Why can't you read reviews about our treatments?
I Have Questions is a monthly column. It puts questions to the industry's practices — never to any named clinic or practitioner. The only assertions in it are sourced facts.
Section 133 of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law prohibits advertising any regulated health service using testimonials about clinical care. The penalty is up to $60,000 for an individual and $120,000 for a company. Reviews about non-clinical things — booking, access, how staff communicate — are permitted. That is why Glow hosts only those.
Written by Taliha-Paige Maggs, reviewed [date — pending review]. Published [date pending]. [TALIHA: this column publishes under your name only — AHPRA registration number to display with the byline, and every word needs your sign-off before publish.]
The law is not obscure. It is not new. It applies to every clinic in this category, including this one. And yet outcome testimonials are everywhere. I have questions about that.
What are the rules for cosmetic clinic reviews in Australia?
One rule governs reviews of every regulated health service in Australia: section 133 of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law. It prohibits advertising a regulated health service "in a way that uses testimonials or purported testimonials about the service or business."
The scope matters. This is not an aesthetics rule. It covers every service provided by a registered health practitioner — nursing, medicine, dentistry, physiotherapy, all of the registered professions. A clinic led by a registered nurse provides a regulated health service, so the rule applies here in full.
The penalty is up to $60,000 per offence for an individual and $120,000 for a body corporate. Those are the numbers Parliament attached to a review on the wrong page.
What counts as a testimonial under the National Law?
A testimonial is a recommendation or positive statement about the clinical aspects of a regulated health service, used in advertising. That is Ahpra's definition. A review crosses into clinical territory when it expresses any of three things: the symptom or reason someone sought care, the treatment they received, or the outcome — including praise of the practitioner's skill.
Ahpra is equally clear about the other side of the line. Comments about customer service or communication style, with no reference to clinical aspects, are not testimonials and may be used in advertising.
So a review that says the room was calm, the booking was easy and the questions were answered plainly — a clinic can host that. A review that says what a treatment did for someone's skin — a clinic cannot use that, anywhere it advertises. And a clinic's own website and social pages are advertising.
Why are outcome testimonials still everywhere?
Here is the part worth sitting with. The law binds the advertiser, not the reviewer. Anyone is free to write whatever they want about their experience on a review platform — Ahpra says so explicitly. The breach begins when a business takes those words and uses them to promote itself: displays them, shares them, pins them to the top of a page it controls.
Which means that when outcome stories appear on pages a business controls, someone chose to put them there.
I have questions about that choice. Is enforcement assumed to be rare enough to price in? Is the format considered too persuasive to give up? Or has the rule simply been read, category-wide, as applying to someone else? I don't know which answer is true. I notice that none of them is reassuring.
What does it mean that the law had to say it?
Ahpra gives its reasons for the prohibition, and they are worth reading in plain form. A testimonial is a personal opinion, often with no objective basis. The outcome one person experienced does not tell you the outcome available to you. And a curated set of positive comments is not the whole story — it is a selection, and the selecting was done by the party with something to sell.
That is not squeamishness about praise. It is a finding about the format. A testimonial persuades without informing, and it works hardest on exactly the person trying to decide carefully. The law had to say it because the format is effective — if it didn't work, nobody would need to be told to stop.
Candour requires saying this cuts against Glow's interest too. A page of outcome praise would be commercially useful. The law says no. On the format, I think the law is right.
What reviews can Glow host?
Reviews about the non-clinical parts of the service: the facility, access and parking, how booking works, how staff communicate. That is the lawful boundary, and it is the whole of Glow's review policy. [TALIHA: confirm the current state of the Google Business Profile and social review surfaces, so this statement matches actual practice before publish.]
The absence of outcome reviews here is not information being withheld. It is the law working as written — at every clinic that follows it.
Deciding without testimonials is still possible, because what a clinic can lawfully give you is verifiable fact. Every Glow price is published in full — a glass skin facial is $250, a peptide infusion facial is $150 — with no quotes on request (pricing). Every recommendation follows a documented assessment, and the reasoning behind that order of operations is set out at the Glow approach. A registered nurse's registration is checkable on the public register. A first consultation at Glow in Springvale is $150, runs 90 minutes, and ends with a written plan you keep whether or not you book any treatment.
Consultations are available by appointment. Book a consultation.
References
1. Testimonials: Understand the requirements — Ahpra Advertising hub, accessed 30 July 2026. 2. Health Practitioner Regulation National Law Act 2009 (Qld), section 133 — Queensland Legislation, current in-force version, accessed 30 July 2026. 3. Guidelines for advertising a regulated health service — Ahpra, in effect from 14 December 2020. 4. The Glow approach — Glow Cosmetique. Assessment before recommendation. 5. Pricing — Glow Cosmetique. The full published price list.