Education
How to Respond to Google Reviews: A Guide for Australian Healthcare Practices
- A patient's review is not your advertising, but your public reply is — which brings it inside the National Law's advertising requirements.
- A testimonial is a positive statement about the clinical aspects of care: a symptom, diagnosis, treatment, outcome, or praise of a practitioner's skill. Comments about service, wait times or communication are not testimonials.
- You are not required to have a review removed from Google. The risk starts when you make use of it — republishing it, quoting it, or replying in a way that adopts the clinical claim as your own.
- Keep positive replies generic and grateful. "Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback" is safe; restating the treatment and the result is not.
- On negative reviews, privacy law does most of the work. Never confirm the person is or was a patient, reference their appointment, or correct the clinical record in public — even when what you would say is true.
- Never incentivise reviews, and never screen who gets asked. Invite every patient through the same process or none at all.
- A one-page review response policy turns all of this from judgement calls under pressure into a routine the front desk can follow.
- Why do responses to Google reviews matter for your practice?
- What does AHPRA say about Google reviews and testimonials?
- How do you respond to positive reviews without breaching the National Law?
- How should you handle negative reviews from patients?
- Can you ask patients for Google reviews?
- What should your practice put in a review response policy?
- Frequently asked questions
- References
A patient leaves a glowing review praising the result of their treatment. Your practice manager replies with a warm thank you and shares it to the clinic Facebook page. It feels like good marketing. Under the National Law, it may have just become unlawful advertising.
Reviews sit in an awkward spot for Australian health practices. Patients rely on them, Google rewards them, and AHPRA regulates what you can do with them. Most advice on responding to reviews is written for cafes and plumbers. For a registered health practitioner, a clumsy reply can raise advertising and privacy problems at the same time. This guide covers how to respond to Google reviews in a way that builds trust and stays inside the rules that apply to your registration.
Why do responses to Google reviews matter for your practice?
Your replies are often the first thing a prospective patient reads after the reviews themselves, and they show how your practice treats people.
Your response appears publicly under the review on Google Search and Maps, labelled as a response from the owner. Google also lets you flag reviews that breach its content policies and, according to its own guidance on how to manage customer reviews, you must verify your Business Profile before you can reply at all. Replying consistently signals to both patients and Google that the profile is actively managed, which supports your broader Google Business Profile optimisation alongside accurate categories, services and hours.
There is a second reason responses matter for health practices. Every public reply you write promotes your practice, which means it can fall within the definition of advertising under the National Law. The reply is yours even though the review is not. That distinction shapes everything below.
What does AHPRA say about Google reviews and testimonials?
The short version: patients can say whatever they like about you online, but you cannot use what they say to advertise your practice if it touches clinical territory.
The National Law prohibits using testimonials or purported testimonials to advertise a regulated health service. Ahpra's guidance on the testimonial requirements defines a testimonial as a recommendation or positive statement about the clinical aspects of a service. A clinical aspect exists where the comment refers to a symptom, a diagnosis or treatment, or an outcome, including praise of the practitioner's skill. Comments about customer service, wait times or communication style are not testimonials and can be used in advertising.
Three points from that guidance matter for Google reviews for doctors, dentists and other registered practitioners. First, you are only responsible for the advertising you control. A review sitting on Google is not your advertising, and you are not required to have it removed. Second, the moment you make use of that review, by republishing it on your website, quoting it in a social post, or engaging with it in a way that promotes your service, you may be using a testimonial in advertising. Third, selectively editing reviews, such as trimming the negative half of mixed feedback, has the potential to be misleading and breach the National Law even where the review itself was compliant.
The obligations described here sit across the National Law, the Privacy Act 1988 and Australian Consumer Law, and they change. How they apply turns on the exact wording of a given review and reply, so confirm your own templates with a qualified adviser before the front desk starts using them, and keep what non-compliance costs in front of whoever signs off.
How do you respond to positive reviews without breaching the National Law?
Thank the person, keep it generic, and resist the urge to amplify.
A safe reply acknowledges the feedback without repeating or endorsing the clinical content. "Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback, it means a lot to our team" works for almost any positive review. What you want to avoid is a reply that adopts the clinical claim as your own, such as "We're so glad the veneers transformed your smile!" That response restates a treatment and an outcome in your own advertising voice, which is exactly the territory the testimonial prohibition covers.
The same logic applies to what you do with the review afterwards. Screenshotting a five star review about a surgical result and posting it to your practice Instagram converts a patient's opinion into your advertising. If you want to showcase feedback, choose reviews that praise non clinical aspects, publish them complete and unedited, and keep clinical praise off your owned channels.
How should you handle negative reviews from patients?
Carefully, briefly, and without confirming anything about the person who wrote it.
This is where privacy law does most of the work. Under the Privacy Act 1988, a health service provider can generally only use or disclose a patient's health information for the primary purpose it was collected, or with the patient's consent, and the OAIC's guidance on using and disclosing health information makes clear that health information includes basic details like a person's name. A reviewer going public does not hand you consent to do the same. A reply that confirms the person attended your clinic, references their appointment, or corrects the clinical record in public can disclose health information without consent, even when everything you say is true and the review is not.
