Success rates and outcome claims in practice advertising: how to present results honestly

A number in an ad feels more honest than an adjective. “Our patients are happy” sounds like puffery, while a success rate sounds like a fact. That is the problem: regulators read it as a fact too, and a practice that publishes one needs records that prove it, measured the way a patient will understand it. Success rates, satisfaction scores, complication rates, “patients lost an average of” claims and “best outcomes in the region” lines all fall under the same rules.

This guide is about the numbers a practice puts in its own marketing: where the duty to back them up comes from, the denominator problems that make a true figure misleading, what state medical boards say, and a model for presenting an outcome so a patient can read it correctly. For the wider rules, start with our guide to physician advertising rules. For patient stories and photos, see our testimonials and before-and-after guide. For badges and rankings, see top doctor awards in advertising, and for CMS hospital stars, see hospital star ratings in ads. For how long to keep the substantiation file and ad copies, see our guide to advertising records retention. For satisfaction figures from your own patient surveys, see our guide to patient satisfaction survey results in ads. For words such as first, only, best and leading, see our guide to superlative claims in healthcare ads. For words such as clinically proven and doctor recommended, see our guide to clinically proven and doctor recommended claims. Vendors publishing client results should also read our guide to case studies and client success stories.

A number in an ad is a claim you must be able to prove

Section 5 of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. 45, prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce. Section 12, 15 U.S.C. 52, makes it unlawful to disseminate a false advertisement to induce the purchase of food, drugs, devices, services or cosmetics. Services are named, so a practice’s ads for its own care are covered.

Section 15, 15 U.S.C. 55(a)(1), defines a false advertisement as one that is misleading in a material respect. In deciding that, the law takes into account not only what the ad says or suggests by words, design, sound or images, but also the extent to which it fails to reveal facts that are material in light of what it does say. A success rate that leaves out who was counted can mislead even if the arithmetic is right.

The FTC Policy Statement Regarding Advertising Substantiation, dated November 23, 1984, sets out the timing. Advertisers must have a reasonable basis for objective claims before the claims are disseminated, and the Commission treats a failure to possess and rely on a reasonable basis as an unfair and deceptive act or practice. A rate, a percentage, an average or a ranking is an objective claim. Collecting the proof after a complaint does not cure an ad that ran without it.

The same statement says that when an ad states its level of support, such as “tests prove”, “doctors recommend” or “studies show”, the Commission expects the advertiser to have at least that level of support. Where the ad names no level, what counts as a reasonable basis depends on factors that include the type of claim, the product, the consequences of a false claim, the benefits of a truthful claim, the cost of developing substantiation and the amount of substantiation experts in the field believe is reasonable.

What the FTC expects for health benefit claims

FTC staff published the Health Products Compliance Guidance in December 2022, replacing a 1998 guide for dietary supplement advertising. It is written for health-related products, but the standard it explains is the one the FTC applies to health benefit claims under the Act. The points that matter for practice marketing:

• Health benefit claims must be supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence: tests, analyses, research or studies conducted and evaluated in an objective manner by qualified experts, and generally accepted in the profession to yield accurate and reliable results.
• As a general matter, the guidance says substantiation of health benefits will need to come from randomized, controlled human clinical testing.
• Results must be statistically significant, and a statistically significant result must also be clinically meaningful for consumers.
• Studies that use several outcome measures should report all of them, not only the positive ones, and post hoc subgroup analysis does not generally provide reliable evidence for a claim.
• An ad is judged by its net impression, including text, images, charts and graphs. When an ad can reasonably be read more than one way, the advertiser has to substantiate each reasonable reading.

A practice ad can make two different kinds of claims, and they need different proof. “This treatment reduces pain” is a claim about the treatment, and it calls for the scientific evidence described above. “Of the patients we treated for this condition last year, this share reported less pain at their follow-up visit” is a claim about your own records. It needs accurate records, a clear definition and honest framing. It does not prove the treatment works, and the ad should not suggest that it does.

