- Rejects the ad
- Controlled-substance and stimulant medication terms (ADHD stimulant brand names, benzodiazepines) in keywords or ad text
- Addiction or recovery services without certification in the US
- Cure claims and guaranteed outcomes
- Risks the account
- Recovery-oriented addiction services running without LegitScript certification
- Remarketing or customer-match audiences built on a mental health condition
- Circumventing a disapproval by rewording the same claim
- Requires
- LegitScript Addiction Treatment Certification, then Google's certification, for recovery-oriented drug and alcohol services in the US
- Therapy, psychiatry, assessment and medication management intent is open without any certification
- How we run it
- Search on practice and service intent by metro: psychiatrist near me, ADHD evaluation, therapy for anxiety, medication management clinic. No condition-based audiences, no drug-term keywords, landing pages built around the first appointment.
Mental health PPC management
Google Ads for psychiatry and mental health clinics
Short answer
As of September 2026, therapy and psychiatry services are open on Google Ads without certification, with three exceptions that cause most of the trouble: addiction treatment needs LegitScript certification in the US, controlled-substance and some ADHD medication terms are restricted, and Google's personalized advertising policy prohibits audiences built on a mental health condition. MedScale Health runs mental health PPC inside those lines, on service intent, with landing pages about the first appointment and tracking that never sends a diagnosis to Google.
Checked against the platform policy pages on 2026-09-16. By Michael Borgia, MedScale Health.
What this means for you
- Psychiatrist near me, therapy for anxiety and ADHD assessment clinic are open keywords. Stimulant brand names and controlled-substance terms are not.
- You cannot build a remarketing list of people who visited your depression page. Condition-based audiences are prohibited, so campaigns are search-led.
- If the practice offers substance-use treatment, that campaign needs LegitScript's addiction treatment certification before it can run in the US.
- Landing pages should describe the practice, the clinicians and what happens at the first visit. Medication content belongs below the fold and off the ad's keywords.
- A booked intake is the conversion, not a click on a phone number. Call tracking and intake attribution decide whether the budget is working.
Policy reality
What each platform allows for mental health and psychiatry practices.
Positions are read from each platform's own policy pages, with the source linked on every row and the date we last checked it. Where a row names a certification it is LegitScript, the third-party certification Meta and Google require before a pharmacy or telehealth provider can promote prescription drugs.
Checked 2026-09-16Full policy tracker
- Rejects the ad
- Remarketing lists, similar audiences or customer match built on visits to condition pages or on a diagnosis
- Interest targeting that implies a mental health condition
- Risks the account
- Repeated use of sensitive-category audiences after a warning
- Requires
- Google's personalized advertising policy prohibits targeting based on health conditions, including mental health, in remarketing and audience products
- How we run it
- Audiences are geography, search intent and broad demographic only. Site visitors are never segmented by the page they read. Conversion events carry generic names so nothing about the visitor's condition reaches Google.
- Rejects the ad
- "Do you have anxiety?" and other personal-attribute framing
- Medication names
- Implying a diagnosis of the viewer
- Risks the account
- Sensitive-category data sent through the pixel
- Controlled-substance promotion
- Requires
- No certification needed for therapy and psychiatry services; conversion optimisation is limited for sensitive categories
- How we run it
- Provider-led creative about the practice and the first visit, no second-person copy about the viewer's state of mind, generic event names.
Which mental health keywords are open and which are not
Google's healthcare and medicines policy leaves most of the mental health category open. Psychiatrist, therapist, counselling, ADHD evaluation, medication management, TMS clinic and telepsychiatry are all keywords a practice can bid on without certification. The closed or restricted terms cluster in three places. Controlled-substance and stimulant terms, including the ADHD medication brand names patients search for, are restricted drug terms that need prescription-drug certification and are still a poor idea for a practice, because they attract people shopping for a prescription rather than for care. Addiction and recovery services are a certified category in the US, requiring LegitScript's addiction treatment track before the ads serve. And any keyword paired with a cure claim or a guaranteed outcome is disapproved on the claim, not the keyword. A practice that stays on service intent and describes care rather than promising relief runs cleanly.
Why condition-based remarketing is off the table
The rule that catches most mental health PPC accounts is not in the healthcare policy at all. Google's personalized advertising policy prohibits targeting users based on sensitive interests and health conditions, and mental health is named. That means no remarketing list of people who visited the depression treatment page, no similar audience seeded from intake completions, no customer match upload of current patients. The practical consequence is that mental health campaigns are search-led: the intent comes from the query, and the audience layer stays at geography and broad demographics. It also shapes the tracking. Conversion events are named generically (lead, booked, contact) so the practice never transmits a diagnosis in an event name, which matters both for Google's rules and for the practice's own privacy obligations.
