AHPRA Guidelines: How to Stay Complaint

Aiden Collins
2 days ago
2 min read

As of September 2, 2025, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) has introduced strict new advertising guidelines that all health practitioners offering higher risk non-surgical cosmetic procedures must adhere to. These changes are designed to protect consumers, particularly young people, from misleading or unsafe advertising. For registered health practitioners, this means one thing: it’s time to review and overhaul your marketing strategy – or risk serious penalties.

AHPRA defines higher risk non-surgical procedures as “non-surgical procedures undertaken to revise or change the appearance, colour, texture, structure or position of bodily features with the dominant purpose of achieving what the patient perceives to be a more desirable appearance” (AHPRA & National Boards, 2025) Therefore, this includes cosmetic injectables, fillers, skin treatments, and various other popular procedures.

Why These Changes Matter

The new rules are a direct response to concerns about misleading advertising and the rise of social media marketing in the cosmetic space.

With the popularity of influencers, filters, and “perfect” before-and-after photos, AHPRA identified a growing risk to consumers who may be influenced by unrealistic representations or pressured into procedures they don’t fully understand.

AHPRA’s focus is on honesty, transparency, and patient safety. For registered health practitioners, this means advertising must now educate rather than persuade, avoiding glamourisation or sensationalism.

Key Changes

1. Advertising about procedures must be completely transparent – information about costs, practitioner experience, risks, and recovery must be entirely accurate and clear.

2. No testimonials allowed – you cannot use testimonials in advertising, including comments, tagging, and story posts on social media. You also cannot link to third party reviews, nor can you interact with these reviews.

3. Honest, unedited imagery only – you cannot edit, filter, or digitally alter images to show unrealistic results. Before and after results must be genuine and avoid sexualising or idealising the photos shown.

4. No advertising to under-18’s – you must not target your advertising to anyone under 18 years of age.

The Risks of Non-Compliance

National Boards and AHPRA will deal with inappropriate advertising using disciplinary board processes, as well as prosecuting those who breach the guidelines via the court system, thus resulting in heavy fines.

Furthermore, you could easily lose consumer trust should news of the breach spread, which could very easily happen in today’s digital environment.

How Reality Marketing Can Help You Stay Compliant

At Reality Marketing, we understand how complex these new regulations can be – and how disruptive they are for registered health practitioners used to marketing on social media.

For further information about how we can help your business with staying AHPRA compliant, contact us today.