An AHPRA advertising self-audit is a page-by-page check of everything your practice publishes against section 133 of the National Law. That section sets out five things your advertising must not do. The checklist below has 12 checks, and every one names the provision it comes from. Start with the penalty, because the official guidelines get it wrong. AHPRA’s own advertising guidelines print a maximum of $5,000 for an individual, in two separate places. The current maximum is $60,000. That is twelve times the figure most practice owners are reading.
- What is an AHPRA advertising self-audit?
- Why does the official penalty figure understate your exposure?
- What does section 133 actually prohibit?
- The 12-check self-audit
- Are patient reviews the same as testimonials?
- Which words move you into the expensive bracket?
- How do you actually run the audit?
- What this checklist does not cover
What is an AHPRA advertising self-audit?
It is a check of everything your practice publishes against one section of one Act. Your website, your service pages, your Google Business Profile, your Instagram captions, your ads, your letterhead and the words on your clinic window.
The rule that governs it is section 133 of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law. It applies to anyone who advertises a regulated health service. Not only registered practitioners. The guidelines are explicit that a person, a business or a corporate entity who advertises a regulated health service is an advertiser and must comply.
So the marketing agency that wrote your page does not carry this. You do.
AHPRA publishes guidelines to explain the section. They run to roughly 8,300 words. They are also, in one important respect, out of date, and they say so themselves.
Why does the official penalty figure understate your exposure?
Because the law changed in 2022 and the guidelines have not caught up.
Read the guidelines the way a practice owner would. You would look at section 1.4, headed “What penalties apply for advertising breaches under the National Law?”. It says a financial penalty of up to $5,000 per offence for an individual, and $10,000 for a body corporate.
Then you might check Appendix 1, which reproduces the text of section 133 itself. It closes by setting the maximum penalty at $5,000 for an individual and $10,000 for a body corporate.
Two places, same figure. You would reasonably conclude the worst case is $5,000.
Now read the news panel higher up the same page. It says the National Law was amended in 2022. For an individual, the maximum penalty per offence rose from $5,000 to $60,000. For a body corporate, it rose from $10,000 to $120,000. As of July 2024 those higher penalties apply in every jurisdiction, including Western Australia.
Then it says the quiet part out loud: the advertising guidelines will be updated to include the changes when the guidelines are next reviewed.
Three places in one document, two of them stale.
| Where you read it | Individual | Body corporate |
|---|---|---|
| Section 1.4, headed what penalties apply | $5,000 | $10,000 |
| Appendix 1, the text of section 133 | $5,000 | $10,000 |
| The update panel, current law | $60,000 | $120,000 |
| How far the first two understate it | 12x | 12x |
This is not a gotcha aimed at the regulator. AHPRA has flagged the gap in its own document. It matters because of where the two numbers sit. The old figure is in the section headed “what penalties apply” and in the appendix that quotes the law. The current figure is in a news banner. The two places a careful person would look are the two places that are stale.
And the penalty is per offence. A page with four non-compliant claims is not one problem.
What does section 133 actually prohibit?
Five things. This is the whole test, quoted from the section. Advertising for a regulated health service must not:
- be false, misleading or deceptive, or likely to be misleading or deceptive
- offer a gift, discount or other inducement to attract a person to the service, unless the advertisement also states the terms and conditions of the offer
- use testimonials or purported testimonials about the service or business
- create an unreasonable expectation of beneficial treatment
- directly or indirectly encourage the indiscriminate or unnecessary use of regulated health services
Everything below is a way of asking whether a page does one of those five things. Nothing in this checklist is invented. If a check does not trace to a provision, it does not belong on the list.
The 12-check AHPRA self-audit
Run this against one page at a time. Mark each check pass, fail or unsure. Unsure counts as fail until someone can point to the evidence.
| # | Check | Comes from |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | No patient testimonial about the clinical side of a service, anywhere, including embedded review widgets and quoted feedback. | s133(1)(c) |
| 2 | Every claim about how well a treatment works can be substantiated, and you can produce the evidence today. | s133(1)(a), guideline 4.1.1 |
| 3 | No partial information that misleads by omission, and no emphasis or contrast that implies more than the facts support. | s133(1)(a), guideline 4.1 |
| 4 | Scientific claims are accurate and balanced, and identify the researchers, the sponsors and where the results were published. | s133(1)(a), guideline 4.1 |
| 5 | Comparative claims are clear, accurate and supported by acceptable evidence. | s133(1)(a) |
| 6 | Every offer, discount, package or gift states its terms and conditions in plain language, on the same page. | s133(1)(b) |
| 7 | Terms are easy to find. The reader does not have to hunt for them or contact you to get them. | s133(1)(b), guideline 4.2 |
| 8 | Anything described as free is actually free, and its cost is not recouped through a price rise elsewhere. | s133(1)(b), guideline 4.2 |
| 9 | No promised outcome, recovery time or result that sets an unreasonable expectation of beneficial treatment. | s133(1)(d) |
| 10 | Nothing that encourages people to use a service they do not clinically need. | s133(1)(e) |
| 11 | No protected title used by anyone not registered to use it, and no wording that would induce a belief that someone is registered when they are not. | National Law s113 to s119 |
| 12 | No claim of specialist registration, endorsement or a recognised specialty that the practitioner does not hold. | National Law s115, s118, s119 |
Checks 1 to 10 sit in the $60,000 bracket. Checks 11 and 12 sit somewhere worse, which is the next section.
