Doctor Instagram after the NMC 2026 advertising guidelines: a study of 112 accounts
Data collected on by Gaurav Phogat. Method, coding rules and the anonymised dataset are published below.
I reviewed 112 public Instagram accounts of Indian doctors and clinics, 25 days after the National Medical Commission issued its new advertising guidelines. Not one bio showed a medical or dental registration number. Almost half the accounts (48%) carried at least one signal the guidelines now restrict: testimonial wording, before and after wording, or “best” and “top” claims. Accounts without those signals got about twice as many Reel views per follower.
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Last updated: 31 October 2026.
On 6 October 2026 the NMC’s Ethics and Medical Registration Board issued its Guidelines on Ethical Advertising and Public Communication. For doctors on Instagram, the headline changes are clear: no patient testimonials for promotion, no before and after depictions used as advertising, no unverifiable superiority claims such as “best” or “No. 1”, no limited-period discounts that push consultations, and disclosure of name, qualifications and registration number in electronic media posts.
Rules are one thing. What the feed looks like is another. So I looked at the feed. This study is part of my series on how Indian healthcare shows up online, and like the others it is a measured baseline, not an opinion piece.
Key findings
- 0 of 112 accounts showed a registration number in the bio. 41 (37%) listed qualifications such as MBBS, MD, MS or BDS.
- 54 accounts (48%) showed at least one risk signal in the bio, story highlights or 12 most recent posts. 17 showed two or more.
- 30 accounts (27%) used testimonial wording. For 22 of them it sat in the bio or a story highlight titled “Testimonials” or “Happy Patients”, which is permanent shelf space, not an old post.
- 24 accounts (21%) made “best” or “top” claims. Most were SEO-style keyword strings in captions, such as “best dermatologist in [city]”.
- 17 accounts (15%) used explicit before and after wording; 37 (33%) used before and after or “transformation” language.
- Reels dominate: 903 of 1,329 recent posts (68%) were Reels. The median account’s typical Reel got about 2,200 views.
- Accounts with no risk signal got a median 1.43 Reel views per follower, against 0.70 for flagged accounts. Within the same account, flagged Reels performed slightly below that account’s typical Reel (0.85 vs 0.97).
How we did this
Sample. I typed 28 searches of the form “<specialty> <city>” into Instagram’s own account search (for example “dermatologist delhi” or “dentist chennai”) and took every account it returned, up to five per search (one search returned none). That covered eight specialties (dermatology, dental, gynaecology, orthopaedics, plastic and cosmetic surgery, cardiology, paediatrics, IVF and fertility) across ten cities (Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Jaipur). The searches returned 123 accounts.
Exclusions. I dropped 11: seven accounts with no posts, one private account, one professional association, one physiotherapy practice (not a registered medical practitioner) and one account with only two posts. That left 112 accounts: 100 run in an individual doctor’s name and 12 clinic or hospital brands. 89 belong to medical practitioners regulated by the NMC and 23 to dentists, who fall under the Dental Council of India. I report the dental group separately where it matters.
What I collected. For each account, on 31 October 2026: the full bio (expanded), story highlight titles, follower count, the 12 most recent grid posts with their captions, and the Reels tab with view counts for up to 12 Reels. In total that is 1,329 posts and 1,217 Reel view counts. 800 Reels appeared in both places, so I had the caption and the view count together.
Coding. I flagged signals with fixed text rules, then spot-checked the matches by hand and tightened the rules where they caught innocent phrases (for example “your best skin ever”, or a doctor explaining that “100% success” claims are now out). The flags are: testimonial wording (“testimonial”, “patient review”, “patient story”, “Happy Patients” highlights), explicit before and after wording, superlatives aimed at the practice (“best dermatologist”, “top clinic”, “No. 1 doctor”, “guaranteed results”), discounts or free-consultation offers, patient count claims in the bio (“15,000+ happy patients”), and any AI disclosure in captions.
