The AHPRA Advertising Self-Audit Checklist for Australian Clinics

An AHPRA ad self-audit is a page-by-page check of everything your practice puts out. You check it against section 133 of the National Law, the part that sets the health ad rules. That section lists 5 things your ads must not do. The checklist below has 12 checks, and each one names the rule it comes from. It also helps to know the real penalty, because the official guidelines show the wrong one. AHPRA’s own ad guidelines show a maximum of $5,000 for a person, in 2 separate places. The current maximum is $60,000. That is 12 times the figure most practice owners are reading.

What is an AHPRA advertising self-audit?

It is a check of everything your practice publishes against one section of one law. That covers your website, service pages and Google Business Profile. It also covers your Instagram captions, your ads, your letterhead and the words on your clinic window.

The rule behind it is section 133 of the National Law. It applies to anyone who advertises a health service that AHPRA regulates, and not only to registered practitioners. The guidelines say so clearly. A person, a business or a company that advertises one of these services is responsible for the ad and must follow the rules.

So the marketing agency that wrote your page does not carry this for you. You carry it.

AHPRA publishes guidelines to explain the section. They run to about 8,300 words. In one important way, they are also out of date, and they say so themselves.

Why does the official penalty figure understate your exposure?

The law changed in 2022, and the guidelines have not caught up.

Read the guidelines the way you would as a practice owner. You would look at section 1.4, headed “What penalties apply for advertising breaches under the National Law?”. It says the fine is up to $5,000 per offence for a person. For a company, it says $10,000.

Then you might check Appendix 1, which prints the text of section 133 itself. At the end, it sets the maximum penalty at $5,000 for a person and $10,000 for a company.

You see the same figure in 2 places. So you would fairly assume the worst case is $5,000.

Now read the news panel higher up the same page. It says the National Law changed in 2022. For a person, the maximum penalty per offence rose from $5,000 to $60,000. For a company, it rose from $10,000 to $120,000. Since July 2024, those higher penalties apply in every state and territory, including Western Australia.

Then it admits the gap. It says AHPRA will add the changes to the ad guidelines at their next review.

So the figure shows up in 3 places in one document, and 2 of them are out of date.

We are not trying to catch AHPRA out. AHPRA has flagged the gap in its own document. It matters because of where the 2 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. So the 2 places a careful person would look are the 2 places that are out of date.

The penalty also applies per offence. So a page with 4 claims that break the rules may count as 4 problems, and not just one.

What does section 133 actually prohibit?

It bans 5 things, and that is the whole test. Here they are, quoted from the section. Ads for a health service that AHPRA regulates 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”

In plain words, your ads must not mislead. Any offer must show its terms. You cannot use patient testimonials, even made-up ones. You cannot make people expect too much from treatment. And you cannot push people to use health services they do not need.

Every check below asks whether a page does one of those 5 things. Nothing in this checklist is made up. If a check does not trace back to a rule, it does not belong on the list.

The 12-check AHPRA self-audit

Run this on one page at a time. Mark each check as pass, fail or unsure. Treat unsure as a fail until someone can show you the evidence.

Checks 1 to 10 sit in the $60,000 bracket. Checks 11 and 12 sit somewhere more serious, and the next section explains why.

Are patient reviews the same as testimonials?

No, they are not always the same. Most practices get this check wrong, in one of 2 ways. Some publish patient stories that are clearly banned. 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 uses the everyday meaning. Under the law, a testimonial is a recommendation or positive comment about the clinical aspects of a health service.

The guidelines then say something practices often miss. Not every review or kind comment is a testimonial. Comments about customer service or how you communicate are not testimonials under the National Law, as long as they do not mention the clinical side.

So what matters is what the comment says, and the format does not change that. A review that praises your front desk, your parking or how clearly someone explained things is fine. A review that praises a result is different. The risk goes up when a testimonial makes people expect too much, pushes them to use a service they do not need, or has been edited to show only the good bits.

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 do. Misusing a protected title is a separate offence from a bad ad claim, and it carries a different penalty.

For a title offence, the guidelines give a penalty of up to $60,000 per offence for a person. The other option is prison for up to 3 years per offence, or both. For a company, it is up to $120,000 per offence. Western Australia sets different penalties for these offences. There, it is $30,000 for a person and $60,000 for a company.

Sections 113 to 119 of the National Law cover this. In plain terms, you cannot knowingly or recklessly do any of the following.

• You cannot use a protected title that would make people believe someone is registered in a profession.
• You cannot use a specialist title without holding that specialist registration.
• You cannot present yourself as registered when you are not.
• You cannot claim a type of registration or endorsement you do not have.

The word that has caught the most practices lately is surgeon. The guidelines are blunt about how far this goes. Every mention of surgeon must come out of all advertising. That includes websites, social media, letterheads, business cards and clinic windows. A doctor cannot call themselves a surgeon if they hold general registration. The same goes if they hold specialist registration in a different field, such as general practice or dermatology. That covers cosmetic surgeon too.

Note the limit of that rule, because people often report it wrongly. It applies to registered doctors. It does not change the rules for dentists or podiatrists with specialist registration. It also does not stop dentists using the title dental surgeon.

The guidelines name clinic windows and business cards. So a website audit that stops at the website is not finished.

How do you actually run the audit?

You do it in 6 passes. Do them in this order, because each one narrows what the next pass has to cover.

1. List every surface, not every page. That means your website, Google Business Profile, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. It also means booking profiles, ad accounts, printed material and signs. Most practices check the website and forget they have 11 other places that carry their name.
2. Run checks 11 and 12 first, everywhere. They carry the biggest penalties, and they are the fastest to check. Search every surface for the specific titles. You are only searching for words here, so there is no judgement involved.
3. Then run check 1 across every surface. Testimonials hide in review widgets, case studies, social proof sections and Instagram captions.
4. Then check the claims, checks 2 to 5, page by page. For each claim, write the evidence beside it. If you cannot sum up the evidence in a sentence, take the claim out.
5. Then check the offers, checks 6 to 8. Look at every price, package, bundle and discount.
6. Then run checks 9 and 10, reading the page as a whole. These are about the overall feel, so you cannot do them line by line. Ask what a worried person would expect after reading the page.

Record the result for each page, with the date. A self-audit should give you more than a good feeling. It should give you a record of what you checked and when, plus a list of what you changed. For the full rules next to the checklist, start with the AHPRA advertising guidelines explained. If you sell or mention health products, also check the TGA Advertising Code.

What this checklist does not cover

Here is where this checklist stops, so you know its limits.

• It is not legal advice. Neither are the guidelines. AHPRA says plainly that it cannot give anyone legal advice about their ads. It also cannot approve ads. Nobody will clear your page for you in advance.
• It covers section 133 only. If you advertise medicines, devices or other health products, the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code applies as well. That is a separate set of rules with its own requirements. Consumer law applies too.
• Your National Board may ask more of you. Each Board publishes a code of conduct. Some professions have extra guidelines too, including ones for cosmetic surgery and higher risk cosmetic procedures that do not involve surgery.
• Penalties vary by state. The guidelines call out Western Australia separately for title offences.
• The guidelines change. The penalty gap above exists because the law changed before the guidance was rewritten. Check the source rather than a summary, including this one.

If a check comes back unsure and stays unsure, you have your answer. It means you cannot back the claim with evidence. A claim you cannot back up is the one that gets quoted back to you.

You can see a short version of this on the web story.