Who decides what counts as a health claim?
For advertising, the Federal Trade Commission does. Its guide for small businesses sets out three rules for every ad: it must be truthful and not deceptive, the advertiser must have evidence to back up its claims, and it cannot be unfair. The same guide says ads that make health or safety claims must be supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence.2
A practice website is advertising. The service page for your gut health program, the blog post about adjustments and headaches, the Instagram caption about your IV menu: the FTC treats all of them as ways of getting people to buy. Being a licensed provider does not exempt the marketing.
The FTC’s most detailed explanation of how it reads health claims is its Health Products Compliance Guidance, which replaced its 1998 advertising guide for dietary supplements.1 It is written about products, but the reasoning is the same reasoning the agency applies to any health claim, and it is the best map available to a practice owner.
What does competent and reliable scientific evidence mean?
The guidance defines it as tests, analyses, research or studies that were conducted and evaluated objectively by experts in the relevant condition, and that are generally accepted in the profession to yield accurate and reliable results.1 It then adds the sentence that matters most: as a general matter, substantiation of health benefits will need to be randomized, controlled human clinical testing.1
Three things fall short of that standard, and practice websites lean on all three:
- Your own clinical experience. It is real, and it is valuable, but it is not a controlled trial.
- A single small study, an animal study, or a lab finding presented as if it proved a result in patients.
- What patients say. Consumer endorsements are not competent and reliable scientific evidence.5
This does not mean you can only describe services that have a trial behind them. It means the claim has to match the evidence. You can say what a service involves, how long it takes, what it costs and what the research does and does not show. You cannot promise an outcome the research does not support.
Why does the FTC care about what a page implies?
Because patients read implications. The guidance says a marketer is equally responsible for claims that are suggested or reasonably implied, and that an ad should be judged by its net impression: the text, the product name, the images and the charts, taken together.1 The small business guide gives the classic example: “kills the germs that cause colds” implies the product prevents colds, even though it never says so.2
On a practice website, implied claims usually come from three places:
- Page titles that pair a service with a disease, such as “Chiropractic for migraines” or “Thyroid reset program.”
- Before-and-after photos, charts of lab values, or a list of conditions under a heading like “What we treat.”
- Program names. A “Diabetes Reversal Protocol” makes a claim before a single sentence has been read.
The test: what would a tired patient, reading on a phone, believe after ten seconds on the page? If that belief is stronger than your evidence, the page makes a claim you cannot support.
How do I rewrite the risky phrases?
| Risky phrasing | Why it is risky | Safer rewrite |
|---|---|---|
| Heals leaky gut | Disease-type outcome, rarely backed by trials | A 12-week plan covering diet, sleep and follow-up labs |
| Clinically proven results | Claims a level of proof you must be able to show | What the research shows, with the study linked |
| Balance your hormones naturally | Implied treatment claim | Testing and a written plan, reviewed with you |
| Say goodbye to back pain | Promises an outcome for everyone | Who this may help, and who we refer elsewhere |
| Boosts immunity | Broad health benefit with no qualifier | Name the ingredient and cite the specific study |
Notice what the rewrites add: timelines, what is included, who the service is not for. Those are also the facts AI assistants quote when they describe a practice, which is why this work overlaps with becoming the practice AI recommends.
Where should a qualification or disclaimer go?
Next to the claim it qualifies, and big enough to notice. The guidance says a visual disclosure should stand out by its size, contrast and location so that it is easily noticed, read and understood, and that a disclosure cannot be contradicted by anything else in the ad.1
In practice that rules out the most common pattern on health sites: a bold promise at the top of the page and a grey paragraph in the footer saying results vary. If the headline needs a qualification to be true, the headline is the problem. Rewrite the headline.
What about supplements sold in the office?
Many functional medicine, naturopathic and chiropractic practices sell supplements. Those pages sit under two regulators. The FTC standard above still applies to the advertising. The FDA separately allows structure/function claims, such as “calcium builds strong bones,” but not claims that a supplement diagnoses, treats, cures or prevents a disease; only a drug can legally make that claim.4 A structure/function claim on the label needs the FDA disclaimer, and the manufacturer must notify the FDA within 30 days of marketing with the claim.4
How serious is the enforcement risk?
Serious enough to take seriously, without panic. In April 2023 the FTC sent Notices of Penalty Offenses to about 670 companies selling over-the-counter drugs, homeopathic products, dietary supplements and functional foods.3 A company that has received one can face civil penalties of up to $50,120 per violation if it goes on to make unsupported claims, including claiming a product is scientifically or clinically proven when it is not.3
Most practices will never receive that letter. The more common costs are quieter: a platform rejecting ads, a state board complaint, a patient who feels misled, and an AI assistant repeating your strongest claim back to a patient who then holds you to it. This article is not legal advice. If a page makes disease claims, have a regulatory attorney review it.
The rewrite is part of the Technical and Compliance Rebuild, and the claim-language findings appear in the free check as well.