Advertising compliance

As a registered dental practitioner, you are required to meet the advertising provisions listed in the National Law administered by AHPRA, as well as any other legislation that may apply, including the Australian Consumer Law and the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989. 

The goal of these regulations is, according to AHPRA’s Advertising: Strategy legislation and guidelines is “to keep the public safe from false or misleading claims and to help them make informed choices about their healthcare.” 

This is why the definition of advertising is so broad, encompassing any action by people or businesses in healthcare to draw attention to their services. The focus is on the promotional quality of advertising, which is deemed to extend across all forms of printed, electronic and social media including comments made in the public domain and on physical notices, letterheads, business cards or directory listings.

Your obligations

If you are advertising a regulated health service, your advertising must not: 

• Be false, misleading or deceptive, or likely to be misleading or deceptive  
• Offer a gift, discount or other inducement, unless the terms and conditions of the offer are also stated  
• Use testimonials or purported testimonials about the service or business  
• Create an unreasonable expectation of beneficial treatment, or  
• Directly or indirectly encourage the indiscriminate or unnecessary use of regulated health services.

A good litmus test for whether your advertising claims meet the criteria is to assess it from a patient’s point of view. For instance, does it tell them everything they need to know to make an informed decision about possible treatments, and are you potentially giving them an unrealistic expectation of what the treatment might deliver? If the evidence does not fully support any claims made, then it is best to omit it; additionally, if the information is too complicated for patients to fully comprehend, it is best to keep things simple but accurate, and explain things further during a consultation. 

Finally, if you share content from another site, verify that all its meets the guidelines prior to publishing; regardless of its source, you are responsible for publishing it on a site or in a forum you control, particularly if you are the principal practitioner at a practice. 

Penalties for non-compliance

AHPRA endeavours to make it as easy as possible for you to comply with advertising regulations. 

Advertising is a professional conduct issue, which means that if you are deemed to be non-compliant in your advertising then you may be subject to disciplinary action regarding your registration. Breaking the advertising rules under the National Law is a prosecutable offence, that may be accompanied by the imposition of conditions that limit what can be said in your advertising.  

Currently, the maximum penalty for each advertising offence under the National Law is $5,000 for an individual and $10,000 for a body corporate; further to this, complaints can also be referred to other bodies such as the ACCC or the TGA, if the Dental Board of Australia believes this is warranted.

Check your compliance

You should familiarise yourself with the resources listed on AHPRA’s website which includes a summary of your advertising obligations, and the guidelines for advertising regulated health services.

If you're not sure you're compliant, visit Check, correct and comply which provides you with examples of non-compliant advertising, to fix them and an explanation of how advertising complaints are managed.