In today’s video, we return to the topic of false advertising for more legal risks to be aware of and more tips that we can give you.

Now, our law firm is getting so many questions related to these kinds of issues that we’re going continue on our series of false advertising including the California Business and Professions Code section 651 as well as federal law and we’re going to delve into more of the legal requirements from these different Codes.

My name is Michael H. Cohen and I’m founding attorney of Cohen Healthcare Law Group.

In this video, we will uncover more of the rules and regulations that pertain to false advertising by healthcare businesses and practices. By the end of this video, we want you to know more about how to protect yourself from legal risk than you already know today. States beyond California have similar statutes too, so even though we’re talking about California, we do represent people in different jurisdictions and hope you’ll find these lessons applicable to your business no matter where you are.

We’ve handled over 1,000 healthcare industry clients with similar issues.

Now, a very important consideration for your advertising is that if your advertising or marketing makes any mention of the cost of goods or services you provide, it must in general fully disclose any variables or factors that can change those costs and fees. In fact, certain phrases are specifically banned in price advertising, like “as low as.” If you include price advertisement in your marketing, you must be ready to provide verifiable data to back it up.

Next, you have to be cautious of making scientific claims, because the California code disallows scientific claims in advertising “that cannot be substantiated by reliable, peer reviewed, published scientific studies.” If you make a scientific claim about your product or treatment that’s unsupported by the scientific literature as described by the statute, you are entering dangerous waters, which could well be deemed false advertising.

Another important note concerns the use of a testimonial or statement from somebody else in your advertising. Even if the language is someone else’s, and clearly indicated as somebody else’s, it is part of your advertisement. It will be evaluated as if you had made up the language yourself. That means everything we talked about so far in this video and our other video on false advertising can apply to your testimonial content, from making scientific claims to mention of your prices. All this could potentially be false and misleading, whether expressly or by omission.

We hope the legal insights in this video have helped you with more of your questions on advertising and marketing legal concerns with your healthcare business. Of course, a lot of rules like these will have specific kinds of exceptions, and exceptions to the exceptions, and there are still more rules that we can’t possibly cover in all our videos. However, any health or wellness business can benefit from having an experienced healthcare attorney evaluate their website and marketing materials for potential legal risks that we can work to help you mitigate. If you’d like to get in touch with us or a member of your healthcare team, reach out at the link below, where you can send us a message or schedule a consultation.

Here’s to your business success! We look forward to helping you.