AHPRA Compliance Audit

The audit covers your website, Google and Meta ads, social media, Google Business Profile, health directories and booking platforms. If you have other marketing material, such as brochures or email campaigns, we can include those too.

We look across all of these because they all count as advertising. A practice might have a carefully written website but older social posts with testimonials, a directory profile with outdated claims or an ad that implies results. Patients see all of it, and the rules apply wherever your practice controls the content.

• Testimonials and reposted reviews
• Claims about results, safety or effectiveness
• Comparisons with other practitioners
• Offers and inducements without clear terms
• Images, including before-and-after photos for cosmetic procedures

Where relevant, we also consider the TGA rules on advertising therapeutic goods and the 2025 cosmetic procedure guidelines. Before we start, we confirm the channels with you, so the scope reflects how your practice actually markets itself.

Most audits are completed within two weeks, depending on the size of your website and how many channels you use. Groups with several locations may take a little longer.

The timeline covers more than reading pages. We review each channel, record where every issue appears, assess how serious it is and write compliant replacement wording, so the report is ready to act on. A small practice with a modest website and a couple of social accounts sits at the quicker end. A group with many pages, multiple Google listings and active ad campaigns has more to check.

The thing that helps most is access. Before we start, we ask for viewing access to your ad accounts, social pages and booking platforms, plus any offline material you want included. Once we have that, we can confirm the timing with you. If we find a high-risk issue partway through, we don’t wait for the final report: we flag it straight away so you can deal with it.

We walk you through the findings and help you prioritise. You can make the changes yourself using our replacement wording, or we can make them for you. Either way, you will know exactly where you stand.

The walk-through call is where the report becomes a plan. We explain each finding, why it matters and how serious it is, and answer questions from practitioners or the practice manager. Most practices start with the highest-risk items, such as testimonials or claims about results, then work through the rest in an order that suits their time and resources.

If your team is making the changes, the replacement wording means they don’t have to guess what compliant copy looks like. If you would rather hand it over, we can update your website, social profiles and listings where we have access. Once changes are made, we can run a follow-up review to confirm the issues have been fixed. After that, an annual check, or a fresh review when services or guidelines change, keeps things on track.

No. We are marketing specialists who know the advertising guidelines thoroughly, not lawyers. Our audit identifies risks and recommends compliant alternatives, but final responsibility for advertising sits with the registered practitioner. For complex matters we recommend independent legal advice.

The audit applies the National Law, the AHPRA advertising guidelines, the TGA rules for therapeutic goods and, where relevant, the cosmetic procedure guidelines to your actual marketing. That gives you a practical, plain-English view of where the risks are and how to fix them. It is a marketing review, not a legal opinion about your obligations.

Some situations go beyond what a marketing audit should answer. If you have received a notice or complaint from AHPRA, are unsure how a rule applies to an unusual service, or could face penalties, speak with a health lawyer or your indemnity insurer. Insurers often provide advisory support to their members. We are happy to share the audit with your adviser, and to apply any legal advice you receive to your content.

Yes. We can rewrite flagged content or give you the wording for your team to apply. Either way, we recheck the changes so you know they have dealt with the issue.

Every finding in the report comes with replacement wording, so fixing it is often a matter of swapping copy. Some practices prefer their own team to make the changes, especially on social media or booking platforms they manage day to day. Others would rather we handle it. Both work, and you can mix them, with us taking care of the website while your team updates social profiles, for example.

Some fixes need more than a wording change. An old blog post might be better removed than rewritten, a page might need restructuring, or historical social posts with testimonials may need to be deleted or archived. We explain the options for each one. Where we make changes, we need access to the relevant accounts, and you approve the new wording before it goes live, since responsibility for the advertising stays with the practitioner.

Yes. Social posts, hashtags, your Google Business Profile and review responses are all advertising, so we include them as standard.

Social media is often where issues build up, because posts are written quickly and by different people over time. We review your posts, captions, hashtags, bios and pinned content, along with any patient comments you have shared or responded to in a way that could count as a testimonial. Hashtags can matter more than practices expect, as some imply results or attach your content to promotional trends.

On your Google Business Profile, we check your description, services, posts and photos, plus how you have responded to reviews. Replies can create risk if they confirm someone is a patient, discuss clinical details or amplify praise about clinical outcomes. Patients leaving reviews isn’t a problem in itself, but sharing or quoting them in your own marketing can be. For each issue we find, we show where it appears and give you compliant wording or a recommended action.

