Instagram feed embedded on the home page that nobody has looked at since. The practitioner is still responsible for all of it.
The rules also cover any business that advertises a regulated health service, not only the practitioners themselves, and “every page” includes the blog, the image captions, the booking page copy and anything you pull in from social media.
This is general information about how the rules play out on websites, not legal advice. For anything you’re unsure about, check AHPRA’s own summary of the advertising requirements, your National Board’s guidance, or your indemnity insurer.
Testimonials: the rule that catches the most sites
Advertising a regulated health service must not use testimonials about clinical aspects of care. AHPRA defines clinical aspects broadly: symptoms, diagnosis, treatment and outcome. “My back pain was gone after three sessions” is a testimonial. So is “Sarah diagnosed what three other people missed.”
What you can use are reviews about non-clinical things. AHPRA’s testimonial tool gives customer service and communication style as examples. “The reception team were lovely and the parking was easy” is fine. “Friendly, explained everything clearly, ran on time” is fine.
On a website, testimonials tend to sneak in through four doors:
- Google review widgets. Plugins that pull your Google reviews onto the home page don’t filter for clinical content. One five-star review saying “fixed my shoulder” puts a testimonial on a page you control.
- Embedded social feeds. If a client comment on Instagram or Facebook appears in an embedded feed, it’s now on your site.
- Old blog posts and case studies. “Patient story” posts were popular marketing advice once. Many still sit in the archive.
- Video. A filmed interview with a happy patient is a testimonial with a soundtrack.
The fix sounds tempting: just pick the safe reviews. Be careful. AHPRA’s guidance says selectively editing reviews, or choosing which ones to include or exclude, may itself be misleading. The cleaner approach is either to show no reviews on your site at all, or to show only complete, unedited reviews that aren’t testimonials. In practice, our usual advice is to remove review widgets entirely and let Google hold the reviews. We cover the detail in what you can and can’t do with Google reviews.
Before-and-after images
The guidelines don’t ban before-and-after images outright, but they set a high bar. Images must not create an unreasonable expectation of benefit, and you can breach the rules if it’s unclear how the treatment produced the result shown, or if the images have been edited or enhanced.
For a website, that means:
- Same lighting, angle, distance and camera settings in both shots. A brighter “after” photo is an enhancement, whether you meant it or not.
- No filters, retouching or skin smoothing. We say this as people with a photography background: even routine “tidy up” edits in Lightroom are a problem here.
- Clear captions saying what was done, over what period, and that results vary between people.
- No cherry-picking your single best result and presenting it as typical.
If your profession advertises cosmetic procedures, stricter specific guidelines apply, and many practices sensibly decide the risk isn’t worth it. For physios, dentists and others where before-and-after shots aren’t central, our default advice is to leave them off.
Titles, “Dr” and the word “specialist”
This one is quick to fix and often missed. Protected titles can only be used by people registered in that profession. “Dr” isn’t a protected title, but if a non-medical practitioner uses it, AHPRA expects the profession to be stated, for example “Dr Lee (osteopath)”.
“Specialist” is where websites trip up. Specialist registration only exists for medical practitioners, dental practitioners and podiatrists. Phrases like “specialises in” or “sports injury specialist” can mislead if you don’t hold specialist registration. AHPRA’s examples page offers wording that works instead: “I have a particular interest in musculoskeletal issues in children.”
Check these places on your site, because titles get repeated:
- Practitioner profile pages and their headings
- The page title and meta description that show in Google
- Image alt text on team photos
- Your footer and contact page
- Booking system profiles if they’re embedded or linked
There’s also a 2023 change restricting the title “surgeon” to certain specialist-registered medical practitioners. If anything on your site uses “surgeon” loosely, read AHPRA’s current guidance on it.
Offers, discounts and prices
Gift vouchers, new patient discounts and “first consult free” offers are allowed, but the terms must be stated clearly and be easy to find. AHPRA’s example: a $20 referral discount with no conditions isn’t acceptable, while the same offer with “only available to new clients” stated, or a link to the full terms, is.
On a website, put the terms right next to the offer, not in a footer link to a general terms page. If you show a price, show the total price, not just the initial cost. “Treatment from $49” is a problem if almost everyone ends up paying more after the first visit.
Also watch urgency language. AHPRA notes that phrases like “don’t delay” can be unlawful when linked to health claims that aren’t backed by evidence. Countdown timers and “limited spots this month” banners on a health site are best avoided.
Claims about what your treatment does
Every claim about effectiveness needs acceptable evidence behind it. Personal experience doesn’t count. “In my 20 years of practice I’ve seen this help anxiety” is an anecdote, and AHPRA treats it as one.
The common website version is the long list of conditions. A services page that says “we can help with” followed by 30 conditions, including some well outside the evidence for your therapy, is exactly the pattern AHPRA uses as an example of what not to do. Listing conditions is fine where the treatment genuinely helps and you can say how.
Some quick rewrites:
| Instead of | Try |
|---|---|
| “Cures headaches” | “Treatment for some types of headache, including those related to neck tension” |
| “The most effective treatment for back pain” | “Assessment and treatment for back pain, with a plan matched to what we find” |
| “Proven to work better than painkillers” | Remove it unless you can cite complete evidence |
| “Our sports injury specialist” | “Jo has a particular interest in sports injuries” |
An audit you can run this afternoon
Work through your site in this order. It’s roughly most likely breach to least.
- Search your own site for “review”, “testimonial”, “story” and “said”. Check every review widget, slider and quote block.
- Open your blog archive and read the titles. Anything framed as a patient story gets read in full.
- Check embedded social feeds on every page, including the footer.
- Search for “specialist”, “specialise”, “expert”, “leading” and “best”.
- Read every services page for condition lists and effectiveness claims.
- Find every price and offer and check that terms sit beside it.
- Look at every before-and-after image, if you have any, against the points above.
- Check what shows in Google: search your practice name and read the titles and descriptions of your pages.
Keep a note of what you changed and when. If a complaint ever comes in, showing you audited and corrected things helps.
Who’s responsible when an agency builds it
You are. Your web designer or marketing agency should know these rules, and good ones will flag problems, but AHPRA holds the advertiser responsible. When you brief anyone to write content for your site, run ads or manage your social channels, tell them which profession you’re registered in and ask them to work to the guidelines.
On health sites we build, such as the one for North Coast Head, Neck & Jaw Centre, the aim is to write copy to the guidelines from the first draft rather than patch it in at the end. That’s far easier than fixing a live site. If you’re starting fresh, our article on what a health practice website needs to do for new patients covers the rest of the brief.
Frequently asked questions
Do the AHPRA rules apply to my Google Business Profile?
AHPRA says you aren’t responsible for removing reviews on platforms you don’t control, such as Google. You are responsible for anything you write there yourself, including your business description and posts.
Can I quote a GP or another practitioner recommending us?
A quote praising your clinical care is still a testimonial, regardless of who says it. Keep referrer relationships on a referrer page with factual information rather than endorsements.
Is it enough to add a disclaimer saying results vary?
No. A disclaimer doesn’t fix a testimonial or an unsupported claim. It helps alongside genuine before-and-after images, but it doesn’t make non-compliant content compliant.
A second pair of eyes on that eight-step audit catches more than a practice owner reading their own copy. We can review your existing site and content against it as part of a website rebuild or ongoing SEO work.