A strong negative review response does four things. It stays polite, because the audience is every future patient reading the exchange, not the reviewer. It speaks in general terms about your standards rather than the specific case. It avoids confirming the reviewer is or was a patient. And it moves the conversation offline: "We take all feedback seriously and are sorry to read this. We cannot discuss individual circumstances publicly, but we would welcome the chance to talk. Please contact our practice manager." If a review is fake or abusive, flag it through Google rather than fighting it in the replies.
Can you ask patients for Google reviews?
Yes, with two significant conditions attached: no incentives, and no cherry picking.
Consumer law sets the first boundary. The ACCC's guidance on online review obligations states that businesses offering incentives for positive reviews risk misleading consumers and breaching the law, and that any incentive must apply regardless of whether the review is positive or negative and be clearly disclosed. Google's own rules go further and treat incentivised reviews as fake engagement. For a health practice the cleanest position is simple: never offer a discount, gift or prize in exchange for a review.
The second boundary is how you ask. Inviting feedback from every patient through a consistent process, such as a message after their visit with a link to your profile, is fine. Screening patients and only sending the link to people you expect to be positive creates a misleading picture, and the ACCC has flagged exactly that pattern. Ask everyone or ask no one. Word the request to invite honest feedback about their experience rather than prompting patients to describe treatments or results, so the reviews you receive are less likely to be testimonials you then cannot touch.
What should your practice put in a review response policy?
A one page policy turns all of this from judgement calls under pressure into a routine anyone at the front desk can follow.
Your policy should name who responds and within what timeframe. It should include approved templates for positive and negative reviews, each drafted to avoid clinical content and patient identification. It should state plainly that no reply may confirm someone is a patient, reference their treatment, or offer clinical detail of any kind. It should prohibit incentives and set out the standard invitation wording sent to all patients. Finally, it should route anything unusual, such as a review alleging harm or one you suspect is fake, to the practice owner before anyone replies. The practices that get into trouble are rarely malicious; they are busy, and someone well meaning replied too quickly.
Reviews are one of the highest trust marketing assets your practice has, and they are also one of the few you do not control. Respond to all of them, keep every reply boring on the clinical front, and let the volume and consistency of your feedback do the persuading.
Respond to all of them, keep every reply boring on the clinical front, and let the volume and consistency of your feedback do the persuading.
If your existing replies were written before anyone checked them against the testimonial rules, they are worth reading back through. An audit of your existing marketing will show you where clinical praise has already been adopted into your own voice, and compliance-first marketing means fixing that before a complaint does it for you.
If you want your review responses, Google Business Profile and wider marketing handled inside AHPRA's rules rather than patched up after a complaint, talk to ContentClicks. Compliance first marketing is what we do all day.
Frequently asked questions
Can I turn off Google reviews for my practice?
No. Google does not offer a setting to disable reviews on a Business Profile. You can only manage them: reply, flag policy breaches, and build enough genuine feedback that a single outlier carries less weight.
Does a bad review affect my local search ranking?
A single negative review has minimal ranking impact. Local visibility is influenced by overall volume, recency and your pattern of responses, so an occasional critical review inside a steady stream of genuine feedback does little damage.
What if a reviewer has never been a patient at my clinic?
Flag the review through your Business Profile as a policy violation and, if it contains false claims, report it through Google's content escalation channels. Do not state publicly that the person was never a patient, since asserting who is or is not a patient creates its own privacy exposure.
Are review replies covered by the same rules as my website copy?
Treat them that way. A reply published under your practice name on a public platform can promote your service, so the same testimonial, accuracy and privacy considerations that apply to your website apply to every reply you post.
This article is general information only, not legal or regulatory advice. Advertising a regulated health service in Australia is governed by the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law and Ahpra's advertising and testimonial guidance; handling patient information is governed by the Privacy Act 1988 and the OAIC's health privacy guidance; and review practices are also subject to the Australian Consumer Law. These apply to your specific circumstances and change over time. Before publishing review responses, invitation wording or a response policy, confirm your obligations with a qualified adviser.
References
- Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. (2025). Online reviews for product and services. accc.gov.au
- Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. (2021). Testimonials: Understand the requirements. ahpra.gov.au
- Google. (2026). Manage customer reviews. Google Business Profile Help. support.google.com
- Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. (2025). Chapter 3: Using or disclosing health information. Guide to health privacy. oaic.gov.au
About the author
Matthew Roberts · Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder, ContentClicks
Matt is the CEO and co-founder of ContentClicks, a content marketing agency built for healthcare practices. He is not a marketer by trade. He spent fifteen years as an operations and transformation executive inside some of the world's largest regulated organisations, leading teams of more than 5,000 people and building the operating infrastructure that keeps complex, compliance-heavy businesses running. He holds a Master's degree in Agile Project Management from the University of South Australia, where he graduated as class valedictorian, and focuses on compliant content production, AI-driven search strategy and regulatory alignment. More from Matt.