Limits. These are signals, not verdicts. I read captions, not images, so a before and after photo posted without those words is not counted, and a flagged word is not proof of a breach. Many posts predate 6 October. I viewed pages from a logged-in browser without following, liking or messaging anyone. I did not measure video length or on-screen subtitles, so the Reels analysis covers views, caption length, opening line and calls to action. Views depend on follower count, timing and paid boosts I cannot see, so the performance numbers show association, not cause.
Part A: compliance signals on the profile
Registration numbers are missing everywhere
This was the cleanest result in the study. None of the 112 bios showed a registration number, and that includes the 41 that carefully listed degrees. The new guidelines ask for name, qualifications and registration details in electronic media posts. Bios are the natural place for them, because every Reel, post and ad links back there. It is a two-minute fix.
Testimonials live in highlights, not just posts
Testimonial wording showed up in 30 accounts (27%). What surprised me is where. For 22 of them it was in the bio or a story highlight with a title like “Testimonials”, “Happy Patients” or “Wall of Fame”. A highlight is pinned under the bio for every new visitor, so it does more promotional work than any single post. Eleven bios also carried a patient count claim, such as “20,000+ happy patients”. Those are not testimonials in the strict sense, but they make the same promise in shorter form.
“Best dermatologist in [city]” is mostly an SEO habit
Superlatives showed up in 24 accounts (21%). Only four had one in the handle or bio. The rest were in captions, usually as a block of keywords at the end: “best dentist near me”, “best gynecologist in [area]”, “best knee surgeon in [city]”. This is search engine habit carried into Instagram, where it does little for discovery and now creates a clear compliance risk. Discount and free-consultation offers were rare: three accounts.
Before and after: the words are rarer than the pictures
Seventeen accounts (15%) used explicit before and after wording. Widen it to “transformation” language, which almost always sits on a before and after image, and it rises to 37 (33%). Dentists and cosmetic practices led here. Because I coded text, not images, the true share of before and after imagery is likely higher. I have written separately about the rules on before-and-after photos in medical marketing.
Who carries the most risk
Orthopaedics (10 of 15) and dental (13 of 23) had the highest shares. For orthopaedics the driver was testimonials: seven of 15 accounts. For dental it was before and after content and “smile transformation” posts. Cardiology had the lowest share. Individual doctors (48 of 100) and clinic brands (6 of 12) looked much the same. Medical accounts sat at 46% (41 of 89) and dental at 57% (13 of 23).
| Specialty | Accounts | Any risk signal | Testimonial | Before and after wording | Superlative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dermatology | 30 | 13 | 5 | 7 | 7 |
| Dental | 23 | 13 | 8 | 6 | 5 |
| Gynaecology | 15 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 2 |
| Orthopaedics | 15 | 10 | 7 | 1 | 3 |
| Plastic and cosmetic surgery | 12 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Cardiology | 7 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Paediatrics | 5 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| IVF and fertility | 5 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| All | 112 | 54 | 30 | 17 | 24 |
Groups under ten accounts are too small to compare with confidence. Read them as direction, not ranking.
Part B: what actually gets watched
Doctor Instagram is now a Reels channel. Of the 1,329 most recent grid posts, 903 (68%) were Reels, and the median account had nine Reels in its last twelve posts. The accounts are small: median 1,784 followers, with 24 above 10,000 and six above 100,000. A typical Reel on the median account got about 2,200 views. The middle half of accounts sat between roughly 930 and 4,360.
Clean accounts reach further per follower
This is the finding I would put in front of any doctor who thinks testimonials and “best” claims drive growth. For the 106 accounts with both Reels and a follower count, I divided the median Reel views by followers. Accounts with no risk signal got 1.43 views per follower. Flagged accounts got 0.70. Put simply, the clean accounts reached about twice as far relative to their size.
I would not read this as “compliance boosts reach”. The clean group may simply post more educational content, which Instagram distributes beyond followers, while flagged accounts lean on promotional posts that mostly reach existing followers. Either way, nothing in this data says the risky content is buying extra attention.
