Short answer
AHPRA's advertising guidance restricts specific things regulated health services can do in their marketing, including certain testimonials, before-and-after imagery, and claims about treatment outcomes. It applies to the practice and its practitioners, and increasingly to marketing agencies and platforms involved in creating or publishing that content. Building this awareness into everyday practice, not just formal campaigns, is what actually keeps a practice safe over time.
What the guidance actually covers
Broadly, it covers claims made about a regulated health service, restrictions on testimonials, and specific rules for imagery, particularly before-and-after photos, along with a general requirement that advertising not be false, misleading or likely to create unreasonable expectations of benefit. Some categories, cosmetic surgery in particular, carry additional, more specific requirements beyond the general guidance that applies to healthcare advertising broadly.
Testimonials are more restricted than most people assume
Testimonials about clinical care are generally not permitted in advertising for a regulated health service, which surprises many practice owners used to seeing testimonials used freely in other industries. This doesn't mean you can't showcase positive patient experiences at all, general service reviews on Google are treated differently to testimonials specifically about clinical outcomes, but it does mean the line needs to be understood and respected rather than assumed away.
Before-and-after imagery needs specific care
Using before-and-after photos, especially for cosmetic or aesthetic procedures, requires proper informed consent and careful presentation that doesn't create an unrealistic impression of typical results. This is an area where genuine compliance risk is common, not because practices are trying to mislead anyone, but because the specific requirements aren't always well understood before content gets published.
Practical steps for staying compliant
Review any content involving claims, testimonials or imagery against current AHPRA guidance before it goes live, not after a complaint arrives. Keep a simple internal record of what's been reviewed and by whom, since this becomes useful if a question ever arises later. And treat compliance as an ongoing process rather than a one-off check, since guidance is periodically updated and content that was fine when written can become non-compliant if the guidance changes.
A simple internal review process worth setting up
Rather than relying on memory or ad hoc judgement calls, it is worth establishing a basic checklist any new piece of advertising content passes through before publishing: does it make any claim about a treatment outcome, does it include a testimonial or something that functions like one, does it use before-and-after imagery, and if any of these apply, has the relevant consent and compliance review actually happened. A five-minute checklist applied consistently catches far more genuine risk than an assumption that everyone involved already knows the rules well enough to self-police.
Why this compliance knowledge should extend to your whole team, not just marketing
Advertising risk does not only arise from formal campaigns, it can also arise from an individual practitioner's personal social media posts about their work, or from front-desk staff sharing patient success stories informally online. A brief, practical training session for the wider team on what can and cannot be shared publicly reduces this kind of inadvertent risk far more effectively than a compliance policy that only the marketing function is aware of and everyone else is left to guess at.