Advertising guideline changes and its effects.
There have been some changes to how we advertise, which you may have noticed, and here is the reason why. AHPRA which is the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, governs the Chiropractic Board and the Chinese Medicine Board. It is governed by the Health Practitioner Regulation Law, which means that 16 health professions (which include Chiropractors, Acupuncturists, Osteopaths, Physiotherapists, Doctors, Dentists and more) are regulated by nationally consistent legislation under the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme. The primary role of AHPRA is to protect the public and to set standards and policies that all registered health practitioners must meet. This has been fantastic in making sure that practitioners are practicing at an expected standard, and that they meet requirements such as ongoing learning and insurance. It also instills confidence of the public of the practitioner they are seeing.
Recently there have been changes in the advertising guidelines made by AHPRA, to ensure that all types of advertising are not in any way misleading to the public or give false expectations. This has affected our Chiropractic and Acupuncture advertising to some degree as it is quite restrictive. We are unable to state what Chiropractic or Acupuncture may help with unless it is backed by very recent clinical studies. This unfortunately means we can not make a statement about what we may have observed in our many years of clinical experience. We are also not able to use any Testimonials on our website, or respond to or even acknowledge other online reviews (such as Google reviews). These explains why you may have noticed some changes to our web pages.
This doesn’t so much affect the patients that have been to us and know us, but it may for those who are searching for a health practitioner to help them, so now they will be relying more on word of mouth referrals, as will we. So if you know someone looking to find a practitioner to help them with their health and you feel what we do might help them, we would really appreciate it if you let them know of us, as it will help them achieve better health, and of course help us too.
See this article for an interesting piece on a likely conflict of interest of 2 AMA (Australian Medical Association) members also on AHPRA board.
Martina Hambly
With over 15 years experience as a Chiropractor, I have acquired knowledge of and use a unique combination of techniques to achieve not only a reduction of symptoms, but also long lasting changes and overall health and wellbeing. More…