On 6 October 2026 the National Medical Commission rewrote how doctors and hospitals in India can communicate online and offline. Testimonials, before-and-afters, “best doctor” claims, offers, AI promotion and paid patient deals are now restricted, and the guidelines came into force the same day. Here is every rule in plain language, what to change this week, and how we keep you on the right side of it.
Summarised from the official notice · Last reviewed 11 Oct 2026
What changed
The 2002 code banned advertising in broad terms. The 2026 guidelines name the digital tactics, put the doctor on the hook for what agencies publish, and set out graded penalties.
Until nowReels, sponsored posts, influencer collaborations and search ads sat in a grey zone that the 2002 regulations never named.
From 6 Oct 2026Digital, social, sponsored, targeted, influencer-led, search-engine, platform-based, audio-visual and AI-generated communications count as advertising when they are promotional.
Until nowPatient video stories, "thank you doctor" reels and reshared reviews were routine.
From 6 Oct 2026A doctor "shall not request or share patient testimonials, recommendations, endorsements or reviews for professional promotion on social media", and patient consent does not make a prohibited testimonial permissible.
Until nowPosts carried a name and a logo at most.
From 6 Oct 2026Every electronic-media post should disclose the doctor's name, qualifications, registration status and SMR/NMR registration number. Hospitals must disclose the same for every doctor they feature.
Until nowAI avatars, AI-written patient stories and synthetic reels were unregulated.
From 6 Oct 2026AI-generated promotional campaigns for commercial interest are prohibited. Permitted AI content must carry a source mark stating it is AI-generated. Synthetic patients, voices and endorsements are banned.
Until now"My agency posted it" was treated as a defence.
From 6 Oct 2026Publishing through an agency, influencer, platform or other intermediary does not absolve the doctor or hospital of content they authorised, commissioned, sponsored, adopted or knowingly permitted.
Until nowPenalties for unethical advertising were vague and rarely applied.
From 6 Oct 2026A graded ladder the State Medical Council may apply: warning and ethics training, then censure and fine, then suspension, up to removal from the register for 1–3 years.
Who and where
“Advertisement” now means any communication that directly or indirectly promotes a doctor’s or hospital’s services, reputation, skills, qualifications, achievements or facilities (para 3.2).
Every doctor on the National Medical Register or a State Medical Register. They are bound directly, and the State Medical Council takes disciplinary action against them.
Para 3.7, 4.1, 10.1Any clinical establishment that diagnoses or treats patients, in any recognised system of medicine. The guidelines are read with the Clinical Establishments Act or your state act, and penalties follow that act.
Para 3.4, 4.3, 10.1 Expl.They are not regulated directly, but the doctor or hospital stays responsible for anything they authorise. Healthcare platforms that list doctors must not sell paid ranking.
Para 4.4, 8.1(viii), 9.4Para 8.1 · The core
Each card shows what the clause says, what to take down, and a compliant alternative. Cards marked “hospitals too” bind institutions as well as doctors.
No advertising meant to create unnecessary demand for procedures, promote unnecessary diagnostics, or market through fear.
Instead: Explain risk factors calmly, with sources, and tell people when to see a doctor.
A doctor shall not solicit patients directly or indirectly, promote their services through self-promotion, engage any third party for marketing medical services, allow their name, image, voice, testimonial or endorsement to promote services or products, or join campaigns that make medical practice look commercial.
“engage any third party for marketing medical services”
Instead: Public-health education in the doctor's own name and designation, with no promotional intent (para 5.1, 8.2(iii)).
No advertising of personal achievements, success rates or number of patients treated with assertions like these.
"Guaranteed cures", "Best doctors", "No.1 Specialist", "100% success", "painless treatment", "Miracle treatment", "Exclusive cure"
Instead: Describe the procedure, who it suits, its risks and recovery, with factual qualifications.
No approval, recommendation, certificate or statement for any drug, device, diagnostic, health or commercial product used in advertising, paid or unpaid.
Instead: Educate on ingredients or classes of treatment without naming or endorsing brands.
No promotional case posts, surgical results, before-and-after photos, celebrity patients or personal success stories, unless published strictly for scientific or educational purposes with anonymised patient consent.
Instead: Anonymised educational cases in journals or CME settings; explainer diagrams instead of patient photos.
No statement that creates unrealistic expectations, misrepresents outcomes, conceals risks, or promotes unproven, secret or unestablished therapies.
Instead: Balanced content: benefits, risks, alternatives and realistic recovery timelines.
No commission, rebate, bonus, gift, referral fee, lead-generation fee or other consideration linked to the referral or procurement of patients, specimens or materials.