Are patient reviews the same as testimonials?
No, and this is the check most practices get wrong in both directions. Some publish patient stories that are clearly prohibited. Others strip every review off their site out of fear and lose something they were allowed to keep.
The National Law does not define testimonial, so AHPRA has adopted the ordinary meaning. In the context of the law, testimonials are recommendations or positive statements about the clinical aspects of a regulated health service.
The guidelines then say something practices routinely miss. Not all reviews or positive comments are testimonials. Comments about customer service or communication style that do not refer to clinical aspects are not testimonials for the purposes of the National Law.
So the line runs through the content of the comment, not the format. A review praising your reception staff, your parking or how clearly someone explained things is in a different category from one praising a result. The risk rises where a testimonial creates an unreasonable expectation, encourages unnecessary use, or has been selectively edited.
We have written the longer version of this in what AHPRA actually says about patient testimonials, and the related trap in before and after photos.
Which words move you into the expensive bracket?
Titles. Misusing a protected title is a separate offence from a bad advertising claim, and it carries a different penalty.
For a title offence, the guidelines state a penalty of up to $60,000 per offence for an individual. Or imprisonment of up to three years per offence. Or both. For a body corporate it is up to $120,000 per offence. Western Australia sets different penalties for these offences: $30,000 for an individual and $60,000 for a body corporate.
Sections 113 to 119 of the National Law cover this. In plain terms, you cannot knowingly or recklessly do any of the following.
- Use a protected title that would make people believe someone is registered in a profession.
- Use a specialist title without holding that specialist registration.
- Hold yourself out as registered when you are not.
- Claim a type of registration or endorsement you do not have.
The one that has caught the most practices recently is surgeon. The guidelines are blunt about the scope. All references to surgeon must be removed from all advertising. That includes websites, social media, letterheads, business cards and clinic windows. A medical practitioner cannot call themselves a surgeon if they hold general registration, or specialist registration in a different specialty such as general practice or dermatology. That covers cosmetic surgeon too.
Note the limit of that rule, because it is often reported wrongly. It applies to registered medical practitioners. It does not change the rules for practitioners with specialist registration in the dental and podiatry professions, or for dentists using the title dental surgeon.
Clinic windows and business cards are named in the guidelines. A website audit that stops at the website is not finished.
How do you actually run the audit?
Six passes. Do them in this order, because each one narrows what the next has to look at.
- List every surface, not every page. Website, Google Business Profile, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, booking platform profiles, ad accounts, printed material, signage. Most practices audit the website and forget they have eleven other surfaces.
- Run checks 11 and 12 first, everywhere. They are the expensive ones and they are the fastest to check. Search every surface for the specific titles. This is a text search, not a judgement call.
- Then run check 1 across every surface. Testimonials hide in review widgets, case studies, social proof sections and Instagram captions.
- Then the claims, checks 2 to 5, page by page. For each claim, write down the evidence beside it. If you cannot write the evidence down in a sentence, the claim comes out.
- Then the offers, checks 6 to 8. Every price, package, bundle and discount.
- Then checks 9 and 10, reading the page as a whole. These are about overall impression, so they cannot be done line by line. Ask what a worried person would expect after reading this page.
Record the result per page, with the date. The point of a self-audit is not a clean feeling. It is a document showing what you checked and when, and a list of what you changed. For the full rules alongside the checklist, start with the AHPRA advertising guidelines explained. If you sell or mention therapeutic goods, add the TGA Advertising Code on top.
What this checklist does not cover
Being straight about the edges of it.
- It is not legal advice. Neither are the guidelines. AHPRA states plainly that it cannot give advertisers legal advice about their advertising and cannot approve advertising. Nobody will pre-clear your page for you.
- It is section 133 only. If you advertise therapeutic goods, medicines or devices, the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code applies on top, and that is a separate instrument with its own requirements. Australian Consumer Law applies as well.
- Your National Board may ask more of you. Each Board publishes a code of conduct, and some professions have extra guidelines, including specific ones for cosmetic surgery and higher risk non-surgical cosmetic procedures.
- Penalties vary by jurisdiction. Western Australia is called out separately in the guidelines for title offences.
- The guidelines move. The penalty gap described above exists because the law changed and the guidance had not been rewritten yet. Check the source rather than a summary, including this one.
If a check comes back unsure and stays unsure, that is the answer. It means the claim cannot be evidenced, and a claim you cannot evidence is the one that gets quoted back to you.
