Question 1

Can we ask patients to leave us a Google review in Australia?

Accepted Answer

This sits in the most contested area of Australian healthcare marketing and deserves a careful answer rather than a confident one. Section 133 prohibits using testimonials in advertising a regulated health service. AHPRA's guidance indicates that reviews patients post of their own accord on platforms the practitioner does not control are generally not considered advertising by the practitioner. The difficulty is that actively soliciting reviews about clinical care, particularly with a system designed to generate promotional content, moves closer to the practitioner using testimonials. The conservative position many Australian practices adopt — and the one we generally recommend — is to invite feedback about the service experience rather than clinical outcomes, to ask all patients rather than filtering for satisfied ones, never to incentivise, and never to select, embed or republish the resulting reviews in your own marketing. What is unambiguous is the other end: gating requests to happy patients, offering anything of value in exchange, or pulling five-star reviews onto your website are all problems. Given the penalties attached and that complaints frequently originate from competitors, we advise practices to take advice on their specific process rather than rely on an agency's confidence.

Question 2

How should we respond to a negative review without breaching the rules?

Accepted Answer

Two constraints apply simultaneously, and the second is often forgotten. The privacy constraint is the same one that applies internationally: confirming that the person was a patient, referencing their treatment or disputing their account of care discloses health information, and the fact that they disclosed it first does not release you. The Australian-specific constraint is the mirror image — you must also avoid responding in a way that adopts or endorses a positive outcome claim, because thanking someone effusively for describing how well their procedure went can amount to using a testimonial. So the safe response pattern is deliberately neutral in both directions: acknowledge the feedback, state your general standards, and invite private contact with a named person. 'Thank you for your feedback. We take all patient concerns seriously and would welcome the opportunity to discuss this — please contact our practice manager on [number].' Use a similar restraint on positive reviews: a brief, non-specific thanks rather than an enthusiastic reply that repeats their outcome claim. Respond promptly in both cases, because prospective patients read the responses as much as the reviews.

Question 3

Our overseas agency set up a review generation tool. Is it compliant here?

Accepted Answer

Very often it is not, and this is worth auditing specifically because the tools are built for markets with different rules. The features that make these products attractive elsewhere are frequently the features that create exposure in Australia. Review gating — surveying satisfaction first and routing only the positive respondents to a public review link — is a problem under Australian consumer law as a misleading practice and sits badly against the testimonial rules. Automated widgets that pull selected reviews onto your website move independent reviews into your advertising, which is the specific thing section 133 prohibits. Incentives or prize draws for leaving reviews are prohibited outright. Templates that explicitly ask patients to describe their treatment results are soliciting exactly the content that cannot be used. Even the reporting dashboards that encourage staff to chase five-star outcomes can push a practice toward behaviour it should avoid. We usually audit the existing tool, disable the non-compliant components, rewrite the request wording, remove any embedded review displays from the website, and where the product cannot be configured safely, replace it.

Question 4

What does review management for clinics cost in Australia?

Accepted Answer

We quote clients in Australia in AUD. As a guide, Google Business Profile management starts around AUD 95 per month, SEO publishing around AUD 140 per month, and full-service retainers from about AUD 420 per month depending on scope. Those figures are converted from our India list at an indicative rate and include the uplift for servicing an account across timezones, currencies and a different regulatory regime; your quote is confirmed in writing after the free audit. Where this service involves paid media, that budget sits outside our fee — in Australia treatment-intent clicks typically run AUD 6–30. Cosmetic surgery and implant dentistry sit at the top of that range, while skin checks and allied health convert far cheaper — the mix, not the spend, decides your cost per patient.

Question 5

How long until we see results in Australia?

Accepted Answer

The first movement — profile views, calls, direction requests — usually shows inside 30 days, because the earliest wins come from fixing what is already indexed rather than waiting for Google to re-evaluate new pages. Meaningful ranking and pipeline change typically lands between 60 and 90 days. Competition in Australia is high, so we sequence the work to produce early traction on winnable, specific searches while the harder head terms build over two to three quarters. We report monthly against patient actions — calls, enquiries, booked consultations — not against impressions.

Review Management for Clinics in Australia

The same service, run for this market.

The plays that work in Australia.

Independent-platform focus

Compliant feedback requests

Response protocols without disclosure

Internal experience measurement

What the rules mean for review management for clinics.