Can a fertility clinic advertise its success rates?
Short answer
Yes, but every market regulates how you present the figures rather than whether you may publish them, and presentation is where clinics fail. In the United States, success rates are reported to the CDC under the Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Certification Act of 1992, and SART layers advertising rules on top that prohibit unsubstantiated claims, superiority statements and denigrating other clinics. Research published in 2020 found that of the clinics publishing supplemental success rates on their own websites, only around one in ten presented them in a wholly compliant way.
Key points
Publishing success rates is permitted. How you present them is what the rules govern.
US clinics report success rates to the CDC under the Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Certification Act of 1992.
SART advertising guidelines prohibit unsubstantiated claims, superiority statements, and denigrating other clinics.
In a 2020 study of all 361 SART participating clinics, 114 published supplemental success rates on their websites and only 10.5% of those presented them in a wholly compliant way.
Improper presentation of supplemental data was the most common violation category, accounting for 73% of the violations found in a follow-up study.
In the UK the ASA, CMA and HFEA issue joint enforcement notices covering prices, success rates and add-on treatments.
New Zealand requires claims to be substantiated before publication, and patient testimonials do not count as substantiation.
Are you allowed to publish success rates at all?
Yes. This is worth stating plainly, because the volume of caution around fertility advertising leads some clinics to assume the figures are off limits entirely.
In the United States the opposite is true. The Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Certification Act of 1992 requires IVF centres to report standardised success rates to the CDC. The data exists precisely so that patients can compare clinics.
What the rules govern is presentation. SART's advertising guidelines prohibit unsubstantiated claims, superiority statements, and statements that denigrate other clinics. You may publish your numbers. You may not dress them up, and you may not use them to position yourself against a competitor.
What does compliant presentation actually require?
The evidence here is unusually specific, because researchers have gone through fertility clinic websites and counted.
A study published in 2020 examined all 361 SART participating clinics. Around a third, 114 clinics, published supplemental success rates on their own websites. Of those 114, only 10.5% presented them in a wholly compliant way.
The individual requirements show where the failures sit. 68.4% linked to their Clinic Summary Report on SART.org. Only 52.6% reported current statistics. 67.5% included the required disclaimer statement. Each of those is a single element, and compliance means getting all of them right at once.
One caveat on that 10.5% figure, because it is widely misquoted. It describes the clinics that publish supplemental rates, not the industry as a whole. And the data is from 2020, so treat it as evidence that this is difficult to get right rather than as a current audit of the field.
Why is supplemental data the most common failure?
Because it is the part clinics generate themselves, and self-generated figures carry the least structure.
A follow-up study published in 2021 re-examined clinics with known violations. Improper presentation of supplemental data accounted for 73% of the violations found in the initial review, and 70% on re-review. It is by some distance the dominant category.
Supplemental data means any success figure you calculate and publish yourself, rather than the standardised report you file. Your own live birth rate for a particular age band, a pregnancy rate for a specific protocol, a figure from an internal audit. The temptation is obvious, because your own numbers usually look better than the standardised ones. The obligation attaches at exactly that point: the denominator, the date range and the disclaimer all have to be there.
The same study found something more encouraging. 77% of clinics with prior violations were compliant when re-examined, which suggests these are presentation errors rather than deliberate misrepresentation.
What do the rules require outside the United States?
The obligation changes shape considerably, and advice written for the US market does not transfer.
Market
What governs success-rate claims
United Kingdom
ASA, CMA and HFEA issue joint enforcement notices covering prices, success rates, add-on treatments and complementary therapies
New Zealand
Claims must be substantiated before publication. Patient testimonials are not acceptable substantiation for a therapeutic claim
Australia
Section 133 prohibits creating unreasonable expectations of beneficial treatment, and prohibits testimonials about clinical outcomes
UAE and Dubai
Outcome guarantees are prohibited, superlative claims are prohibited, and the DHA pre-approves every piece of advertising
What should you check on your own site today?
None of this requires a legal review to start. These are the checks that catch the common failures.
Find every success figure published across your site, including pages you no longer link to from the navigation.
For each one, confirm the denominator is stated. A percentage with no population behind it is the classic supplemental-data failure.
Check the date range on each figure and whether it is still current. Stale data was a failure point for nearly half the clinics studied.
Confirm the required disclaimer appears wherever a supplemental figure does, not only on your main statistics page.
Link to your standardised report where one exists, rather than presenting your own figures in isolation.
Search your own copy for the words best, leading, highest and top. Superiority statements are prohibited under SART guidelines and under the DHA standards, and a rate quoted in ad copy is a named rejection trigger on Google.
If you operate in more than one market, check each version of the site against that market's rules rather than the strictest one you know.
How does this connect to your Google Business Profile?
Directly, because a profile is advertising in the same sense your website is.
A success rate in your business description, in a post, or in a photo caption is subject to the same rules as one on your homepage. So is a reply to a review that mentions outcomes. Clinics often audit the website carefully and leave the profile untouched for years, which matters more here than elsewhere because fertility patients revisit a profile across months.
Can a fertility clinic publish its own success rates?
Yes. US clinics report standardised rates to the CDC under the Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Certification Act of 1992, and publishing figures is permitted. The rules govern presentation: the denominator, the date range, the disclaimer, and a prohibition on superiority claims.
What is supplemental data and why does it matter?
Supplemental data is any success figure a clinic calculates and publishes itself, rather than the standardised report it files. It is the most common source of violations, accounting for 73% of those found in one follow-up study, because self-generated figures often omit the denominator, the date range or the required disclaimer.
Can we say we have the highest success rate in our city?
No. SART advertising guidelines prohibit superiority statements and statements that denigrate other clinics. In Dubai, superlative claims such as best or leading are prohibited outright, and in Australia a claim of that kind risks creating unreasonable expectations of beneficial treatment under section 133.
Do these rules apply to our Google Business Profile as well as our website?
Yes. A success figure in your business description, a post or a photo caption is advertising in the same way a webpage is. Profiles are frequently overlooked because they are updated less often than the site.
How current do published success rates need to be?
Current enough to reflect the standardised reporting period you are describing. In the 2020 study only 52.6% of the clinics reporting success rates on their websites reported current statistics, making stale figures one of the largest single failure points.
Is the 10.5% compliance figure still accurate?
Treat it as historical. It comes from a study published in 2020 and describes the clinics that published supplemental success rates, not the whole field. Its value is as evidence that compliant presentation is difficult, not as a current measure of the industry.