Inside each account: plain education wins
To remove the effect of account size, I compared each Reel with the same account’s typical Reel (1.00 means typical). Reels with flagged wording came in at 0.85, against 0.97 for the rest. Reels whose captions pushed bookings (“book an appointment”, “DM us”, a phone number) came in at 0.92. Very long captions of 500 characters or more, which is where the keyword blocks live, came in at 0.93. Reels with no caption at all did worst, though only eight of them could be matched.
How the caption opened made little difference. Reels opening with a question (202 of them) and plain statements (545) both landed at 0.97. Myth and warning openers (“Stop doing this”, “Myth:”) came in at 0.89 on a small base of 35. The opening line of the caption matters less than the first seconds of the video, which I did not measure.
What this means for hospital marketers
If you run social media for a hospital, a clinic chain or doctors on your panel, this data gives you a short, NMC-safe checklist. None of it is clinical advice. It is about how the brand presents itself.
- Fix the bio first. Name, qualifications and State or National Medical Register number in the bio of every doctor account you manage. For clinic brands, list the doctors behind the content.
- Retire testimonial highlights. Rename or archive highlights called “Testimonials”, “Happy Patients” or “Wall of Fame”. Swap patient count claims for factual service information.
- Strip keyword blocks from captions. “Best dermatologist in [city]” at the end of a caption is the most common superlative in this sample, and it does nothing on Instagram that a clean location tag and a clear topic do not do better.
- Move results content off the feed. If a procedure needs visual explanation, use diagrams, animations or explainers, not patient images.
- Lead with education. Reels with plain captions and no booking push held at or above each account’s norm in this sample. Health awareness content is also what the guidelines explicitly allow, as long as it does not solicit patients.
- Keep calls to action light. Hard booking prompts in captions did not lift views. One clear contact route in the bio is enough.
- Audit agencies and creators. The guidelines say using an agency or influencer is no defence, so brief them on the same checklist.
Before a caption, bio or ad goes live, run it through my free NMC ad compliance checker. It flags testimonial wording, superlatives, guarantees and offers like the ones in this study, and suggests compliant rewrites.
For the wider picture, see my guides on digital marketing for doctors in India, marketing for dental clinics and healthcare influencer marketing in India.
Download the data
The full dataset (CSV) has one row per account: specialty, city, account type, regulator, follower band, posts and Reels reviewed, median Reel views, views per follower, and a yes or no column for each signal (qualifications, registration number, contact call to action, patient count claim, testimonial, before and after, transformation wording, superlative, discount, AI disclosure), plus counts of flagged posts and Reels. It contains no account handles or names of doctors, clinics or hospitals. Collection date is in every row. It is free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with credit to Gaurav Phogat and a link to this page.
How to cite this study
Phogat, G. (2026). Doctor Instagram after the NMC 2026 advertising guidelines: a study of 112 accounts. gauravphogat.com. Data collected 31 October 2026. https://gauravphogat.com/doctor-instagram-nmc-compliance-study/
Questions people ask
Sources and further reading
- CC BY 4.0 (creativecommons.org)
Under the NMC guidelines issued on 6 October 2026, doctors may not request or share patient testimonials, endorsements or reviews to promote their practice on social media. In my study of 112 doctor and clinic accounts, 30 still used testimonial wording, mostly in bio highlights.
The NMC guidelines ask doctors to disclose name, qualifications and State or National Medical Register number in electronic media communication. In my sample of 112 accounts on 31 October 2026, none showed a registration number in the bio, while 41 listed qualifications.
The guidelines say patient images cannot be used for advertising, and that consent alone does not make a before and after depiction permissible. In my study, 17 of 112 accounts used explicit before and after wording and 37 used before and after or transformation language.
Claims such as “best”, “No. 1”, “guaranteed results” or “100% success” are restricted unless verifiable. In my sample, 24 of 112 accounts made such claims, mostly as keyword strings like “best dermatologist in [city]” at the end of captions.
Not in this data. Accounts with no risk signal got a median 1.43 Reel views per follower, against 0.70 for flagged accounts, and flagged Reels performed slightly below each account’s typical Reel. This shows association, not cause.
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