Within the AHPCSA rules, a chiropractor can tell the public who they are, where they practise, their fields of practice and how to book, but cannot tout for patients, quote fees or discounts, use patient photos or testimonials, or claim to heal or cure. That leaves three growth levers that are fully within the rules: make the practice easy to find, answer every enquiry quickly, and keep existing patients booked through their treatment plan.
The rules feel restrictive if you are used to how gyms or salons market themselves. They are clear, though, and most of the patients you are missing are probably not lost to a competitor's advert. They are lost to an unanswered phone.
This is a plain-language summary of the AHPCSA's published guidelines, not legal advice. If a specific campaign is borderline, ask the AHPCSA or CASA before running it.
What the AHPCSA rules say
The Allied Health Professions Council of South Africa's code of ethics, published as Board Notice 268 of 2015, includes "Guidelines for making professional services known". It starts from the principle that practitioners "should refrain from self-promotion, since patients ... are particularly vulnerable to persuasive emotive advertising". It then allows notices and publications, in any medium, provided they are not "unprofessional, untruthful, deceptive or misleading" and do not cause unwarranted anxiety about a health condition.
Two terms carry most of the weight:
- Canvassing: drawing attention to your personal qualities, superior knowledge, quality of service, professional guarantees or best practice.
- Touting: drawing attention to your offers, guarantees or material benefits.
Both are listed as unprofessional conduct.
Allowed and not allowed at a glance
| Allowed | Not allowed |
|---|---|
| Notices in any medium with your name, practice details, contact details and hours | Canvassing or touting for patients |
| Up to three fields of interest, once ratified by Council | Claims of healing or curing |
| A head-and-shoulders photo of the practitioner on a website profile page | Photographs of patients |
| Payment information such as "credit cards acceptable" | Any reference to discounts, fee amounts, incentives or special arrangements |
| Direct mailing, respecting the CPA and POPIA | Bulk distribution at malls or to passing motorists |
| Notices for existing patients at your rooms, and at libraries or information centres | Notices on road signposts, dustbins or cars |
| Social media used within the code | Social media posts that breach the code, confidentiality or are defamatory |
All of these come from the same board notice. Note that the "fields of interest" rule requires Council ratification before you use the statement.
Lever 1: be easy to find
Because the rules limit persuasion, information does the work. Make sure every place a patient might look gives the same accurate details:
- your Google Business Profile, with correct hours, phone number, address and booking link
- your website, with your registration, fields of practice, consulting hours and how to book
- medical scheme and directory listings, including CASA's member directory if you are a member
- a clear statement of which payment methods you accept
None of this is canvassing. It is the kind of factual notice the guidelines exist to allow.
Lever 2: answer every enquiry
This is the biggest gap in most practices. A chiropractor working alone or with one assistant is usually treating when the phone rings. A caller in pain does not leave a voicemail and wait. They ring the next name on the list.
Check your own numbers for one week:
- How many calls were missed during treatment hours?
- How many came in after hours or on weekends?
- How long did WhatsApp messages wait for a reply?
Every missed enquiry from someone already looking for a chiropractor is a patient you did not need marketing to find. Remi answers your line 24/7, books new patients straight into your diary and, if a call is missed, sends a WhatsApp text-back so the conversation does not end there. It never gives clinical advice and puts urgent calls through to the person you choose.
Lever 3: keep existing patients booked
A treatment plan only works if the patient comes back for it. Helping them do that is patient care, not touting:
- Book the next session before they leave.
- Send reminders before each appointment, with an easy way to move it.
- If a patient drops out mid-plan, one factual follow-up ("you were due back on Tuesday, would you like to rebook?") is reasonable. Repeated chasing is not.
Keep these messages about the patient's own care. Adding offers or promotions would turn them into direct marketing, which the guidelines say must respect the Consumer Protection Act and POPIA.
Lever 4: inter-professional referrals
CASA has described chiropractors as primary-contact practitioners who "recognise the importance of inter-professional referral and co-operation" (CASA, 2016). Good working relationships with local GPs, physiotherapists, biokineticists and sports clubs are a legitimate source of patients, as long as no commission changes hands. The code lists paying commission to anyone for recommending patients as unprofessional conduct.
What about online reviews?
The guidelines prohibit testimony and patient photos in your notices and publications. They do not mention online review platforms directly. The cautious approach is: do not reproduce reviews in your own advertising, do not offer anything in exchange for a review, and ask the AHPCSA before building a routine around requesting them.
Putting it together
For most practices the order of work is simple: fix the enquiries you are losing, then make the practice easy to find, then build referral relationships. An AI receptionist for chiropractors handles the first one without adding staff, which is often the quickest win of all.
The short version
- The AHPCSA allows factual notices about your practice in any medium.
- No canvassing, touting, testimonials, patient photos, fee or discount adverts, or healing claims.
- Payment information is limited to statements like "credit cards acceptable".
- Direct mailing is allowed if you respect the CPA and POPIA.
- The biggest legitimate lever is answering every enquiry, followed by accurate listings, reminders and referral relationships without commission.