A treatment or procedure page should explain what is involved, which concerns the practice generally evaluates for it, what the clinician needs to assess before recommending it, and how a patient can ask about their own situation. It should not promise outcomes. Health claims need substantiation, before and after images need consent and context, and state board advertising rules vary by profession and by state.
Treatment pages are where marketing pressure runs highest. The practice wants patients to book, and the easiest copy to write is copy that promises a result. That is also the copy most likely to overstate what the practice can support.
This is a content and marketing article for practice owners and marketing leads. It is not clinical guidance and not a description of what any treatment does. Advertising rules come from several places, including the FTC and each state's licensing boards, so bring specific claims to your compliance lead or counsel.
What should a treatment page explain?
Build the page around the questions a patient asks before requesting a consultation, answered in the practice's own terms:
- What does the practice mean by this treatment, and how does it fit among its other services?
- Which concerns does the clinician generally evaluate for it, described in words the clinician approves?
- What does the practice need to assess first, and what happens at that first appointment?
- What other options does the clinician typically discuss?
- How does cost work, and where can a patient ask?
- Who performs or supervises it?
A useful treatment page is also honest about fit. If the clinician refers some patients elsewhere, or offers a treatment only after other steps, the page can say so in general terms the clinician approves. That helps people who are unlikely to be a fit decide before booking a consultation, and it shows everyone else that the practice evaluates before it recommends.
Every one of those answers belongs to the clinicians and the practice. The writer's job is to ask for them and present them clearly; nobody should expect the writer to fill a blank with what a procedure involves at some other practice. Twenty minutes with the performing clinician usually improves a treatment page more than hours of reading competitors' pages.
A description is not a promise
Most risky treatment copy is not dishonest. It is shorthand that turned into a claim. Explaining what a procedure involves is different from saying what it will do for the reader. Words such as "permanent," "painless," "no downtime," and "proven" each assert something the practice would need to support for the person reading it.
Keep conditions next to the statement they limit. A disclaimer at the bottom of a long page does not repair an overbroad sentence at the top. If something depends on the person, the evaluation, or factors the clinician has to assess, say so in the same sentence.
Before a treatment page goes to clinical review, flag every sentence that does one of the following, so the reviewer can look at each one directly:
- States or implies a specific result, timeline, or duration.
- Describes comfort, recovery, or risk in absolute terms.
- Compares the treatment with another option or another provider.
- Calls the treatment new, advanced, or the best available.
- Uses a patient's words to describe an outcome.
Health claims need substantiation
The FTC's Health Products Compliance Guidance says that, as a general rule, claims about the health benefits or safety of foods, dietary supplements, drugs, and other health-related products "require substantiation in the form of competent and reliable scientific evidence." It is written around products, and it also says "FTC advertising law applies to all products and claims." Whether a given service claim needs that level of support is a question for counsel. The drafting habit that follows is the same either way: do not publish an outcome claim the practice cannot document.
The guidance is also direct about testimonials: "Individual experiences aren't a substitute for scientific research." A patient's quote can describe their experience with the practice, but it cannot carry a health claim on its own. Our post on patient reviews and testimonials covers authorization and the FTC rules in more detail.
Before and after images need consent and context
Before and after photographs are patient information. HHS's de-identification guidance lists "Full-face photographs and any comparable images" among the identifiers that must be removed under the Safe Harbor method, so a full-face or comparable image does not meet that standard for de-identified information. HHS's marketing guidance says the Privacy Rule requires written authorization before protected health information is used for marketing, with limited exceptions; treat image use as falling under that unless your privacy officer advises otherwise.
Context matters as much as consent. Say how much time passed between images, whether lighting and angle are comparable, and whether the pair reflects what the clinician generally sees. The FTC's Endorsement Guides say that when an advertiser lacks substantiation that a depicted experience is representative, the ad should clearly disclose "the generally expected performance in the depicted circumstances." Before publishing, ask counsel whether your state's advertising rules for your profession address images.
State board advertising rules vary
Medicine, dentistry, chiropractic, physical therapy, and behavioral health each answer to state licensing boards, and advertising rules can differ by profession and from state to state. Ohio's dental board, for example, has a rule providing that "testimonial endorsement statements which tend to deceive or mislead the public are prohibited." Topics worth raising with counsel include specialty claims, professional titles, statements about results, and the use of testimonials.
A multi-specialty practice may answer to several boards on a single page. For each provider named on a treatment page, ask: "Which board governs this provider's advertising, and when did someone last read its current rules?" Your compliance lead or counsel should hold the answers, and the page owner should know where to find them.
Keep those answers somewhere the marketing team can see them. A short internal note for each profession, listing the rules counsel has flagged and the date they were checked, saves the next writer from guessing and gives the reviewer a fixed reference point.
A fictional rewrite
Here is a hypothetical example from a fictional med spa in Texas. It shows how a sentence changes, not what any real med spa offers or achieves.
The original line reads: "Our laser treatments erase wrinkles and give you results that last for years, with no downtime." Each clause makes a claim the practice would have to support: erase, last for years, no downtime.
The rewrite reads: "Our medical director and nurse practitioner meet with each person at a consultation before recommending any laser treatment. At that visit they explain what the treatment involves, what recovery can look like, and which other options might fit, and they describe what they need to assess first." That version describes the practice's process and leaves outcomes to the clinical conversation. The medical director would still approve the final wording.
The rewrite is less exciting to read, and it answers more of what a patient wants to know before booking: who they will meet, what the first visit is for, and that recovery and alternatives will be discussed. It also leaves the practice with nothing it has to walk back.
Pages like this are where Market Intelligence and AEO Creation meet in our process. Market Intelligence researches the questions patients ask about a treatment before booking, and AEO Creation turns the practice's approved answers into answer-first content. Clinical sign-off still belongs to the practice, and the steps for that are in clinical review for health content. If an existing treatment page is close but overstated, deciding whether to update a page or create new content helps with the next move. For the full set of pages a practice needs, see how healthcare practices show up when patients ask AI.
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- Health Products Compliance Guidance. Federal Trade Commission. Read 2026-10-15.
- 16 CFR Part 255, Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. Read 2026-10-15.
- Guidance Regarding Methods for De-identification of Protected Health Information. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Read 2026-10-15.
- Marketing (HIPAA Privacy Rule guidance). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Read 2026-10-15.
- Ohio Administrative Code Rule 4715-13-04, Statements tending to deceive or mislead the public. Ohio State Dental Board, via Ohio Laws and Administrative Rules. Read 2026-10-15.