The medical advertising code that actually applies in India (it is not the one you think)

Almost every guide to medical marketing compliance in India published since late 2023 cites the wrong regulations.

They cite the National Medical Commission Registered Medical Practitioner (Professional Conduct) Regulations, 2023 — a detailed, modern code that included, for the first time, explicit rules on doctors' use of social media.

Those regulations are not in force. They were held in abeyance three weeks after notification and have not been revived.

This is not a technicality. It changes which document your marketing has to comply with, and it means a large volume of published compliance advice is anchored to a regulation that never took effect.

What happened, with dates

2 August 2023. The NMC notifies the Registered Medical Practitioner (Professional Conduct) Regulations, 2023 in the Gazette of India. The code is substantially more detailed than what preceded it and addresses social media, corporate hospital advertising, generic prescribing and pharmaceutical sponsorship.

Immediate backlash. The Indian Medical Association and the Association of Physicians of India object strongly, principally over the mandatory generic prescribing provision and the embargo on industry sponsorship of conferences. The Union Health Ministry writes to the Commission asking for modifications.

23 August 2023. The NMC's Ethics and Medical Registration Board issues an amendment notification holding the 2023 regulations in abeyance with immediate effect, and clarifying that they "will not be operative and effective till further Gazette Notification issued by NMC."

The same notification adopts and makes effective, with immediate effect, the Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002.

Since then. No further gazette notification reviving the 2023 code. An internal NMC panel was reported in early 2025 to be working on advertising norms, including the principle that rules should apply equally to individual doctors and corporate hospitals — a position the 2023 regulations had introduced. Nothing has been notified.

So the operative code is the 2002 regulations, a document written before social media existed.

Why this matters practically

Three consequences, and the third is the one that catches practices out.

First, the specific rules differ. The 2023 code contained detailed, modern provisions — restrictions on sharing patient testimonials, images and videos; a prohibition on discussing individual patient treatment specifics or sharing patient scans publicly; explicit rules against soliciting patients through social media. Those provisions are not currently enforceable, because the instrument containing them is in abeyance.

Second, the 2002 code is broad rather than specific. Its advertising provisions turn on the principle that a practitioner shall not solicit patients directly or indirectly, and shall not advertise in a manner amounting to canvassing. There is no clause about Instagram, because there was no Instagram.

Third — and this is the trap — breadth is not leniency. A vague prohibition against soliciting is harder to comply with confidently than a detailed list, because you cannot check yourself against a specification. A practice reading the 2002 code and concluding "it says nothing about social media, therefore social media is unrestricted" has misread it. A general prohibition on solicitation covers channels the drafters never imagined.

What we would advise, and why

Comply with the 2023 code even though it is not in force.

That sounds perverse. The reasoning:

It is the direction of travel. The NMC has notified this code once and an internal panel has been working on advertising norms along the same lines. When something is revived, it will look more like 2023 than 2002.

It is a defensible reading of the 2002 code. The 2023 provisions are, for the most part, specific applications of the general principle in the older regulations. A prohibition on soliciting patients indirectly plausibly covers paying for patient testimonial videos. Complying with the specific version is a reasonable way of complying with the general one.

It is better practice regardless. Not publishing patient scans, not sharing identifiable patient images, not making outcome claims — these are defensible on clinical and ethical grounds independent of whether a regulator is currently enforcing them.

And it aligns with everything else. The 2023 restrictions overlap substantially with what makes clinical content credible to a search or answer engine. Patient testimonials are not citable. Outcome claims are not substantiable. What remains — the clinician's own explanation, cited to evidence — is both compliant on the stricter reading and the format that actually earns citation.

The working rules

Drawn from the stricter (2023) reading, defensible under the operative (2002) code, and consistent with clinical ethics:

Do not publish patient testimonials that reference clinical outcomes. Patient experience of service is a different thing from patient experience of treatment result.

Do not publish identifiable patient images, scans or case specifics without explicit informed consent — and reconsider even with consent. A patient consenting during treatment is not in an unpressured position, and a scan is health data under the DPDP Act regardless of consent.

Do not solicit patients directly through social media. Publishing educational content is not solicitation. Direct-messaging prospective patients, or running lead-generation campaigns that capture and pursue individuals, sits much closer to it.

Do not make comparative or superlative claims. "Best cancer hospital in Delhi" is unsubstantiable and reads as canvassing.

Do display the registration number. The 2023 code required registration IDs on prescriptions, certificates and receipts. Displaying it on the website is not required by anything, and it is the single strongest trust signal a clinician has.

Do not accept or offer commissions for referrals. This one has never been in doubt under any version of the code, and it remains the most consequential provision in Indian medical ethics regulation for anyone designing a patient-acquisition model.

The referral-fee point deserves its own paragraph

Because it is where most medical tourism and aggregator models in India sit, and where the exposure is real.

Arrangements where a facilitator receives a commission from a hospital per patient delivered, or where a diagnostic centre pays a referring practitioner, have been prohibited under Indian medical ethics regulation for a long time and are not affected by the 2023 abeyance.

If you are building a patient-acquisition model, the structural question to settle first is not what your marketing says. It is where the money comes from and whether the flow constitutes a commission for a referral.

A service that earns from its own clinical work — an opinion, an interpretation, a procedure — and takes nothing for directing a patient anywhere is clean. A service that earns per patient delivered to a third party is in a category that has been contentious for decades.

What this means for your existing compliance documents

If your practice's legal documents, disclaimers or marketing policies were drafted after August 2023 and cite the NMC Registered Medical Practitioner (Professional Conduct) Regulations, 2023 as the governing instrument, they are citing a regulation held in abeyance.

The content of the advice may still be sound — as above, we think complying with the stricter code is right. But the citation is wrong, and a document that misstates its own legal basis is a document that has not been reviewed since it was drafted.

Check yours. The correct formulation is something like: "the Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002, currently operative following the abeyance of the NMC Registered Medical Practitioner (Professional Conduct) Regulations, 2023."

This is a five-minute fix and it is the kind of detail that a regulator, a hospital's legal team or an opposing counsel would notice.

Sources and verification

• NMC, Rules & Regulations — lists the 2 August 2023 notification and the 23 August 2023 amendment notification keeping it in abeyance.
• NMC Registered Medical Practitioners (Professional Conduct) (Amendment) Regulations, 2023, notified 23 August 2023 — holds the 2023 code in abeyance and makes the IMC 2002 regulations effective with immediate effect.
• Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002 — the operative code.
• Reporting on the NMC internal panel's work on advertising norms, early 2025.

Verify the current position before relying on this. The whole point of this article is that the position changed once without most of the industry noticing. It can change again, and a further gazette notification reviving the 2023 code would supersede everything above.

This is general guidance from a search practice, not legal advice. Anything material should go past a qualified practitioner. We re-verify this piece quarterly and will date-stamp any revision.