Instead: Flat, fixed professional fees for any vendor; no money tied to patient numbers.
Engaging advertising agencies, digital marketing agencies, influencers or online platforms must not be structured so that payment is linked to the procurement or referral of individual patients.
Instead: Fixed-scope, fixed-fee engagements with written compliance terms.
No comparative or superiority claims such as "best", "No.1", "leading", "most trusted", "top", "number one" or "unmatched" unless they are objectively verifiable through a transparent, independently checkable method. Any ranking or award must be independently verifiable, with its methodology, date and awarding body disclosed.
Instead: State verifiable facts: accreditation (e.g., NABH), years in practice, departments, equipment.
No discounts, limited-period offers, contests, coupons, gifts, cashbacks, referral benefits, free procedures or similar inducements that encourage unnecessary consultations, tests or treatment or amount to solicitation. Disclosing charges, packages or fees is allowed if it is factual, transparent and not misleading.
Instead: A clear, factual fee page: what is included and what is not.
No celebrity, influencer, patient, employee or third party may promote services through prohibited testimonials, endorsements or recommendations. Commercial relationships in lawful public-health communication must be disclosed. A third party cannot be used to do indirectly what the doctor or hospital cannot do directly.
Instead: Disclosed, non-promotional public-health collaborations only.
No procuring or manipulating fake followers, likes, reviews, ratings, testimonials, comments or views, or manipulating search rankings, visibility or algorithms to create a misleading impression of professional standing.
Instead: Earned visibility: useful content, accurate listings, technically sound websites.
Para 8.1(iii) and (ix)
NMC names these phrases outright. Superiority words are allowed only if they can be objectively verified under a transparent, independent method, and any award has to name its body, method and date.
Para 3.2, Explanation III & IV
Every electronic-media post should transparently show the doctor's name, qualifications, registration status and SMR/NMR registration number. Hospitals should show this for every doctor named in a post.
Dr [Full Name] · MBBS, MD ([Specialty]) · Registered with [State] Medical Council · Reg. No. [Number]
Put it on the post itself (caption, end card or graphic), not only in the profile bio. On video, add it to an on-screen end card as well as the caption.
Para 6 & Explanation V
The guidelines close the “but the patient agreed” loophole. A doctor shall not request or share patient testimonials, recommendations, endorsements or reviews for professional promotion on social media.
Consent does not by itself permit a testimonial, endorsement, promotional patient story, before-and-after or success claim.
Para 6.2
Where consent is legally needed it must be specific, informed, voluntary, documented and verifiable, and comply with privacy law.
Para 6.3
Even when disclosure is lawful, avoid names, and crop, blur or black out faces, birthmarks and identifying marks.
Para 6.4, 7.4
Any advertising that uses digital personal data must comply with the IT Act 2000 and the DPDP Act 2023 and Rules 2025.
Para 7.6
Live broadcasts of surgical or clinical procedures must follow NMC's live-surgery framework; commercial dissemination isn't permitted.
Para 7.5
Para 7.2
For the first time, NMC regulates AI in healthcare communication. AI-generated promotional campaigns are out, and any AI content you keep must say it is AI.
"AI Generated promotional campaign for furtherance of commercial interest is prohibited."
Any AI-generated content that otherwise complies must carry a source mark that explicitly says its origin is AI.
AI must not create or manipulate a patient's image, testimonial, voice or clinical outcome, or a synthetic endorsement that appears to come from a real patient, doctor or other person.
No AI content that misrepresents diagnosis, treatment, outcomes, qualifications, patient experiences or services.
Where the AI-generated or AI-altered nature of content matters to how people understand it, disclose it.
Patient information used as AI input must comply with privacy, confidentiality and data-protection law, including the DPDP Act 2023 and its 2025 Rules.
Para 5, 8.2, 8.3, 9
The guidelines are not a gag order. Factual information and genuine public-health education remain open, and these are the foundations we build on.
Awareness programmes, public-health campaigns, academic discussion and educational content that does not promote personal practice, solicit patients or get monetised through promotional marketing.
Para 5.1
Lectures and talks on public health and disease on TV, radio and electronic media, in your own name and designation, without promoting your employer.
Para 8.2(iii)
Factual, non-promotional notices about starting practice, changing practice type or address, temporary absence, resuming or succeeding to a practice, and consultation fees.
Para 8.2(ii), 9.3
Case studies published in reputed medical journals.
Para 8.2(i)
Health-education pamphlets for patients visiting your clinic or hospital, with no cure guarantees, superiority or misleading claims.
