Who the rules apply to

Two regulators matter. The TGA governs advertising of therapeutic goods - including the prescription-only medicines used in cosmetic injectable treatments. AHPRA and the National Boards govern advertising of regulated health services - anything delivered by registered practitioners such as nurses and doctors. If your clinic offers any prescription-only cosmetic treatment, both sets of rules reach your website, your social media, your Google profile and your text messages.

The hard lines

1. Prescription-only medicines cannot be advertised to the public

This is the big one. Medicines on Schedule 4 of the Poisons Standard - which includes the substances behind the most popular cosmetic injectable treatments - cannot be advertised to the public at all. That prohibition covers brand names, and it also covers the familiar generic phrases that identify those medicines, such as “anti-wrinkle injections” and “dermal fillers”. Naming them, picturing them, or pricing them in public marketing is off-limits, full stop.

The workable pattern is to market the concern and the consultation: talk about the outcomes patients care about in general terms, invite them to a consultation, and let the clinical conversation happen where it should - in the treatment room, with a qualified practitioner.

2. No testimonials about clinical care

Advertising for a regulated health service must not use testimonials about the clinical aspects of care. Your Google reviews can exist - patients are free to write them - but curating, republishing or boosting clinical testimonials in your own marketing is prohibited. Reviews should speak to experience: the welcome, the care taken, how looked-after someone felt.

3. No misleading, exaggerated or unsubstantiated claims

Words like “guaranteed”, “painless”, “completely safe” and “permanent” create risk, because they promise what no clinician can. The same goes for claims a reasonable person would read as certainty about results. If a claim cannot be backed with acceptable evidence, it does not go in the marketing.

4. Higher-risk cosmetic procedures have their own guidelines

Since September 2025, AHPRA guidelines for advertising higher-risk non-surgical cosmetic procedures add specific requirements for that category: real, un-edited images only, a clear “results may vary” warning wherever results are shown or implied, honest information about risk and recovery, restrictions on discount-pressure tactics such as countdown offers, and firm protections around anyone under 18. If your menu includes procedures in this category, these guidelines shape how they can be presented.

What you can absolutely still do

Clinics often over-correct and strip their marketing to nothing. The rules are strict, not silencing. You can:

  • Market skin concerns and consultations - the entire consult-first model is fully open to you.
  • Name and describe non-prescription services - facials, skin treatments, laser and light-based services and similar can generally be named and described plainly, subject to ordinary consumer law and any state device rules.
  • Show your practitioners and their qualifications - accurately stated credentials build trust and are welcome, with registration details where a practitioner is named.
  • Publish helpful content - educational blogs, aftercare guidance and honest answers to common questions are good marketing and good practice.
  • Ask every client for a review - the same ask to everyone, focused on their experience. What you cannot do is gate, filter or incentivise it.
  • Advertise your prices for services the rules allow - clearly, honestly and with any conditions stated in plain language.

The traps that catch good clinics

  • Answering price questions publicly. A patient asks on social media how much a prescription-only treatment costs, and a helpful owner answers. That public answer is advertising a prescription-only medicine. Take those conversations to a private consultation, every time.
  • Pre-paid deal-site offers on injectable treatments. Locked, pre-paid packages for prescription-only treatments collide with several rules at once - clinical suitability has to come first.
  • Copying a competitor’s website. The clinic down the road naming treatments and prices is not evidence it is allowed - it is often evidence nobody has looked yet.
  • Review gating. Software that asks happy clients for a public review and routes unhappy ones to a private form breaches both regulator expectations and Google’s own policy.
  • Old pages you forgot about. A pricing page from three years ago is still advertising today. Audits matter.

How we handle it

Every asset we build - websites, Google profiles, weekly content, patient messages and the scripts our front-desk assistants follow - is designed with AHPRA and TGA advertising rules in mind: consultation-first, concern-led, brand-silent on anything prescription-only, and free of outcome promises. Our compliance approach explains the model, and it is why clinic owners who have been burned before tend to relax once they see how we write. If you want your current site looked at through this lens, get in touch.

Common questions

Can my clinic show prices at all?

For services the rules allow you to advertise, yes - clear, honest pricing with conditions stated plainly. Prescription-only medicines cannot be advertised or priced publicly at all.

Can I use before-and-after photos?

For higher-risk cosmetic procedures the 2025 guidelines make genuine, un-edited imagery with results-may-vary warnings the minimum bar, and in practice before-and-after imagery carries enough risk that many clinics choose not to use it publicly. Treat it as a decision to make with qualified advice, not a default.

Are Google reviews banned for clinics?

No. Patients can review you, and you can ask - the same ask to everyone, focused on experience rather than clinical outcomes. Gating, filtering, incentivising or republishing clinical testimonials is where clinics get into trouble.