The Allied Health Patient Comms Pack

36 patient messages, written around Ahpra’s advertising rules and the Spam Act

For Australian allied health clinic owners and practice managers (GrokoryAI)

Read this first. This pack is general information, not legal advice. It does not replace Ahpra’s advertising guidelines, your National Board’s codes, your professional association’s requirements, or advice from your indemnity insurer. You remain responsible for your own advertising. Full disclaimer and sources at the end.

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Most patient comms advice is written for retail. Allied health is not retail. The moment you send a patient a message asking them to come back in, you are advertising a regulated health service, and a different set of rules applies.

This pack gives you the messages. More importantly, it tells you which words to take out.

After using this pack you will be able to: write recall, reactivation, no-show and reminder messages knowing which phrasings Ahpra has specifically named, and which three legal frameworks apply to each message you send.

How to use it: read the four rules in Part 2 (they take five minutes and they shape every template here). Do the self-check in Part 1. Then take the templates for your bucket in Part 4, swap the bracketed fields, and send.

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Part 1 · The 60-second self-check

The templates in this pack fix your wording. They cannot fix your plumbing. Tick every box you can answer yes to right now, without checking with anyone.

Consent and list provenance

• I can name where every mobile number on my recall list came from
• I can produce a record of when and how each patient agreed to be contacted for anything beyond their own booked appointments
• Nobody on the list was added from a purchased list, a scraped source, or an event sign-in sheet that did not mention future contact
• My intake form has a separate, specific opt-in for recall and practice updates (not bundled into the treatment consent)

Opt-out handling

• Every marketing message we send carries a working opt-out
• An opt-out is actioned within five working days, every time, including when it arrives by phone or in person rather than by reply
• Our opt-out list is checked before every send, and it survives a change of software
• Our SMS sender ID can actually receive a STOP reply (alphanumeric sender IDs usually cannot)

Record-keeping and privacy

• Health information in our comms tool is treated as sensitive information, not as an ordinary mailing list
• No message we send reveals a condition, diagnosis or treatment to anyone who might read the recipient’s screen
• Someone other than me could run this process correctly next week if I were away
• If Ahpra or the ACMA asked, I could produce our comms records without a scramble

Score it: All 12 ticks and your comms are in good shape. 8 to 11 and you have gaps that templates will not close. Below 8 and the risk is in the system, not the wording. Part 6 tells you what to do about that.

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Part 2 · The four rules that shape every template in this pack

Rule 1 · A patient recall notice is advertising

This is the one that surprises people. Ahpra’s Guidelines for advertising a regulated health service define advertising to include “any other similar professional notice (e.g. patient recall notices)”. It is not limited to billboards and Google Ads. A text message to a patient you treated last year, inviting them back in, is captured.

The definition does carve out material given to a patient during a consultation that provides clinical or technical information about their condition, where they have a chance to ask questions about it, and where it does not promote your services. A text sent from reception three months later is not that.

Four consequences that change how you write:

No urgency language. Ahpra names the phrasings directly: “don’t delay”, “act now before it’s too late”, “don’t miss out”, “time is running out”, “for a limited time only”. These create urgency and can be unlawful where they are tied to an unsubstantiated suggestion that the person’s health will suffer if they do not book. Every one of those phrases is standard in retail SMS marketing. None of them belong in yours.

No encouraging use without clinical need. Advertising should not push people to use a health service where there is no clinical or therapeutic need. “Time for your regular check-up” sent to your whole list, with no clinical basis for that individual, is the exact pattern this covers. The fix is not to stop recalling patients. The fix is to tie the recall to something real: a plan they were on, a review the practitioner actually recommended, an exercise programme with a defined review point.

No testimonials. You cannot use recommendations or positive statements about the clinical aspects of your service, which Ahpra defines as symptoms, diagnosis, treatment and outcome. A patient saying “my knee is finally better” is a testimonial and cannot go in your advertising. A patient saying “reception always fits me in and everyone is lovely” is a comment about customer service, not a clinical claim, and is not caught. Keep that line clear in your head, because it is the line.

Any offer needs its terms attached. If you advertise a gift, discount or other inducement, you must state or refer to the terms and conditions, and they must be clear, accurate, honest and easy to find. Pricing must be the total price, not the headline consult fee.

Rule 2 · The Spam Act needs consent, identification and an opt-out

Under the Spam Act 2003, a commercial electronic message needs three things.

Consent, express or inferred. Express is someone ticking a box, filling a form, or telling you face to face, and you keep a record of who, when and how. Inferred consent needs a provable ongoing relationship where the marketing is directly related to that relationship. The ACMA is explicit that inferred consent does not cover simply messaging someone after they have bought something from you. If a complaint lands, the burden of proving consent sits with you. You also cannot send a message asking for consent, because that message is itself marketing.

Identification. Accurate business name and correct contact details, and they must stay correct for at least 30 days after you send.

A working unsubscribe. Clearly worded, actioned within five working days, free, functional for at least 30 days, and it must not require the person to log in, create an account or hand over more personal information. “Reply STOP” is the standard for SMS.

