Testimonials – Where can I find them?
Testimonials and patient reviews are important when you are looking for a skilled surgeon. It is a vital process for any patient to research their surgeon or health care provider.
This is particularly important with Cosmetic and plastic surgery and there are many sites such as Google, Realself and RateMD where you can find reviews for me.
The current regulations enforced by AHPRA (Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency) forbid all forms of testimonials and reviews on surgeons’ websites. The main reason for this is that these regulating bodies want to ensure that the reviews are genuine, fair and not controlled by the medical practice in question.
We are not allowed to link out to any testimonial, have them in comments or any media that we control.
I would encourage you to seek out these reviews on your own by searching “Dr Beldholm reviews”
You will find many medical practitioners and other surgeons displaying testimonials on their websites, this is illegal in Australia.
This information comes from AHPRA’s (Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency) – Advertising Compliance Team:
The legal requirements for advertising a regulated health service are important as they support members of the community to make informed choices about their healthcare.
Testimonials or purported testimonials about clinical services are prohibited under the National Law when advertising regulated health services. ‘Testimonial’ means a statement, review, view or feedback about a service received or provided. In the context of the National Law, a testimonial involves recommendations or positive statements about clinical aspects of a regulated health service.
Although a practitioner does not have control over the third-party reviews, and are not responsible for attempting to remove them, by providing a link to or responding to the review then you are considered to be using that review in your advertising. If this review is about the clinical aspects of a regulated health service then it is a testimonial that is being used in advertising, which is prohibited under the National Law.
The Testimonial tool published on the AHPRA website has further information on what is considered a testimonial in breach of the National Law.
If you like to find out what Surgeons are required to comply with in regards to advertising, then go to this page on AHPRA’s website.
