dermatologists / GBP
Google Business Profile for dermatology clinics.
For an Australian dermatology clinic advertising higher-risk cosmetic procedures, the Google Business Profile is not adjacent to the advertising rules, it is inside them. AHPRA's definition of advertising for those procedures expressly includes directory listings, which places the profile under the National Law rather than outside it. That changes how the listing has to be built, and what you can safely do with reviews.
Your profile is advertising, not a directory entry
Clinics tend to treat a Google Business Profile as a passive listing, something closer to a phone book entry than a campaign. AHPRA's cosmetic procedure advertising guidelines take the opposite view and name directory listings within the definition of advertising for higher-risk cosmetic procedures.
The practical consequence is that everything that applies to your paid advertising also applies to the profile: the prohibition on testimonials, the requirement not to create unreasonable expectations of benefit, and the rules about how procedures may be described.
It also means the requirement to include a practitioner's registration number where a named individual is referenced as performing a higher-risk procedure reaches into how you set the profile up, not just how you write your ads.
The review problem AHPRA created and Google cannot solve
Since 2 September 2025, responding to a positive Google review is itself the use of a testimonial in advertising for a clinic advertising higher-risk cosmetic procedures in Australia. The reply, not just the review, is the act that matters.
AHPRA's prescribed remedy is to disable the review function. A Google Business Profile has no such control. You cannot turn reviews off, and you cannot prevent patients leaving them.
So the problem has to be managed through behaviour rather than settings: which reviews get a reply, what those replies say, and a clear internal line between the medical side of the practice and the cosmetic side. This is solvable, but not by a generic review-response template, and not by an agency that has not read the guideline.
Medical and cosmetic are two different searches
Underneath the compliance question sits a commercial one. Someone booking a skin cancer check and someone enquiring about a cosmetic treatment are different people in different moods needing different reassurance, and a single services list cannot serve both well.
Med-spas routinely outrank medical dermatology clinics on treatment terms for exactly this reason. They publish a page and a service entry per treatment, written for the person searching it, while the clinic lists dermatology and stops.
AHPRA itself draws the medical and cosmetic dividing line through dermatology using a dominant purpose test, and names dermatology procedures on both sides of it. That line is worth settling deliberately, service by service, because it decides which rules apply and which audience each entry is written for.
What we do on a dermatology profile
- A medical and cosmetic split established before anything is written, using AHPRA's dominant purpose test
- Category and services list built for the treatments you want, on the correct side of that line
- Practitioner references checked against the registration number requirement
- A review reply policy written to the September 2025 position, not a generic template
- Description and photos rebuilt within the advertising rules for higher-risk procedures
- Monitoring for the profile edits and category suggestions Google applies on its own
- Monthly reporting on enquiries by treatment, not just total calls
Questions
Can a dermatology clinic reply to positive Google reviews?
In Australia, if you advertise higher-risk cosmetic procedures, a reply to a positive review can itself be the use of a testimonial in advertising under the position AHPRA set on 2 September 2025. AHPRA's remedy is to disable reviews, which a Google Business Profile cannot do. The workable answer is a deliberate reply policy rather than replying to everything.
Does the advertising rule really apply to a Google listing?
AHPRA's definition of advertising for higher-risk cosmetic procedures expressly includes directory listings. So yes, the profile is inside the National Law rather than outside it.
How do we compete with med-spas on treatment searches?
By publishing at the same level of specificity they do. They win because they list and describe individual treatments while clinics list dermatology once. The advantage a medical clinic has is genuine expertise, which only helps if it is visible at the treatment level.
Do these rules apply outside Australia?
The specific AHPRA positions are Australian. New Zealand, the UK and the UAE each regulate differently, and the UAE requires advertising approval before it runs. We work to the rule that applies where you practise.
Sources
Guides for dermatologists
Your profile and your site, scored separately. Yours to keep either way.