AHPRA Advertising Rules for Optometrists: The Myopia Claim That Needs a TGA Permission

AHPRA advertising rules bind optometrists through Section 133 of the National Law. That is the part most practices know. The part they get wrong sits in a different Act. Slowing a child's myopia is a restricted representation under the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code. Putting a restricted representation in a public ad is an offence, unless the TGA has issued a permission. The TGA did issue one. It is the Contact Lenses and Spectacle Lenses Permission 2025, and it comes with conditions. So the fastest growing service in optometry is also the most tightly controlled sentence on your website.

Can an optometrist advertise myopia control to parents?

Yes. Carefully, and under a rulebook nobody hands you at registration.

Myopia control is the growth story in Australian optometry. Special contact lenses. Special spectacle lenses. Orthokeratology. Practices are building whole service pages around it. The pages are aimed at parents of short-sighted children.

Every one of those pages is governed by two separate laws at once.

The first is the one optometrists know. Section 133 of the National Law covers the advertising of a regulated health service. Your eye test is one. So is your consultation.

The second is the one they do not. The lens itself is a therapeutic good. Make a claim about what the lens does and you have left the National Law. You are now in the Therapeutic Goods Act. And a claim that a lens slows myopia in children is not an ordinary claim.

It is a restricted representation.

What is a restricted representation?

The TGA defines it plainly. It is a claim that points to a serious form of a disease, condition, ailment or defect. It counts whether you say it outright or only imply it.

"Serious" has its own test. The TGA treats a form as serious if it needs diagnosis, treatment or supervision by a suitably qualified health professional. There is a second limb. It covers forms that have a screening or diagnostic test needing expert reading.

Now read those two tests against childhood myopia. It needs diagnosis by a qualified professional. It needs ongoing care. It has a test that needs expert reading. It fits.

The consequence is blunt. The TGA says it is an offence to use a restricted representation when you advertise therapeutic goods to the public. The only way through is a TGA approval or a TGA permission.

So the sentence on the service page is not a marketing decision. It is a permission question.

What does the 2025 lens permission actually do?

It opens the door that the Advertising Code closes.

The instrument has a long name. It is the Therapeutic Goods (Restricted Representations, Contact Lenses and Spectacle Lenses) Permission 2025. The TGA lists it among its advertising permissions.

It covers devices with a certified intended purpose in one of two areas. Lenses that correct refractive errors of the eye. And lenses that control the progression of myopia.

For those goods, the claims set out in the instrument may be used in ads. That is the permission.

Now the part that gets skipped. The permission applies subject to the conditions set out in it. A permission with conditions is not a free pass. It is a licence with terms. The terms are where compliance lives.

Two practical consequences for a practice website.

• The claim has to match the device. The permission attaches to goods with a certified intended purpose. A lens certified for myopia control carries the claim. A lens that is not certified does not. Wording the page around it changes nothing.
• The permission does not travel. It covers what it covers. It is not cover for a wider claim about eye health. It says nothing about what the child's sight will be at 30.

For the wider picture of how the Code treats claims, we broke it down in the guide to the TGA Advertising Code. The same machinery turns up in advertising prescription medicines. There the ban is flat, with no permission to apply for.

Why are glasses and contact lenses regulated differently?

Because they were split apart in June 2024, and a lot of website copy has not caught up.

Contact lenses are medical devices. The TGA puts them at Class IIa, the low to moderate risk tier. To be supplied lawfully in Australia they must be on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods.

Prescription spectacle lenses used to sit in the same system. That changed on 15 June 2024. They no longer need to be on the ARTG before import, export or supply.

So one practice, one dispensary, two regimes.

The exemption changed a supply rule. It did not change what you may claim. A restricted representation about a spectacle lens is still restricted.

This is the trap. Practices read "exempt" and hear "deregulated". The exemption is about getting the product onto the shelf. The ad rules are a separate question. They did not move.

What does Section 133 still cover?

The service, not the product. And it covers more than testimonials.

Section 133 prohibits advertising a regulated health service in a way that:

• is false, misleading or deceptive. Or is likely to mislead or deceive.
• offers a gift, discount or other inducement. That is allowed only if the terms and conditions of the offer are stated.
• uses testimonials about the service or business. Purported testimonials count too.
• raises an unreasonable expectation of benefit.
• pushes people to use health services they do not need.

