A patient wrote on Google that they were better after three visits. Can the clinic repost or quote it?

What a patient writes on a review platform is their personal experience. Once the clinic screenshots it and puts it on its website, social media, or ads, it becomes the clinic's own promotional content, which amounts to the clinic making a treatment claim and can easily fall within the scope of medical advertising rules. The safer approach is to reply under the review with thanks and a health-education tone, without repeating or amplifying the description of results, and not to repost or quote it elsewhere. If you do want to use patient feedback, choose comments about the visit process, the environment, and how communication felt, and have someone familiar with medical regulations check before using them.

Can a TCM clinic run Instagram or Facebook? What content is safer?

Yes, but position it around health education and clinic information rather than promoting results. Safer directions include general seasonal wellness knowledge, the visit process and how to prepare for a first appointment, changes to clinic hours, introductions to the clinic environment, and a physician explaining when a common complaint warrants seeing a doctor. Avoid before-and-after cases, descriptions of how many treatments achieve what effect, discount promotions, and any suggestion that a particular therapy works for everyone. Before each post goes out, check it once with one question: is this sentence promising a result? If you are not sure, do not post it yet.

First-time patients often ask how long TCM treatment takes. How do we answer without promising results?

Explain the assessment process, not the outcome. For example, tell the patient that the first visit starts with a consultation and pulse diagnosis, that the physician will schedule follow-ups based on their condition at the time, that each follow-up adjusts to any changes, and that if the assessment shows TCM is not suitable, the physician will recommend a referral. This lets patients know the rhythm ahead without promising how many visits it will take. You can also put common questions on a first-visit information sheet that the physician has reviewed, so the front desk follows it and different staff do not give different versions.

Word-of-Mouth for TCM Clinics

The biggest difference between word-of-mouth marketing for a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) clinic and most other industries is this: the things many clinics most want to say are exactly the things they cannot say. “Three months of treatment and no more insomnia.” “A few sessions of acupuncture and the back pain was gone.” From a patient, these are sincere thanks. Once the clinic uses them as promotion, they can run into the rules on medical advertising.

Many TCM clinics face another bind as well. Their reputation is good, and longtime patients keep referring one another, but when new patients search online, they find scattered reviews, outdated clinic hours, and confusion about which service to book. The expertise stays in the consulting room, while the online entrance goes untended.

This guide covers the basic principles of medical advertising, the most common treatment-claim red lines, how to manage Google reviews and local search, and how to build trust at the first visit. It ends with a checklist to run before any post goes out.

Know the boundary first: medical advertising is regulated

Advertising by medical institutions in Taiwan is regulated by law, with limits on both what can be published and how. This guide does not cite article numbers or discuss penalties; it only lays out the directions to keep in mind:

Advertising content has a defined scope: basic information such as the clinic name, address, phone number, specialties, physician qualifications, and clinic hours is generally not a concern; promotional content beyond that scope calls for more caution
No exaggerating or guaranteeing results: any wording that implies “it will definitely work” or “results after so many sessions” is high risk
No attracting patients with incentives: using discounts or gifts to draw patients in is generally not allowed in a medical setting
Keep a clear line between health education and advertising: general health knowledge and promotion that steers people to your clinic are different things

Whether a specific piece of content can be published depends on the case. In the early stage of building social media and website content, have a professional familiar with medical regulations, or the competent authority, confirm your approach, and then make your own calls based on those confirmed principles. For the overall compliance framework of word-of-mouth marketing, see Word-of-Mouth Marketing Compliance in Taiwan.

Five common treatment-claim red lines

Pull out what the clinic has posted in the past and check it. The problems usually fall into these groups:

Before-and-after comparisons: photos, test figures, or symptom descriptions from before and after treatment
Number of sessions and timeframes: specific promises such as “results in three visits” or “improvement in a month”
Patient testimonials: screenshots of patients’ thank-you messages reposted as promotional material
Absolute language: cure, eradicate, miracle remedy, most effective, the only
Suggesting it suits everyone: “suitable for every constitution,” “works for everyone”

What these five share is that they package one patient’s experience as a predictable result. Medicine varies from person to person, and once clinic content leads readers to expect “that will happen for me too,” it brings both regulatory risk and the risk of later complaints.

Aesthetic and dental clinics face the same boundary on claims, and their approaches are useful references: Word-of-Mouth Marketing for Aesthetic Clinics and Word-of-Mouth Marketing for Dental Clinics.

Google reviews: the word-of-mouth space a clinic can actually manage

Since what a clinic can say for itself is limited, reviews patients write on their own become especially important. The point is not to collect more five-star reviews but to keep the review section genuine, complete, and answered.

When to invite reviews: at a follow-up visit, when the patient is stable and expresses thanks on their own, is a natural moment. The front desk can say, “If it’s convenient, you’re welcome to share your experience on Google,” with no conditions attached and no suggestion of what to write.

