Advertising law for practices and clinics

What the Heilmittelwerbegesetz regulates

The Heilmittelwerbegesetz concerns advertising for medicinal products, medical devices and treatments. It distinguishes between professional circles and the general public, and for the general public it prohibits a number of forms of advertising that are taken for granted in other sectors. The provision most important for aesthetic and surgical services is § 11(1) sentence 3 no. 1: for operative plastic-surgical procedures, advertising may not use a comparative depiction of the condition of the body or of the appearance before and after the procedure.

The judgment of 31 July 2025

It was long disputed whether this prohibition applies only to operations in the narrower sense or also to minimally invasive treatments. The Bundesgerichtshof (German Federal Court of Justice) decided the question on 31 July 2025 under case number I ZR 170/24. The claimant was the Verbraucherzentrale, which brought the action against a provider of aesthetic treatments that advertised nose and chin corrections by hyaluronic acid injection with before-and-after images on its website and on Instagram.

The court prohibited the advertising. What is decisive is the reasoning: it does not depend on whether the change in form or shape is permanent and irreversible. The fact that hyaluronic acid is broken down again by the body therefore does not preclude classification as an operative plastic-surgical procedure.

In practical terms this means: anyone who continues to advertise such treatments with before-and-after depictions risks a chargeable cease-and-desist warning from competitors.

What this means for your content

The most obvious format in aesthetic medicine is therefore ruled out for a large part of the range of services. This affects not only the website, but also Instagram, TikTok and every advertisement. Anyone who has built their marketing on it so far needs a replacement, and not one that circumvents the prohibition, but one that works without the comparison.

What works instead

The comparison of results is prohibited, the explanation is not. In our projects, four formats work above all:

• Explanations of the procedure. What happens during the treatment, how long it takes, how aftercare works. That answers the question patients actually google.
• The person behind the treatment. Training, experience, attitude. This is the strongest anchor of trust and is legally unproblematic as long as it remains factual.
• Information about limits and risks. Anyone who says openly what a treatment is not suitable for wins the enquiries that fit the practice.
• The practice and the process. Rooms, team, reliability with appointments, availability. Unspectacular, but precisely what tips the balance.

These formats take more effort than a pair of images. In return they hold up legally, they work across specialties, and they remain findable because they answer real questions.

Not only the Heilmittelwerbegesetz

Alongside the Heilmittelwerbegesetz, the professional codes of conduct of the Landesärztekammern with their requirement of factual advertising apply, as do the Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb (German Act Against Unfair Competition) and the GDPR as soon as patient data is involved. We have written about approaching existing patients separately: Contacting existing patients, what is permitted.

Sources

• Source: Heilmittelwerbegesetz in full text, Bundesministerium der Justiz
• Source: press release 147/2025 of the Bundesgerichtshof on the judgment I ZR 170/24 of 31 July 2025
• Source: report by the Deutsches Ärzteblatt on the decision