One practical trap worth its own line: if you send from an alphanumeric sender ID (your clinic name showing instead of a number), that header generally cannot receive a reply, so “Reply STOP” is not actually functional. You need a real number or a stated alternative.

Rule 3 · Appointment reminders and recall messages are treated differently, but the line is not bright

This distinction saves you a lot of unnecessary caution, as long as you apply it conservatively.

A reminder for an appointment the patient has already booked is a factual message about an existing arrangement. It is not selling them anything, and it is generally treated as transactional.

A recall, reactivation or win-back message invites a patient to book something they have not booked. That is the message caught by both rule 1 and rule 2.

Be honest about the messages in between. A no-show follow-up that ends “call us to rebook” is factual at the front and an invitation to book at the back. Whether that counts as a commercial electronic message is genuinely arguable, and it is not a question you want to be arguing after a complaint.

So use this default: if a message contains an invitation to book something not already booked, treat it as marketing. Either give it identification and an opt-out, or take the invitation out and leave a contact number for questions. The templates below follow that rule, which is why some messages you might expect to be transactional are labelled [MARKETING].

Genuinely transactional messages do not need a STOP line, and adding one makes them read worse and pollutes your opt-out data. Reserve the label for messages that ask nothing of the patient beyond an existing arrangement.

One carve-out: the waitlist. Offering a place to someone who asked to be told when one opened up is fulfilling their request, not soliciting them. The patient created the arrangement and can leave the list at any time, so a waitlist offer stays transactional even though it invites a booking. This works only if the list is real and the person genuinely asked to be on it. A “waitlist” you built from anyone who ever enquired is a marketing list wearing a different hat, and it needs consent, identification and an opt-out like any other.

Rule 4 · Patient contact details are health information

The Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles apply to your practice, and the moment a phone number sits in a list alongside a treatment history, you are handling health information, which is the most protected category of personal information there is. Most states add their own layer on top: the Health Records Act 2001 in Victoria, the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 in New South Wales, and equivalents elsewhere.

For patient comms specifically, three practical consequences:

Collection needs a purpose the patient would recognise. A number given for appointment reminders was not given for a marketing list. That is the same point rule 2 makes about consent, arriving from a different direction.

The message itself is a disclosure. Anything visible on a lock screen has been disclosed to whoever is holding the phone. This is why the templates in this pack name conditions and treatments almost nowhere, and why Bucket B strips out even the clinic name.

Your comms tool holds health information. The SMS platform, the mailing list, the spreadsheet someone exported to their laptop: all of it is subject to the same obligations as your clinical records, including how long you keep it and who can reach it.

One more thing: not everyone in allied health is Ahpra-registered

Ahpra regulates physiotherapy, chiropractic, osteopathy, podiatry, occupational therapy, psychology, Chinese medicine, optometry and medical radiation practice, among others. Speech pathology, dietetics, exercise physiology, myotherapy and most counselling are not Ahpra-registered professions. They are self-regulated through their own associations.

If you are not Ahpra-registered, rule 1 does not bind you through the National Law. Rule 2, the Australian Consumer Law and your association’s own advertising code still do, and if you practise in a multidisciplinary clinic alongside registered practitioners, the clinic’s advertising is captured regardless. In practice, write to the higher standard.

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Part 3 · The nine phrases to delete, and what to send instead

If you do nothing else with this pack, do this. Search your existing templates for these.

Delete this	Why	Send this instead
”Don’t miss out” / “Limited time only”	Named urgency phrasing	”This is available if it suits you."
"Act now before it’s too late”	Named urgency phrasing, implies health harm	”There is no rush. Book when you are ready."
"Time for your regular check-up!” (sent to all)	Encourages use without clinical need	”[Practitioner] recommended a review at [interval] when you finished your programme."
"Our patients love their results”	Testimonial about clinical outcomes	”We have been treating [suburb] for [N] years."
"Fix your back pain for good”	Unsubstantiated outcome claim	”[Practitioner] can assess it and talk you through the options."
"50% off your next visit!” (bare)	Inducement with no terms	”[Offer]. Terms at [link].” Plus the total price.
”Book now, spots filling fast”	Manufactured scarcity	”Current availability is [day/time]."
"You’re overdue”	Implies clinical obligation you may not have grounds for	”It has been [N] months since your last visit."
"Reply STOP” from an alphanumeric sender	Opt-out that cannot function	Send from a replyable number, or add “or call [number] to opt out”.

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Part 4 · The templates

Fields in [SQUARE BRACKETS] are yours to replace. Notes in (italics) are instructions, not copy.

Bucket A · Private-pay body work

Physiotherapy, chiropractic, osteopathy, podiatry, myotherapy, exercise physiology

Recall and reactivation are ordinary practice here. The constraint is tying the contact to a real clinical basis and keeping urgency out.

