Every clinic that builds a website eventually hits the same worry, usually at the point where the copywriter suggests something enthusiastic: how much of this are we actually allowed to say?
It is worth taking seriously, for a reason that has nothing to do with caution for its own sake. When a medical claim on a website crosses a line, the exposure sits with the registered practitioner whose name is on the page — not with the agency, not with the marketing consultant. The person who answers for it is the doctor.
This is an orientation, not legal advice. Rules differ by state and by council, and the position on medical advertising in India has been revised more than once in recent years. Treat what follows as the list of things to check, and have the final copy reviewed by someone qualified to sign off on it.
The laws worth knowing by name
- The Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954. The oldest and bluntest of them. It restricts advertisements that suggest a treatment, cure or diagnosis for a schedule of specified conditions. Copy promising to cure a listed condition is the clearest way to get this wrong.
- Professional conduct regulations for registered practitioners. The long-standing Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002 restrict soliciting patients and self-advertisement, and the National Medical Commission has issued and revised conduct regulations covering advertising and social media since. Because that position has moved, confirm the current requirement with your council rather than relying on what a competitor’s site does.
- The PCPNDT Act. If you run any prenatal diagnostic service, the rules on sex determination — including the notices you must display and the absolute prohibition on advertising sex selection — are criminal law, not guidance.
- The Consumer Protection Act, 2019. Misleading advertisement provisions apply to healthcare as they do to anything else, and they extend to endorsements.
- State clinical establishment rules. Registration display requirements for the establishment itself vary by state. Check what yours requires to be shown.
The five things that get flagged
- Guaranteed outcomes. "100% results", "permanent cure", "guaranteed relief". Nothing in medicine is guaranteed, and writing that it is, is the single most common violation on clinic websites.
- Superlatives about the practitioner. "Best dentist in the city", "top-rated surgeon", "number one clinic". Unless it is an award you can name and evidence, it is an unsubstantiated claim about a professional.
- Patient testimonials. Restricted under professional conduct rules in ways that surprise most practices. This is the item to specifically ask your council about before you publish a single quote.
- Before-and-after photographs. Common in aesthetic and dental practice, and heavily scrutinised — both as an implied outcome claim and as a patient privacy question.
- Claims about the listed conditions. Copy that offers treatment for anything in the 1954 Act’s schedule needs checking word by word, not paragraph by paragraph.
Describe what you do, not what you promise
The workable principle is simple, and once a practice adopts it the copy mostly writes itself: describe the procedure, the qualification and the process. Do not describe the result.
"Painless root canal, guaranteed" is a promise. "Root canal treatment performed under local anaesthetic, usually in a single sitting" is a description — it says the same reassuring thing to a nervous patient, and it is defensible because it is true.
Same move everywhere. Not "we cure back pain permanently" but "physiotherapy-led management of chronic back pain, with an assessment on the first visit". Not "the best implants in the city" but "implants placed by a prosthodontist with fourteen years of practice". The second version is more specific, which also happens to make it more persuasive.
What you should be displaying
- The registered name and qualifications of each practitioner, with registration numbers and the issuing council.
- The establishment’s registration details, where your state requires them displayed.
- Any statutory notices your speciality requires — PCPNDT notices being the obvious one.
- Clear information about what a consultation involves, so a patient is not surprised by the process.
Photographs, consent and the front desk
Every photograph of a patient needs documented consent, and consent to be treated is not consent to be published. The same applies to anything that identifies a patient indirectly — a distinctive case description, a visible face in a clinic photograph, a recognisable name in a review screenshot.
It applies to your staff’s phones too. The reel filmed in the treatment room with a patient in the background is a consent problem regardless of how good the footage is.
Get it checked
Before a clinic site goes live, read every page of copy against two questions: does this promise a result, and does this claim superiority? Then have a practitioner from your own council — not a marketer — sign off on the final text.
It costs an afternoon. The alternative is a complaint about a sentence nobody in the practice wrote.