The denominator problem

A success rate is a fraction, and the bottom of the fraction decides what it means. A rate can be accurate and still mislead when the denominator is chosen to flatter it. Points to settle before any rate is published:

• Who started. Count patients who began treatment, not only those who finished it. Patients who stopped, transferred or were lost to follow-up are part of the result.
• Who was excluded. If you left out patients with a harder diagnosis, older patients or repeat cases, say so next to the number.
• What success means. Name the measure: a lab value, a patient-reported score, a completed course of care, a live birth, a healed site. A vague word like “success” lets the reader fill in the best case.
• When it was measured. A result at two weeks is a different claim from a result at one year.
• Count. A rate from a small number of patients swings widely, and a reader cannot tell that from a percentage alone. Publish the count.
• Which period. State the dates, and do not pick the best quarter out of several years.

Federal law gives a clear example of why the denominator matters. Under 42 U.S.C. 263a-1, assisted reproductive technology programs report pregnancy success rates each year to HHS through CDC. In defining those rates, the statute requires HHS to take into account the effect of age, diagnosis and other significant factors, and it names two rates with different denominators: live births divided by ovarian stimulation procedures attempted, and live births divided by successful oocyte retrievals. The same clinic produces two different numbers depending on where counting starts. Our fertility clinic marketing guide covers how CDC tells clinics and patients to read those rates.

Results patients can expect

Under 16 CFR 255.2(b), an ad that presents one or more consumers’ experience with a central attribute of a product is likely to be read as saying that experience is representative of what consumers will generally achieve. If the advertiser cannot substantiate that, the ad should clearly and conspicuously disclose the generally expected performance in the depicted circumstances, and the advertiser must be able to support that disclosure too. The disclosure has to change the net impression of the ad so it is no longer misleading.

The Health Products Compliance Guidance adds that a short disclaimer saying the result is not representative does not cure a testimonial showing results more dramatic than users can generally expect. In practice this means a featured patient result needs a nearby, plain statement of what patients in that situation generally achieve, drawn from your own records or published evidence, and the number behind that statement needs the same care as any other rate. Our testimonials guide covers patient authorization and the other rules for patient stories.

Comparisons and superiority claims

A claim that your outcomes beat other practices, the region or the national average is a comparison, and it needs data on both sides measured the same way. State rules address this directly:

• Texas Occupations Code 101.201(b)(3) treats as false, misleading or deceptive an ad that compares a health care professional’s services with another health care professional’s services unless the comparison can be factually substantiated.
• Florida Administrative Code rule 64B8-11.001(2)(h) treats a physician ad as false, deceptive or misleading if it conveys the impression that the physician has qualifications, skills or other attributes superior to other physicians, other than a simple listing of earned professional achievements recognized by the Board.
• Texas 22 TAC 164.3(b)(6) lists claiming a unique or exclusive skill without substantiation and basis for the claim.

Public quality data can support a comparison only on its own terms. A CMS Care Compare score, for example, measures what CMS defines for the period it covers, and our hospital star ratings guide explains how to quote it without stretching it. A ranking or award is a separate kind of claim, covered in our top doctor awards guide. For ads that name or compare against another practice, see our guide to naming competitor practices in ads.

What state medical boards say about results

State boards add rules on top of the FTC Act, and several reach outcome claims directly. Three examples, checked October 30, 2026:

• Texas Occupations Code 101.201(a) bars advertising that is false, misleading, deceptive or not readily subject to verification. Subsection (b)(1) covers a material misrepresentation of fact or an omission of a fact needed to keep the statement as a whole from being materially misleading, and (b)(2) covers a representation likely to create an unjustified expectation about the results of a health care service or procedure.
• Texas 22 TAC 164.3(b)(2), a Texas Medical Board rule, lists offering a permanent cure for an incurable disease, sickness or illness as false, deceptive or misleading advertising.
• Florida Administrative Code rule 64B8-11.001(2) treats a physician ad as false, deceptive or misleading if it makes only a partial disclosure of relevant facts, or creates false or unjustified expectations of beneficial assistance, among other grounds.

The phrase “not readily subject to verification” in the Texas statute is worth keeping in mind for any number: if a board investigator asked for the records behind a rate, could you hand them over the same day? Other states and other professions, such as dentistry and chiropractic, have their own board rules. Check the rules for each license named in the ad.

How to present an outcome honestly

A disclosure model that answers the questions a careful patient would ask. Fill each bracket from your records, and keep the file behind it:

• Measure: what was counted as the outcome, in plain words.
• Population: which patients were included, and who was left out and why.
• Count: [X] of [N] patients, shown next to the percentage.
• Period: treatment dates, and when the outcome was measured.
• Source: your own records, a registry, or a published study, named.
• Context: what affects results for an individual patient, such as age, diagnosis and adherence, and a line that individual results vary.
• Date: when the number was last updated, with a plan to refresh or remove it.

