The advertising rules for dermatology practices

Almost every article on this site starts with a warning about the word specialist. This one starts the other way. Dermatologists hold specialist registration in a recognised medical specialty, which means the restricted words that catch nearly everyone else in the skin industry, specialist, specialises in, specialty, are legally yours to use. In a market crowded with clinics that cannot say what you can, that is a real advertising advantage.

The trap is assuming the advantage extends further than it does. The title is yours. The rest of section 133 of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law applies to a dermatology practice exactly as it applies to a suburban skin clinic, and the cosmetic side of most dermatology practices adds two more rulebooks on top. This page is general information about those rules, not legal advice about your practice.

The title is yours, the rest is not

Under AHPRA’s advertising guidelines, specialist, specialises in and specialty require actual specialist registration in the relevant specialty. Practitioners without it must fall back on phrases like substantial experience in. A dermatologist with specialist registration clears that bar, so use the title, and use it prominently, because most of your competitors for skin related searches cannot.

Everything else in section 133 still applies. Advertising must not be false, misleading or deceptive. It must not offer a gift or discount without the full terms stated. It must not use testimonials. It must not create an unreasonable expectation of beneficial treatment, and it must not encourage indiscriminate or unnecessary use of health services. The full framework is in the AHPRA guidelines article. What follows is where dermatology practices actually get caught.

Acronyms need explaining

Qualifications and experience can be stated accurately and factually, and dermatologists have more of both than most. But the guidelines require acronyms for professional memberships and qualifications to be explained. They cannot stand alone. A string of letters after a name reads as authority to a colleague and as nothing to a patient, and AHPRA treats the unexplained version as a compliance problem, not a style choice. Write each fellowship or membership out in full at least once on the page where the acronym appears.

Outcome claims meet the evidence standard

This is the rule most likely to catch a well run dermatology practice. Every claim in advertising must be supportable by acceptable evidence, and AHPRA defines that benchmark as peer reviewed research, ideally systematic reviews or randomised controlled trials, assessed for source, relevance, inclusion, level, quality and strength.

What does not qualify: anecdotes and observations from practice, before and after studies with few or no controls, self assessed results, and single case studies. So a line like most of our patients see significant improvement within weeks fails the test unless published peer reviewed research for that treatment and that patient population stands behind it. Two decades of clinical experience is real expertise. It is just not advertising evidence, because an advertisement makes a generic claim to the public with no practitioner present to qualify it for the individual patient.

Testimonials and embedded reviews

The National Law bans testimonials in health service advertising outright. A testimonial is any positive statement about the clinical side of your service, the symptom, the treatment, the outcome, or the practitioner’s skill. That definition catches the Google review widget on your homepage: reviews sitting on a platform you do not control are not your advertising, but embedding them on your own website turns someone else’s words into your testimonial. Liking or responding to clinical reviews can do the same. The full scope is in the testimonial rule article.

Before and after galleries

Medical dermatology galleries sit under the general rule: the images must be as similar as possible in lighting, angle, framing, posture and exposure, with no editing or enhancement, so the only visible change is the treatment.

Galleries for higher risk cosmetic procedures sit under the stricter September 2025 guidelines as well. The before image or a composite must come first, never the after image alone. Every outcome image needs a prominent disclaimer that results are individual. The after image must state how long post procedure it was taken. No filters, no retouching, no images of anyone under 18, and a separate patient consent for advertising use, distinct from the procedure consent. The detail is in the before and after article.

The cosmetic side pulls in two more rulebooks

Most dermatology practices offer procedures that AHPRA now classes as higher risk non surgical cosmetic procedures: cosmetic injectables, thread lifts, platelet rich plasma, sclerotherapy, hair transplants. Those pages of your website sit under the September 2025 guidelines, which add rules on body image language, trivialising terms, targeting, and a requirement that any named individual advertised as performing these procedures shows their AHPRA registration number.

Where prescription medicines are involved, the TGA layer applies on top. Most cosmetic injectables contain Schedule 4 substances and cannot be advertised to the public, directly or indirectly. That prohibition covers brand names, abbreviations, nicknames and hashtags, and the TGA no longer permits terms like dermal fillers where a reasonable consumer would read them as promoting a prescription only medicine.

Here is the trap I see on dermatology websites specifically: the medical pages are careful and the cosmetic pages are not. An injectable brand name in a page title, or dermal fillers as an item in the navigation menu, is advertising a prescription medicine, and a price list for prescription only treatments is a separate breach again. The framework is in the TGA advertising code article and the vocabulary in the banned terms article.

Referral practices are not exempt

A common assumption in specialist practice: we see referred patients, so the advertising rules are someone else’s problem. The guidelines treat your website, your social accounts and your Google Business Profile as advertising whenever they promote a regulated health service to the public. A referral pathway changes how patients reach you. It does not change what your website is doing, which is advertising to anyone who finds it.

Check where your practice stands

The free compliance audit reviews your website, Google Business Profile and ads against section 133, the higher risk cosmetic procedure guidelines and the TGA rules, and puts every finding in writing with the provision it sits under. For a dermatology practice the usual result is a short list, concentrated on the cosmetic pages. Better to read it before a regulator does.