Vikas Thakur / / 9 min readAdvertising Botox by name to the public carries a maximum civil penalty of $1.82 million for an individual and $18.2 million for a body corporate, under section 42DLB of the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989. That is separate from, and far larger than, AHPRA's own advertising penalties.
Vikas Thakur / / 10 min readAHPRA closed 81.1% of the 13,327 notifications it received nationally in 2024/25 within six months, and just 1.4% of closed cases ended in deregistration. Here is exactly how the complaint process works, and why AHPRA regulates practitioners, not clinics.
Vikas Thakur / / 9 min readIn Australia, a patient under 18 must wait at least three months before cosmetic surgery and at least seven days before a non-surgical cosmetic procedure such as injectables. The rules sit in two separate regulator guidelines, in force since 2023 and 2 September 2025, and both reach into a clinic's website and ads.
Vikas Thakur / / 14 min readIn March 2026 the TGA issued three infringement notices totalling $59,400 to Canngea Pty Ltd, a Queensland medicinal cannabis wholesaler, over an alleged failure to answer a request for information about its supply of therapeutic vaping goods. The case has nothing to do with advertising copy, and that gap between what most clinics prepare for and what the TGA actually fined is the reason it belongs in your compliance file.
Vikas Thakur / / 8 min readA five-star Google review is not an AHPRA problem on its own. Liking, sharing, or replying to one with outcome language can turn it into a breach worth up to $120,000 for a clinic, under AHPRA's own testimonial guidance.
Vikas Thakur / / 9 min readAHPRA's Guidelines for advertising higher risk non-surgical cosmetic procedures set out 48 numbered rules across 9 categories, effective 2 September 2025, and every one applies to a Facebook or Instagram ad. Thirteen of those 48 rules name social media, hashtags, or algorithm boosting directly.