We give you an honest view of how serious each finding is and why. We can’t predict what a regulator will do, but we can show where the highest risks are.

Complaints can come from patients, competitors or other practitioners, and regulators also monitor advertising themselves. Whether a complaint leads anywhere depends on the content, the context and how the regulator views it, which is outside anyone’s control. What we can do is rate each finding by risk, based on how clearly it conflicts with the National Law and the published guidelines.

High-risk items usually include testimonials, claims about results or safety, and promotion of prescription-only medicines. Lower-risk items might be wording that is unclear rather than misleading. Ranking findings this way helps you deal with the most serious issues first. If you are already facing a complaint or have received a notice from AHPRA, an audit can help you understand your content, but you should speak with your indemnity insurer or a health lawyer about how to respond.

Audit once to set a baseline, then whenever you make major changes, add new services or the guidelines change. An annual check is a sensible rhythm for most practices.

The baseline audit does the heavy lifting: it finds the issues that have built up over time so you can fix them. After that, risks tend to come from new content. A new service page, a website redesign, a change of agency, a new practitioner’s bio or a fresh ad campaign can all introduce problems, especially if different people are writing copy.

Guideline changes are the other trigger. The 2025 cosmetic procedure guidelines are an example, where practices offering those services needed to look again at their marketing. Between audits, it helps to build a simple habit of checking new content against the rules before it goes live, so issues are caught early rather than collected for the next review. An annual check then confirms nothing has slipped through and gives you a current picture to work from.

No. We review what is live, so your advertising keeps running during the audit, and if we find a high-risk item we flag it straight away.

Pausing everything would cost you visibility and enquiries without much benefit, because most findings can be fixed calmly once the report is ready. Reviewing your live ads, pages and posts also gives the most accurate picture, since that is what patients and regulators see.

The exception is anything high risk. If we come across a testimonial in an active ad, a claim about results, promotion of a prescription-only medicine or something similar, we contact you before the report is finished so you can decide whether to pause or change that item. Usually it is a single ad or post, not a whole campaign. We also note whether ads are currently running and how widely, as that can affect how urgent a fix is. If you would feel more comfortable pausing a particular campaign while we review it, that is your call, and we can talk it through.

You get a plain-English written report with a prioritised list of findings, showing where each one appears and what to change, plus a walk-through call.

The report is designed to be used, not filed away. Each finding identifies the channel and the exact location, such as a page, ad or post, explains the issue in everyday terms and gives replacement wording or a recommended action. Findings are ranked so the highest-risk items sit at the top, which helps your team decide where to start.

• Findings ranked by risk
• The channel and exact location of each one
• Why each item is a risk
• Compliant replacement wording or next steps

We avoid legal jargon so practitioners, practice managers and marketing staff can all work from the same document. The walk-through call gives everyone a chance to ask questions and agree priorities. If your team is making the changes, the report doubles as a checklist, and we can recheck the items once they are done.

Yes, we audit practitioner profiles and directory listings wherever your practice controls the content, including third-party directories and your Google listing.

Practitioner profiles are easy to overlook. They often sit on several platforms at once: your website, booking platforms, health directories and professional listings. Each one may have been written at a different time, and older profiles can include claims, titles or descriptions that no longer fit the guidelines. Profiles also need to describe qualifications and titles accurately, and for cosmetic services the guidelines expect registration details when practitioners are named.

We find where your practitioners and practice appear, review the content you or your team can edit and give you corrected wording. Where a third-party site controls the text but accepts changes, we show you what to request and who to ask. Content you have no way to change is generally treated differently, but we still point it out if it could confuse patients. That gives you one complete view of how your practice is presented across the web.

Yes. After you make changes, we run a follow-up review to confirm the issues have been fixed.

The follow-up works through the findings from your original report and checks each one where it appeared, whether that is a web page, an ad, a social post or a directory listing. It confirms the change was made, that the new wording addresses the risk and that nothing new has been introduced in the process. This step matters because fixes don’t always land as intended: an old version of a page may still be live, a listing might not have updated or a third-party directory may ignore a correction request.

If anything is still outstanding, we tell you what remains and what to do next. You can have the follow-up once your team has worked through the highest-risk items, or wait until everything is done. Together, the original report and the follow-up give you a clear record of what was found and fixed, which can be useful if questions come up later.