Can health clinics use Google reviews in marketing?

What is the difference between collecting reviews and using them in advertising?

This single distinction explains almost every rule below, and getting it wrong is what turns a marketing decision into a regulatory one.

A review sitting on your Google Business Profile is the patient speaking in public. You did not write it, you cannot edit it, and in most jurisdictions you are not held responsible for it.

The moment you lift that review and place it somewhere you control, it stops being the patient speaking and becomes your advertising. Embedding it on your homepage, screenshotting it for Instagram, quoting it in an ad. Same words, different legal status.

Clinics tend to err in one of two directions. Some assume the rules ban reviews entirely and stop asking for them, losing rankings for no reason. Others treat a five-star review as free marketing copy and republish it, which is the version that attracts a penalty.

Can Australian clinics ask patients for Google reviews?

Yes. This is the most widely misunderstood point in Australian health marketing, and the confusion costs clinics real visibility.

Section 133 of the National Law prohibits advertising a regulated health service that uses testimonials, that is false or misleading, that offers gifts or discounts without stating terms, that creates unreasonable expectations of beneficial treatment, or that encourages indiscriminate use. A testimonial here means a recommendation or positive statement about the clinical aspects of care: treatment outcomes, the quality of clinical work, the effectiveness of a procedure.

That sounds like a blanket ban on reviews. It is not. AHPRA has confirmed that practices may ask patients to leave ratings on third-party review sites such as Google. It also accepts that a practitioner is not generally responsible for unsolicited reviews on sites they cannot edit, and does not require you to police those reviews or disable them.

What you cannot do is republish clinical praise in your own advertising. Reviews about non-clinical matters, such as parking, reception or waiting times, sit outside the prohibition.

What changed in New Zealand on 1 July 2026?

The Advertising Standards Authority's Therapeutic and Health Advertising Code applied to all advertising from 1 July 2026, having applied to new advertising since 1 April. It is recent enough that a lot of published guidance still describes the previous position.

Five things in it matter for reviews. The scope now expressly extends to digital and social media, including user-generated content. Claims must be substantiated before they are published, not afterwards. Healthcare professional endorsements are prohibited. Patient testimonials must be authenticated, genuine, current and typical, with any payment disclosed. And the code prohibits exploiting emotional vulnerability or creating inappropriate purchase urgency, which matters a great deal in fields like fertility.

There is one line in the code with consequences beyond the clinic. Responsibility for compliance is shared amongst all parties to an advertisement, including advertisers, agencies and media organisations. If an agency publishes non-compliant content on your behalf, both of you are in scope.

What do the rules require in Dubai and the UAE?

The Gulf operates on approval rather than interpretation, which is a genuinely different model from Australia or New Zealand.

The Dubai Health Authority pre-approves every piece of health advertising material that runs in Dubai. That includes paid assets on Meta, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat that mention a medical service. A facility's account must display its MOHAP medical advertisement licence number, and the Medical Director must formally authorise promotional posts, including anything published by influencers.

Liability is strict and unusually broad. The facility is responsible for media recorded on its premises whether it appears on corporate channels, a doctor's personal account, or a third party's. Patient testimonials that include identifying details are prohibited, as are superlative claims such as best or leading, before-and-after imagery without case-by-case approval and documented consent, and outcome guarantees.

Can a clinic in the United States reply to a patient review?

Carefully, and with far less latitude than most practices assume. HIPAA bars a provider from even acknowledging that someone is a patient, regardless of what that person disclosed about themselves in the review. Replying with a line as ordinary as thanking someone for visiting confirms they attended, which is a technical violation.

Civil penalties range from $145 to $2,190,294 per violation as of 28 January 2026, following the annual inflation adjustment. Enforcement here is not theoretical. Every published action below arose from a provider replying to an online review. What you can safely write instead is covered in how to reply to a negative review.

What can a clinic safely do in every market?

The rules differ, but a narrow band of practice holds up across all four jurisdictions.

• Ask patients for reviews. Collecting is permitted almost everywhere, and it is the part that actually affects your ranking.
• Leave unsolicited reviews where they are. You are generally not obliged to remove or police what patients write on platforms you do not control.
• Reply without confirming anyone is a patient. A generic line inviting the person to contact the practice directly avoids the disclosure problem entirely, and the wording that works is worth getting right before you need it.
• Keep clinical praise on the platform it was written on. Do not lift it into your website, your ads or your social feed.
• Use non-clinical feedback if you want quotable material. Comments on communication, facilities or waiting times carry far less risk.
• Check your own regulator before publishing. The differences between markets are large enough that advice written for one country is often wrong in another.

Which professions do these rules actually cover?

Worth checking rather than assuming, because the boundaries are not intuitive.

In Australia, section 133 applies to the 16 professions regulated by AHPRA, which covers dentists, physiotherapists, chiropractors, medical practitioners and others. Veterinary practice is not regulated by AHPRA and sits under separate state and territory veterinary boards, so a vet clinic should not assume the same rules apply to it.

This article describes how these regimes are generally applied and is not legal advice. Before you change how your practice handles reviews, confirm the current position with your regulator or your indemnity insurer, both of whom will give you a view specific to your profession and location.