A5 · Dormant patient, 6 to 18 months [MARKETING]

Hi [FIRST NAME], it has been [N] months since your last visit to [CLINIC]. If the [AREA] is still giving you trouble, [PRACTITIONER] can take a look. If not, all good. [NUMBER]. Reply STOP to opt out.

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Bucket B · Psychology and counselling

Different rules apply here in practice, not because the law is different, but because the risk of harm from a badly worded message is much higher. Assume the recipient’s phone may be visible to someone else. Assume a reactivation message can land as pressure on someone who chose to stop.

Three template types that exist in Bucket A and should not exist here: the dormant-client win-back, the “we noticed you stopped” message, and anything referencing progress or outcome. If a client ends therapy, the ethical default is that they decide when to come back.

B3 · Cancellation acknowledgement, no pressure to rebook [TRANSACTIONAL]

Hi [FIRST NAME], that is cancelled. Our number is [NUMBER] whenever you need it.

(No booking link. The heading is the instruction: a cancellation in this setting is a decision the client made, and a message that nudges straight back toward rebooking reads as pressure from someone they may not feel free to refuse.)

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Bucket C · Occupational therapy, speech pathology and paediatric services

The defining feature here is that the person receiving your message is often not the person receiving the service. It may be a parent, a guardian, a support coordinator or a plan manager. Consent, privacy and tone all shift accordingly.

Where NDIS funding is involved, service agreements and plan dates drive most of your comms, which means most of your messages are transactional rather than marketing. That is an advantage. Use it.

C3 · NDIS plan review approaching [TRANSACTIONAL]

Hi [FIRST NAME], [CLIENT FIRST NAME]‘s plan is up for review on [DATE]. We can prepare a progress report for it. Let us know by [DATE] so we have time. [NUMBER].

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Bucket D · Four universal items (check the carve-out on D4)

D1 · Consent capture at intake (form wording, not a message)

Staying in touch We will always contact you about appointments you have booked.

Separately, may we contact you about [recall for care [PRACTITIONER] has recommended / practice updates]? ☐ Yes, by SMS ☐ Yes, by email ☐ No

You can change this at any time by calling [NUMBER] or replying STOP to any message. We keep a record of this choice.

(This single form field is what makes every marketing template in this pack defensible. If you implement one thing, make it this one.)

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Part 5 · The other 32 templates and the sending checklist

That was one template from each bucket. The full pack has all 36, including the no-show, late cancellation, funding nearly exhausted, opt-out and Google review messages, plus the eleven-point checklist to run before any bulk send.

Get the full pack →

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Part 6 · What this pack cannot fix

Templates fix wording. They do not fix four things, and these are what actually generate complaints:

Consent you cannot evidence. If the burden of proof lands on you and your record is “they gave us their number”, the wording of the message is beside the point. There is no template that fixes this, and there is no message you can send to fix it either, because asking for consent is itself marketing. A list with no consent basis has to be rebuilt by consent captured at the next visit (see D1), not messaged one last time.

An opt-out that is not honoured everywhere. Someone tells reception to stop texting them, it gets noted in the file, and the bulk send next month pulls from a list that never got the update. This is the single most common failure and it is a systems problem.

Contact that is not tied to clinical need. A recall list built on “last seen more than 6 months ago” with no clinical basis per patient is precisely the pattern Ahpra’s guidance is aimed at. The fix is in how your practice software records recommended reviews, not in how the message is phrased.

Nobody owning it. If the process only runs correctly when you personally run it, it will drift the first week you are away.

Records you could not produce. Consent records, opt-out timestamps and send logs are only useful if you can find them under pressure. Most clinics discover their software does not keep what they assumed it kept at the moment they need it.

Those four are systems and record-keeping problems. They are fixable, usually in a week, usually with software you already pay for.

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If you want yours looked at: the Bottleneck Deep Dive is a paid, fixed-scope audit of how your clinic handles enquiries, bookings and rebookings. We test it from the outside the way a prospective patient would, then hand you the numbers and a prioritised fix map. A$197, report within 2 business days, credited back if you go ahead with a build.

It is an operational review, not clinical or legal advice, and it does not replace the record-keeping work in Part 6.

Start with a short application. It takes about three minutes, and it tells us whether we are the right fit before anyone pays anything.

Apply for a Deep Dive

Reading this in print? The form is at form.jotform.com/262518015664053

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This pack is general information for Australian allied health practices. It is not legal advice, and it does not replace Ahpra’s advertising guidelines, your National Board’s codes, your professional association’s requirements, or advice from your indemnity insurer. Ahpra’s guidance changes: verify the current position at ahpra.gov.au before you rely on anything here. You remain responsible for your own advertising, including content produced on your behalf by staff or an agency.

Sources: Ahpra, Guidelines for advertising a regulated health service and Summary of the advertising requirements (ahpra.gov.au, reviewed 2 September 2025). ACMA, Avoid sending spam (acma.gov.au, updated 29 November 2024). Spam Act 2003 (Cth).

Gregory Hardiman · GrokoryAI · grokoryai.com.au