Para 8.2(iv)
Greetings on national days and days important to the medical profession, without promoting professional gains.
Para 8.2(v)
Availability of equipment, technology, diagnostics or services, without superiority, guaranteed accuracy or outcome, or comparative claims.
Para 3.2 Expl. II
Name, location, contact details, departments, facilities, equipment, services, emergency services, accreditation status and charges: factual, objective and verifiable.
Para 8.3(i), 9.1
A directory of doctors with names, recognised qualifications, specialties, registration details and availability is treated as patient information, distinct from paid promotion.
Para 9.1
Charges, packages or fees, stated factually and transparently.
Para 8.1(x), 8.2(ii)(g)
Campaigns on Government of India and state government programmes in the larger public interest are exempt.
Para 7.3 Expl.
Two rulebooks
Individual doctors carry the strictest limits. Hospitals keep room for factual institutional communication, but must not use it to promote an individual doctor.
Channel by channel
This is our conservative, planning-level reading of the guidelines for each channel. Where the text is open to interpretation, we take the safer side until NMC issues clarifications (para 12).
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Para 10–11
Graded action the State Medical Council may take against a doctor. Hospitals are penalised under the Clinical Establishments Act or the state act, and the doctor who authorised the content can be examined separately.
No penalty without a show-cause notice and a chance to explain.
Para 10.2
The State Medical Council must issue a speaking order naming the violation, your response and the basis for the penalty.
Para 10.3
To the Ethics & Medical Registration Board, NMC, within 60 days (NMC Act s.30(3)).
Para 11.1
Within 60 days of the first-appeal decision (NMC Act s.30(4)).
Para 11.4
Penalised under the Clinical Establishments Act or state act. A doctor who authorised the content can be examined separately by the SMC.
Para 10.1 Expl., 11.5
Your next 30 days
Work through it yourself, or hand it to us. Either way, keep a dated record of what you changed. It is your best evidence if a show-cause notice ever arrives.
How Branding Pioneers takes care of it
We have worked only in healthcare since 2016. The day the notice came out, we rebuilt our India playbook around it: what we publish, how we check it, and how we charge.
We check your website, Google profile, social accounts, ads, WhatsApp, listings and offline material against every clause, and you get a red/amber/green report showing what to remove, fix or keep.
Para 8.1, 6, 7, 9
We archive testimonials and before/after posts, rewrite superlatives, anonymise patient material, add the disclosure line to every live post and template, and fix bios and listings.
Expl. III–V, 6.4, 8.1(iii), (v), (ix)
Every post, script, ad and web page is checked against the 12 restrictions before it goes live, and the doctor signs off on clinical accuracy. Each approval is logged, so you have a paper trail if you are ever asked to explain.
Para 4.4, 10.2
Public-health explainers, myth-busters, awareness-day content and talks in the doctor's own name and designation. No booking pushes, no offers, no self-praise.
Para 5.1, 8.2(iii), 8.2(v)
Hospital websites with doctor directories, condition pages that state risks and alternatives, fee pages, accurate Google profiles. Visibility comes from genuinely useful pages, never manipulation.
Para 8.3, 9.1, 8.1(xii)
Specific, informed, documented consent where any patient material is used lawfully. Anonymisation is the default, and patient data never goes into AI tools without a lawful basis.
Para 6.3, 6.4, 7.2(d), 7.6
Source marks on any AI-assisted content. No AI avatars, synthetic patients or AI-voiced endorsements, ever.
Para 7.2
Fixed retainers for defined work. We never charge per patient, per appointment or per lead, and every commercial relationship is disclosed.
Para 8.1(vii), (viii), (xi)
Monthly scans of listings, reviews, tagged posts and third-party mentions. We flag fake reviews through the platform's own process and update your playbook when NMC issues clarifications.
Para 8.1(xii), 9.4, 12
What we won’t do: solicit patients for an individual doctor, run testimonial or before/after campaigns in India, buy reviews or followers, generate AI patients or doctor avatars, or charge per patient. If a request crosses the line, we say so and offer the compliant version.
Free · No obligation
Send us your website and handles. A compliance strategist reviews every channel against the guidelines and sends a written red/amber/green report with fixes in priority order.
Free NMC audit
For doctors, clinics and hospitals in India. We reply on WhatsApp within one working day.
Outside India
The NMC guidelines apply only in India. Every market we serve has its own regulator and rulebook, and we run a separate compliance playbook for each one.
Questions
Immediately. NMC Public Notice R-13014/01/2024-Ethics, dated 6 October 2026, says the guidelines "shall come into force with immediate effect". There is no transition period, so content already live can be looked at today.
