The rulebook every page is checked against, before a word is drafted.
Indian medical advertising law is strict about what a hospital may claim and silent about what it may explain. That gap is where specialty healthcare content marketing lives. This page lists the regulations we work under and how they shape each brief. What we refuse to write, whatever the law says, sits on its own page: our ethics.
Seven pieces of law and policy every brief is checked against.
What each one governs, and what it means for a page we write for you. Your legal counsel signs off on anything contested; this is the working checklist, not legal advice.
NMC Code of Medical EthicsIndian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002, as administered by the National Medical Commission
Advertising and solicitation by registered medical practitioners. Doctors may announce a practice, a change of address, new facilities and their qualifications; they may not solicit patients directly or indirectly, or use claims that promise cures.
Consultant profiles state registered qualifications, experience and the procedures performed, nothing that reads as a pitch. No “best doctor”, no patient-count boasts, no discount codes tied to a named doctor. Procedure and condition pages sit under the hospital, written in the hospital’s voice, with the consultant credited as reviewer.
Dental Council of India Code of EthicsDentists (Code of Ethics) Regulations, 2014
The dental equivalent: what a registered dentist may display and publish, restrictions on advertising and on claiming superiority.
Dental practice pages describe treatments, the process and the price range. Implant and aligner pages explain candidacy and alternatives rather than pushing a procedure. Every dental page we write carries the DCI reading in its brief, not the NMC one.
Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act1954, with its schedule of conditions
Bans advertising any drug, treatment or “remedy” for a scheduled list of conditions (it includes diabetes, cancer, infertility, obesity, sexual disorders and several dozen more), and bans advertisements that suggest a magic or guaranteed cure.
Pages about scheduled conditions are written as clinical explanation, not as promotion of a treatment. We name the condition, describe how it is diagnosed and managed at the hospital, and cite the guidelines followed. No “cure”, no “guaranteed”, no “permanent solution”, in the copy or in the page title.
Consumer Protection Act 2019 and the CCPA misleading-advertisement guidelinesCentral Consumer Protection Authority guidelines, 2023, alongside the ASCI Code
Misleading advertisements, unsubstantiated claims, bait advertising and the responsibilities of endorsers. ASCI’s code adds specific healthcare rules on claims, comparisons and testimonials.
Any number on a page has a source we can produce: a registry, a published study, the hospital’s own audited data. Success rates carry the denominator and the period. Comparative claims against named competitors are not written at all. Testimonials, where used, are consented, unedited in substance and never framed as a typical outcome.
Specialty statutesART (Regulation) Act 2021 and Surrogacy (Regulation) Act 2021 · PCPNDT Act 1994 · Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act 1994
Advertising rules specific to fertility clinics, surrogacy, prenatal diagnostics and organ transplantation, including outright bans on advertising sex determination, commercial surrogacy and organ availability.
IVF pages never mention sex selection, gender, or surrogacy arrangements beyond what the Act permits. Maternity and radiology pages describe scans without any reference to foetal sex. Transplant pages explain the programme and the legal process; they never imply donor availability. These briefs get a specialty lawyer’s read before the first draft.
Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023and the IT Act’s sensitive personal data rules that still apply
Collection, use and retention of personal data, with health data treated as sensitive. Consent, purpose limitation and the right to have data erased.
Enquiry forms and WhatsApp sequences collect the minimum, say why, and link to the hospital’s privacy notice. Case studies and testimonials use written consent that covers publication online, indefinitely, or they don’t run. Nothing a patient told the hospital appears in marketing copy. Details are in the data section below.
Google and Meta healthcare policiesGoogle Ads healthcare and medicines policy · Meta’s health and wellness advertising standards · Google’s YMYL quality guidance for organic search
What may be promoted on the platforms, what needs certification, and, for organic search, the “your money or your life” bar that health pages are held to for expertise, experience, authority and trust.
We don’t run ads, but the pages we write are what ads and organic search land on, so they meet the platform bar: named, credentialed reviewers; a visible updated date; sources cited; no claims a Google rater would flag. That bar is the same one that gets a page cited in AI Overviews. The full treatment is in E-E-A-T in hospital and clinic marketing.
Compliance happens in the brief, not in the last read.
Catching a problem after a page is written costs a rewrite. Catching it before costs a line in the brief. The same four hands from our editorial process, with the compliance step in each.
Every brief lists the rules that apply to that page: NMC or DCI, DMR schedule if the condition is on it, specialty statutes for IVF, maternity, radiology and transplant. Claims the page may make, and the sources it will cite, are agreed before drafting.
Written from primary sources: clinical guidelines, published outcomes, the hospital’s own audited data. Each number carries its citation inline. Consent references are logged for any image, quote or case detail.
The consultant who performs the procedure reads for clinical accuracy. For scheduled conditions and specialty statutes, your legal counsel reads too. Sign-off is recorded with the date and the version.
Reviewer credited on the page with registration number where the hospital permits. Visible updated date. When a regulation changes, affected pages are listed within the week and revised in the next sprint.
We never touch a medical record. Here’s what we do touch.
Content marketing for a hospital brushes against personal data in three places: the enquiries a page generates, the consent behind a testimonial or case study, and the analytics that show what’s working. Each has a rule.
The hospital is the data fiduciary under the DPDP Act. Omdra acts on the hospital’s instructions, holds nothing longer than the engagement needs, and returns or deletes everything at handover. The written data-processing terms are part of every contract; the short version is on the right.
- Enquiry forms and WhatsApp sequences collect name, contact and the service line of interest. Symptoms and history are never asked for in marketing flows; that conversation belongs to the hospital’s clinical team.
- Testimonials and case studies run only with written consent that names the channels, the duration and the right to withdraw. The consent record stays with the hospital; we hold a reference, not the document.
- Analytics are configured without tracking pixels on pages where a visit itself reveals a condition, and with IP anonymisation on. No advertising audiences are built from health-page visitors.
- Access to Search Console, GA4 and the CMS is by named accounts, removed at handover. Client data is never used to train anything, ours or a vendor’s.
This page describes how Omdra works. It is not legal advice and does not replace the advice of your hospital’s counsel or your registration body. Regulations change; the compliance sections of our specialty guides carry a visible updated date, and this page is reviewed quarterly.
What we refuse to write, whoever asks: the Omdra ethics page
The trust side of the same coin: E-E-A-T in hospital and clinic marketing
What working with us looks like: the four-step engagement, start to handover
Not sure what your hospital is allowed to publish?
Send us one page you’re unsure about. We’ll come back within two working days with what’s fine, what isn’t, and what we’d write instead. No charge, no pitch.