Keep a short substantiation file for each published number: the query or chart review that produced it, who checked it, the date, and the exact ad copy it supports. Keep the file to counts and summaries, not patient lists, and have your privacy officer approve how records are pulled for it.

Wording for outcome claims:

• Use: “[X] of [N] patients who started treatment between [date] and [date] reached [named measure] at [time point]. Results depend on age, diagnosis and other factors.”
• Use: “Our [named measure] for [period] is published on [public source], last updated [date].”
• Avoid: “[X] percent success rate” with no measure, count or period.
• Avoid: “best results in [city]” without comparable data for the other practices.
• Avoid: “clinically proven” unless the claim matches what controlled human studies of that treatment found.
• Avoid: “permanent”, “cure” or “results promised” for conditions where those words are not true for each patient.

Notes by specialty

• Dental: implant success and survival depend on how failure is defined and how long patients were followed. See our dental implant advertising guide.
• Med spa and aesthetics: “lasting results” and session counts are outcome claims. A before-and-after set needs a statement of what patients generally achieve.
• Chiropractic and physical medicine: pain and function scores are patient-reported. Name the scale and the time point, and avoid suggesting a cure.
• Integrative medicine: a claim that a therapy treats a disease needs scientific evidence, not a count of satisfied patients. See our integrative medicine claims guide.
• Addiction treatment: completion and abstinence rates depend on who is counted and for how long. See our addiction treatment marketing guide.
• Fertility: use CDC definitions and data and the context CDC gives. See our fertility clinic marketing guide.
• Oncology: survival figures carry the highest stakes and need the fullest context. See our cancer center advertising guide.

An illustration

This example is invented to show the process; it is not a real practice or a real result. [Practice name], a physical therapy clinic, wanted a homepage banner reading “[X] percent of patients pain-free”. Before it ran, the office manager asked how the number was produced. It came from discharge surveys, which only patients who completed their plan of care filled in, and “pain-free” meant a score of zero on one survey question. The clinic replaced the banner with a results page that gives the count of patients who started care in the period, the count who completed a discharge survey, the share of those who reported a lower pain score at discharge, the scale used, the dates, and a line that results vary by condition and adherence. The banner now links to that page instead of showing a single number, and counsel reviewed the page before launch.

Checklist

• List each number in your ads, website, social posts and scripts: rates, averages, scores, rankings and counts.
• For each, write down the measure, population, count, period and source.
• Count patients who started, not only those who finished, or disclose the difference.
• Separate claims about your records from claims that a treatment works, and support each with the right evidence.
• Add a plain statement of generally expected results next to any featured patient result.
• Remove comparisons you cannot back with comparable data for both sides.
• Check the board rules for each license named in the ad.
• Keep a dated substantiation file per number, with counts and no patient lists.
• Set a review date for each number and refresh or remove it.
• Have counsel review outcome claims before launch.

How we help

We build websites, local search, Google Ads and lead generation and AI front desk tools for independent practices and health businesses. For outcome claims, that means results pages that state the measure, count, period and source, ad copy that does not promise more than the page supports, and a list of each claim for your attorney to review. Our tools are built with HIPAA in mind. We confirm in writing what a BAA covers before any patient information flows through a tool, and if it is not covered, we do not route patient information through it. We are not a healthcare provider and we do not give legal or medical advice. For the wider rules, see our healthcare marketing rules hub.

Sources

• 15 U.S.C. 45: Unfair methods of competition unlawful; prevention by Commission
• 15 U.S.C. 52: Dissemination of false advertisements
• 15 U.S.C. 55: Additional definitions, including false advertisement
• FTC: Policy Statement Regarding Advertising Substantiation (November 23, 1984)
• FTC staff: Health Products Compliance Guidance (December 2022)
• 16 CFR 255.2: Consumer endorsements (eCFR, current text)
• 42 U.S.C. 263a-1: Assisted reproductive technology programs, success rate reporting
• Texas Occupations Code 101.201: False, misleading, or deceptive advertising
• 22 Texas Administrative Code 164.3: Prohibited acts or omissions in advertising (Texas Medical Board)
• Florida Administrative Code rule 64B8-11.001: Advertising (Board of Medicine)

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