Give the last one a second read in an optical setting. Say a page pushes more eye tests than the clinical need supports. That is not a pricing problem. It is a Section 133 problem.

On testimonials, the reach is wider than most practices assume. It catches reviews you publish. It catches quotes you pick out. It catches case stories you write up. We set out where the line falls in what actually counts as a testimonial.

The penalties are no longer small. AHPRA states that a 2022 amendment raised the maximum fine for each advertising offence. For a person it went from $5,000 to $60,000. For a body corporate it went from $10,000 to $120,000. As of July 2024 those higher penalties apply in every state and territory.

Is a free eye test an inducement?

It can be, and this is where optometry differs from every other AHPRA profession.

An optometrist is a clinician and a shopkeeper at the same counter. A physio does not sell you a product on the way out. An optometrist does.

So a single offer can be a health service claim and a retail claim in the same sentence.

Section 133 does not ban discounts or offers. It bans them only when the terms and conditions are missing. So this is a drafting rule, not a ban. Most practices fail it by leaving something out, not by meaning any harm.

Three examples of the same failure:

• A bundled offer on a home page banner. The conditions sit on another page, or nowhere.
• An offer with an end date in the small print. The copy that promises it never says so.
• A free eye test promoted without saying what you have to buy to get it.

Fixing this is usually a paragraph, not a rebuild. Put the terms where the offer is. If they are too long for the banner, say where they are. Then check the link works.

The Australian Consumer Law is reading the retail half of the page too. It does not care that you are a health practitioner. Bundled pricing, comparison claims and "was" prices are its territory.

Why does optometry get so few advertising complaints?

Because almost nobody complains about them. That is the good news and the risk in one sentence.

Optometry Australia gave the figure when AHPRA announced its advertising audit. In 2018 to 2019, AHPRA received 515 low-risk to moderate-risk advertising complaints. Exactly one was about an optometrist.

The current data is just as quiet. AHPRA's 2024/25 annual report puts registered optometrists at 7,340. That is up 4.1 per cent in the year to June 2025. Across all professions the figure is 959,858. Optometry recorded 81 notifications involving 71 practitioners. That is under 1 per cent of the registered optometry workforce.

Here is why the quiet is a problem. Attention follows complaints. Cosmetic injectables get scrutiny because the complaints arrive. Optometry does not. So guidance written for the profession is thin, and practices build websites from generic marketing advice.

AHPRA has not left it all to chance. Optometrists sign a declaration when they renew their registration. It says that if they advertise as an optometrist, the advertising meets Section 133 and the Board's advertising guidelines.

You already signed something about your website. It is worth knowing what the website says.

Who is liable when the agency wrote the page?

You are. So is the agency.

Section 133 does not say "a registered health practitioner must not advertise". It says a person must not. That one word is doing a lot of work.

It reaches the practice. It reaches the company that owns the practice. It reaches the agency writing the copy. Nobody at that agency needs to be registered for it to apply.

This matters because most optometry websites are not written by optometrists. They are written by agencies working from a brief. Briefs rarely mention the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code. We have written about what happens when an agency does not know the rules. The pattern is the same in every profession we audit.

The fix is a process, not a rewrite. Whoever signs off the copy needs to know which rulebook each sentence sits under. And the sign-off has to happen before you publish, not after a letter arrives.

What should a practice fix this quarter?

Five things, in this order. None of them needs a new website.

1. Find every myopia sentence. Service pages, home page, blog, social bios. Check each claim against the certified purpose of the lens you dispense. Then check it against the conditions in the 2025 permission.
2. Put terms where the offers are. Every discount, bundle or free eye test needs its conditions stated with the offer. Two clicks away does not count.
3. Strip the quotes. Any patient words you picked and published are testimonials under Section 133. The heading above them makes no difference.
4. Separate the clinic from the shop. Go page by page. Mark which sentences are about a health service and which are about a product. They answer to different regulators and they need different drafting.
5. Write the sign-off step down. One named person. One checklist. Before anything publishes. That is what turns a lucky record into a defensible one.

Want the wider framework first? Start with the AHPRA advertising guidelines explained. To see the same split in another registered profession, read the podiatry rules.