Yes, for public-health education. Para 5.1 allows educational content that does not promote personal practice, solicit patients or get monetised through promotional marketing. Every post should carry your name, qualifications, registration status and SMR/NMR number (Explanation III to para 3.2).
No. Para 6.2 says consent does not by itself make permissible any testimonial, endorsement, promotional patient story, before-and-after or success claim. Explanation V adds that a doctor shall not request or share patient testimonials or reviews for professional promotion on social media.
A doctor should not request reviews for professional promotion on social media (Explanation V), and no one may solicit, buy or manipulate fake, paid or misleading reviews (Explanation V, para 8.1(xii)). Reviews patients leave on their own are not prohibited. Reply politely without revealing any patient details. Hospitals should not offer incentives or filter which patients get asked.
Not to solicit patients or promote their practice: para 8.1(ii) says a doctor shall not "engage any third party for marketing medical services", and para 8.1(xi) bars using a third party to do indirectly what is prohibited directly. An agency can still do what the guidelines allow: compliance audits and clean-up, public-health education content, factual websites and listings, privacy and consent operations, and monitoring. Fees must never be linked to patients (para 8.1(viii)).
Yes, factually. Para 8.3 and 9.1 allow hospitals to share objective, verifiable information: name, location, contact details, departments, facilities, equipment, services, emergency services, accreditation and charges. They cannot solicit patients, offer inducements, make superiority or outcome claims, or portray an individual doctor promotionally. Read the guidelines alongside your Clinical Establishments Act or state act.
Not by name, but search, targeted and sponsored promotion is treated as advertising (para 3.2). Our conservative reading: pause ads that promote an individual doctor's practice; hospitals can run factual institutional campaigns without offers, superlatives or outcome claims, and keep frequency in check so factual information doesn't become solicitation (para 8.3(ii)).
Not for promotion. Para 8.1(v) bars before-and-after photos, surgical results and success stories unless they are published strictly for scientific or educational purposes with anonymised patient consent, such as in a journal or CME setting.
No. Para 8.1(iii) names "Guaranteed cures", "Best doctors", "No.1 Specialist", "100% success", "painless treatment", "Miracle treatment" and "Exclusive cure". Para 8.1(ix) also bars "best", "leading", "most trusted", "top" and "unmatched" unless they are objectively verifiable under a disclosed, independent method.
No inducements: para 8.1(x) bars discounts, limited-period offers, contests, coupons, gifts, cashbacks, referral benefits and free procedures that encourage unnecessary care or amount to solicitation. You may disclose fees and packages factually and transparently.
AI-generated promotional campaigns for commercial interest are prohibited (para 7.2). If you use AI for compliant educational content, it must carry a source mark stating it is AI-generated. AI must never create synthetic patients, testimonials, voices or doctor avatars, and patient data used as AI input must comply with data-protection law.
Para 9.2 bars the use of a doctor's photograph where it amounts to self-advertisement, solicitation or promotional publicity, and treats photos on letterheads or signboards as unethical under Regulations 6.1.1 and 6.1.2 of the 2002 Regulations.
The State Medical Council may apply graded action (para 10.1): a warning and mandatory ethics training for a first violation; censure and a monetary penalty for a second; suspension for 3–6 months for a third; 6–12 months for serious violations such as misleading cure claims, inducements or digital mass solicitation; and removal from the register for 1–3 years for repeated violations. A show-cause notice comes first, and you can appeal to the EMRB within 60 days.
Yes. Para 4.4 says publishing through a digital platform, third party, advertising agency, influencer or intermediary does not absolve the doctor or hospital of content they authorised, commissioned, sponsored, adopted or knowingly permitted.
The guidelines bind doctors on the National or State Medical Registers, and hospitals and medical institutions in India in any recognised system of medicine. Dentists and AYUSH practitioners are also governed by their own councils' codes. They do not apply outside India: clinics in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, the UK, the US, Australia and elsewhere follow their own regulators, which is why we run a separate compliance playbook for each market.
We review your website, Google Business Profile, social accounts, ads, WhatsApp broadcasts, aggregator listings and offline material against every relevant clause, and send a written red/amber/green report with fixes in priority order. There is no obligation to hire us afterwards.
Sources
This is a plain-language summary of NMC Public Notice R-13014/01/2024-Ethics (6 October 2026) for marketing planning. It is not legal advice. Read the official notice and take advice from your legal adviser or State Medical Council on specific situations. NMC may issue clarifications (para 12); we update this guide when it does.
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