Healthcare Marketing Has New Rules.Is Your Hospital Ready?
The National Medical Commission’s Guidelines on Ethical Advertising and Public Communication apply to every doctor and every hospital in India, with immediate effect. Most of what agencies sold you last month now sits on a doctor’s registration. Here is what changed, what it costs, what is still allowed, and how to be clean in 30 days.
6 October 2026
Every RMP and every hospital
A free KatSquare MedAudit
Six things most hospitals do today are now disciplinary offences.
The Guidelines define advertising as any communication with a promotional character, in any medium: a reel, a hoarding, a WhatsApp broadcast, a sponsored post, a paid news feature or an AI-generated image (3.2, 3.5). Each item below names the clause.
Testimonials and reviews
Doctors may not request, share or use patient reviews, testimonials or endorsements for promotion, in any medium. Review QR codes, “rate us” cards and testimonial sliders are out, and consent does not rescue them.
Success rates and superlatives
No success rates, patient counts, “guaranteed”, “100%”, “painless” or “miracle”. No “best”, “No.1”, “leading” or “most trusted” unless the claim is objectively verifiable and the method is disclosed.
Promotion of a doctor
A hospital may publish a directory of its doctors with qualifications and registration numbers. It may not promote an individual doctor, put a doctor’s face on a hoarding or run a campaign in a doctor’s name.
Offers, discounts and camps
Discounts, limited-period offers, packages as deals, contests, cashback, referral rewards and free procedures that encourage consultation are solicitation. Charges may be stated as plain facts.
Influencers, AI and WhatsApp
Influencer and celebrity promotion is barred. AI-generated promotional campaigns are barred, and any AI-assisted content must say so. WhatsApp broadcasts, sponsored posts and paid news articles all count as advertising.
Agencies paid per lead
No fee may be linked to referrals, leads or patients, and a doctor may not use an agency to do indirectly what the doctor cannot do directly. The agency does not shield the doctor: authorised content is the doctor’s.
The penalty lands on a registration number, not on an agency.
State Medical Councils act on complaint, after a show-cause notice, in graded steps (10.1). Hospitals are penalised separately under the Clinical Establishments Act or state law. Other laws stack on top: the Drugs and Magic Remedies Act carries imprisonment for adverts about sterility, obesity, diabetes, cancer or sexual health, and the Consumer Protection Act carries fines of up to ₹10 lakh, ₹50 lakh on repeat.
- First violation
Warning and mandatory ethics training
- Second
Censure and a monetary penalty
- Third
Suspension of registration, 3 to 6 months
- Serious
Cure claims, inducement or mass digital solicitation: suspension of 6 to 12 months
- Repeated
Removal from the medical register for 1 to 3 years
Factual information is permitted. Every competitor loses the same tools at the same time.
Hospitals may publish objective, verifiable information about the institution (8.3, 9.1). That is a smaller space than before, and it is the space patients actually search in. A clear site and a complete doctor directory is what search engines rank, with or without the tricks.
A directory of your doctors: names, recognised qualifications, specialty, registration number, availability
Departments, facilities, equipment, emergency services and accreditation, named and verifiable
Charges and packages, stated as facts
Patient education written or presented by a doctor in their own name, without a call to book
A Google Business Profile with accurate categories, hours, services and photos of the building
Hospital-level factual advertising where the law allows: a department exists, where it is, how to reach it
Formal announcements: a new practice, a new address, a change of hours, a consultation fee
A private feedback channel for patients, and careful replies to what they say in public
Clean within 30 days, without going dark online.
A fixed-scope engagement for one hospital or clinic. The fee is fixed and written, never linked to patients, leads or appointments, because the Guidelines forbid it and because you may need to show the contract to a regulator.
MedAudit
Every page, listing, post, ad and WhatsApp template mapped to the clause it breaks, rated red, amber or green. 48 hours.
Takedown
Red items removed or replaced within a week, every original archived with a date, so the record shows when you acted.
Rebuild
Your website rebuilt around what the Guidelines allow: the doctor directory, departments, facilities, charges, accreditation, education.
Listings and ads
Google profile and directories corrected, paid rankings cancelled, campaigns rebuilt at hospital level with audiences that follow platform health rules.
Staff session
Ninety minutes for doctors, management and the front desk, with a written do’s and don’ts handout to keep.
Approval desk
A clinician-plus-approver workflow, a pre-publish checklist, an archive, and a 24-hour response when a notice or complaint arrives.
A monthly watch keeps it clean: reviews and listings monitored, a quarterly re-audit, and your rule book updated the day a rule changes. If any asset we published is ever cited in a notice or a platform action, we handle the response and fix it at no charge.
A yes to any question is a red item under the Guidelines. The free KatSquare MedAudit finds all of them, with the clause each breaks, in 48 hours.
Does your website or any page title say best, No.1, leading, top or most trusted?
Is there a success rate, a patient count or the word “guaranteed” anywhere?
Is a doctor’s face on a hoarding, a banner or a paid ad?
Do your doctor pages or posts omit qualifications and the NMR or SMR number?
Do you show testimonials, patient videos, star ratings or before-and-after images?
Is there a review QR code, a “rate us on Google” card or a review-collection tool in use?
Do you run offers, discounts, package deals or free camps as a hook?
Do your doctors post reels about treatments without a registration number on screen?
Does any vendor, agency or platform get paid per lead, call, appointment or patient?
Has AI been used for any post or image without saying so?
The questions every medical director asks on the first call, answered here so the call can be about your hospital.
Both. The Guidelines bind every registered medical practitioner personally and every clinical establishment as an institution. A single-doctor clinic with an Instagram account is squarely inside them.
Every competitor loses the same tools at the same time. What remains, a clear factual site with a complete doctor directory, is what patients search for and what search engines rank. We rebuild that in the same 30 days the red items come down.
Ask them which clause each item complies with. If they are paid per lead or per appointment, the contract itself is a breach for the doctor under 8.1 viii.
No, and under the Guidelines anyone who does is selling you a breach. Our fee is fixed and never linked to patients or leads. We guarantee that what we publish is defensible, and if any asset we published is cited in a show-cause notice or a platform action, we handle the response and fix it at no charge.
A reel in which a doctor promotes services is red whatever the tone. A reel in which a doctor explains a condition, in their own name, with their registration number shown and no call to book, is allowed, and we will make those.
No. We identify, map and fix; your lawyer confirms. We work with lawyers, not instead of them, and hand them a clean archive.
By complaint. A patient, a competitor or anyone else can complain to the State Medical Council, which must issue a show-cause notice and a reasoned order before a penalty; appeals go to the NMC’s Ethics and Medical Registration Board within 60 days. Hospitals are dealt with under the Clinical Establishments Act or the state’s own law.
Send us your website, your Google profile and your Instagram. You get the red list back in 48 hours.
Two pages: a red, amber, green summary and every item with the clause it breaks. Free, no strings, and yours to act on with or without us.
Within one working day, IST (UTC+5:30).