Campaign structure for a psychiatry practice
The structure MedScale Health runs separates services into their own campaigns so budget and messaging can differ: general psychiatry and medication management, ADHD assessment, therapy and counselling, specialised programs such as TMS or perinatal care, and telepsychiatry by state where the practice is licensed. Each campaign has its own landing page describing that service, the clinicians who provide it, insurance and self-pay options, and what the first appointment involves. Ad copy is about the practice: licensed psychiatrists, same-week appointments, in-network with named plans, evening availability. Nothing about the reader's state of mind. Call extensions and call tracking are essential because a large share of mental health bookings happen by phone, and the phone call has to be attributed to the keyword that produced it.
Landing pages that convert and pass review
A mental health landing page has two audiences: a person in some distress deciding whether to call, and a policy reviewer deciding whether the page makes claims or promotes a drug. Both are served by the same structure. Open with who the practice is and who the clinicians are, with credentials and photos. State plainly what the first appointment involves, how long it takes and what it costs or which plans it accepts. Give two ways to book, a form and a phone number, above the fold. Keep medication detail informational and below the fold, and never list drugs as products. Testimonials, where used, describe the experience of care and carry no outcome claim. The page carries a crisis line for anyone in immediate danger, which is both the right thing to do and a signal reviewers look for.
Measurement, and how MedScale Health runs mental health PPC
The conversion is a booked intake, attributed to the keyword and campaign that produced it, whether it came through the form, a tracked call or the practice's scheduling platform. We report cost per booked intake weekly by service line, alongside show rate where the practice can share it, so budget moves toward the services that actually fill the calendar. Week one is a policy read of the account, the pages and the pixel, including a check for any condition-based audiences that need to be removed before Google removes them for you. Week two puts server-side tracking live with generic event names and call tracking. Week three launches the service-line campaigns. If the practice has an addiction services line, the LegitScript application runs alongside so that campaign can follow when certification lands.
Google Ads for Psychiatry Clinics questions
What buyers ask before they book.
Does a psychiatry practice need LegitScript to run Google Ads?
Not for psychiatry, therapy, assessment or medication management. Google's certification requirement in this category attaches to recovery-oriented drug and alcohol addiction services in the US, which need LegitScript's addiction treatment certification before ads serve. A practice that also offers substance-use treatment runs that service line under certification and everything else without it.
Can we run remarketing to people who visited our anxiety treatment page?
No. Google's personalized advertising policy prohibits targeting based on health conditions, including mental health, and a list built from visits to a condition page is exactly that. Customer match uploads of patients and similar audiences seeded from them are covered the same way. Campaigns in this category are search-led, with audiences limited to geography and broad demographics.
Why are our ADHD ads disapproved when competitors seem to run them?
Usually the ads or keywords name a stimulant medication or a brand, which are restricted drug terms, or the copy promises a diagnosis or a prescription. ADHD evaluation and ADHD clinic are open terms. Competitors running drug names either hold prescription-drug certification or are running on borrowed time. The approach that lasts is to advertise the assessment and the clinicians, and to keep medication content informational on the page.
How do you track a booking that happens by phone?
With call tracking numbers that swap in per campaign and keyword, so the call is attributed to the search that produced it, and with the practice's own booking outcome fed back where it can share it. Form and scheduling-platform bookings are tracked server-side with a bridge token that carries the click ID through the intake platform. No diagnosis or condition detail is sent to Google in any event.
What should a mental health practice budget for Google Ads?
It depends on the metro, the service lines and whether the practice is in-network, so the honest answer comes out of the Growth Audit, which reviews your current account and pages and returns a written ninety-day plan in five business days. Pricing for management is scoped on that call. The pricing page describes the three tiers and what each includes.
From the answers library
The answers behind this page.
Why Are Your Google Ads Disapproved for Telehealth, and How Do You Fix It?
Google disapproves telehealth ads for three recurring reasons: the advertiser is not certified to promote telemedicine or prescription medication, the destination page makes claims the policy treats as unsupported, or the campaign promotes a substance Google restricts outright. MedScale, a growth agency working exclusively with telehealth brands, checks certification status first, because an uncertified account keeps failing review no matter how carefully the creative is written.
Reviewed September 16, 2026
What Is Meta's Personal Attributes Policy and Why Does It Block Weight Loss Ads?
As of September 2026, Meta's personal attributes policy prohibits ads that assert or imply knowledge of a person's characteristics, and it names physical or mental health, including medical conditions, explicitly. It blocks weight loss advertising because the standard direct-response opening, a question addressed to the reader about their own body, is precisely what the rule forbids. MedScale, a growth agency working exclusively with telehealth brands, treats it as the single highest-value rule to design around in this category.
Reviewed September 16, 2026
How Do Meta, Google and TikTok Differ on Telehealth Advertising?
The three platforms restrict telehealth in structurally different ways: Google gates the category behind advertiser certification, Meta gates it behind content rules about what creative may say and show, and TikTok is the most restrictive on regulated medical products. MedScale, a growth agency working exclusively with telehealth brands, plans channel mix around that difference, because a creative concept cleared for one platform is not evidence it will clear another.
Reviewed August 3, 2026
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We audit the funnel, the tracking, and the compliance posture, then hand you the roadmap. The people writing it have run the same funnel from the inside. You keep it whether or not we work together.
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