What not to do: trade registration-fee discounts or free tea bags or herbal soup packs for reviews; ask friends, family, or staff to post reviews; invite only the patients who seem satisfied. These practices distort the reviews and also violate platform policies.

Principles for replying:

Do not mention a patient’s condition, medication, or visit details in a public reply, even if the patient wrote about them
Do not repeat or amplify descriptions of results; respond with thanks and general concern
For negative reviews, acknowledge the feeling first, explain how you will look into it, and invite them to get in touch privately
For reviews involving a medical dispute, have the physician and the person in charge confirm before replying

A reply template can follow this outline:

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. [One sentence acknowledging the feeling] We take every patient’s experience seriously, [explain how you will handle it]. If it’s convenient, please call the clinic so we can understand more. We wish you good health.

For whether a review can be reported and removed, and more on wording replies, see Can Google Reviews Be Removed?.

Local search: helping people looking for “TCM near me” find you

The most common way patients find a TCM clinic is by searching on a map. A few Google Business Profile fields matter especially for TCM clinics:

Clinic hours and physician schedule: TCM clinics often rotate several physicians, so keep the schedule current and mark any temporary closures
Services offered: internal medicine, acupuncture, and injury and manual therapy, so patients know whether to come; describe them neutrally, without writing about results
National Health Insurance and self-pay: state up front which services are covered by Taiwan’s National Health Insurance and which are self-pay, which reduces disputes at the front desk
Questions and answers: what to bring to a first visit, whether appointments are needed, and whether there is parking
Photos: real images of the clinic exterior, waiting area, and consulting room, to make a first visit feel less unfamiliar

For the full order of setting up these fields, see The Complete Google Business Profile Optimization Guide. For running local search as a whole, see Local Business Marketing and Local SEO.

First-visit trust: patients do not know TCM, so they need more explanation

Many first-time TCM patients carry a string of unspoken questions: How long will this take? Will it be expensive? Does the medicine taste bad? Does acupuncture hurt? If these go unanswered, they easily turn into a later review saying “the doctor never explained anything.”

Add these steps to the first-visit process:

At registration: explain roughly how long the first visit takes, what will happen, and which items are self-pay
Before the consultation: ask the patient to fill in a short intake form, so the physician can find the key points in limited time
During the consultation: the physician explains the assessment approach and the next follow-up, without promising how many visits it will take
At the pharmacy counter: explain how to take the medicine, dietary precautions, and whom to ask with questions
After the first visit: if the clinic does follow-up care, a brief check a few days later on how the medicine is going

Imagine an office worker coming in for insomnia for the first time. If they leave knowing “follow-up next Tuesday, here is how to take the medicine until then, and here is when to come back sooner,” their trust in the clinic will be far higher than if they heard “Don’t worry, you’ll be better soon.”

Checklist before publishing any post

Run any external content (social posts, website articles, Business Profile updates) through these questions before it goes out:

Check	If the answer is yes
Does it mention the number of treatments, a timeframe, or results?	Remove it or change it to “based on the physician’s assessment”
Does it include before-and-after photos or figures?	Do not publish
Does it quote a patient’s thanks or testimonial?	Do not publish
Does it use absolute terms such as “cure,” “miracle remedy,” or “most effective”?	Rewrite in neutral language
Does it include offers, discounts, or gifts?	Do not publish
Is it general health education that does not steer readers to a particular treatment?	OK to publish
Still not sure?	Have someone familiar with medical regulations check first

The table is designed so front-desk or administrative staff can run it without waiting for a physician to review every post. Only the genuinely uncertain items go up the chain, and most problem sentences get stopped at the first check.

Three common mistakes

Using patients’ thank-you messages as promotional material. This is the most common way TCM clinics cross the line. The intention is good, but the result is risk.

Not managing anything online. Doing nothing for fear of crossing a line leaves the Business Profile outdated and reviews unanswered, and new patients see a clinic that looks closed.

Handling individual negative reviews without looking for repeat problems. Long waits, unclear explanations of medicine costs, a physician who talks too fast: when the same kind of review appears several times, it is a signal to adjust the process. For how to handle it, see Complaint Handling and Service Recovery.

Much of a TCM clinic’s reputation is built in places the clinic itself cannot speak: patients’ own experiences, referrals between patients, and the reviews they leave. What the clinic can do is explain information clearly, keep the process steady, and look after the review section, so that this unprompted word of mouth has somewhere to be seen.

If you want to turn your Google Business Profile and review replies into a process the front desk can run, without crossing the lines on medical advertising, talk with NETVANA about where your clinic stands today.

Further reading: For review boundaries in medical services, see Word-of-Mouth Marketing for Dental Clinics. For handling claims and testimonials, see Word-of-Mouth Marketing for Aesthetic Clinics. For setting up Business Profile fields, see The Complete Google Business Profile Optimization Guide. For inviting patients to leave reviews naturally, see How to Ask Customers for Reviews. And for the overall compliance principles, see Word-of-Mouth Marketing Compliance in Taiwan.