Patient Recruitment Standards

Recruitment rules

Patient recruitment can interfere with informed medical decision-making when providers or third-party patient aggregation companies make false, unsubstantiated, or unverifiable claims of cures.

Medical tourism and patient-information groups can serve a useful role, but they require the highest standards of ethics, patient care, and honesty.

• Claims cannot be untrue, unsubstantiated, or intended to convey safety or efficacy beyond what can be supported.
• Patients need a description of how cells will be harvested, processed, and implanted.
• Patients need an accurate treatment price estimate and physician qualification information.
• Patients need to be informed of the legal status of treatment in the location where it is provided.
• Patients must have access, on request, to a licensed medical professional employed by the clinic before being asked to sign any agreement or make any treatment commitment.
• Patients cannot be told they are approved candidates before medical records are examined.
• Guarantees, implied or explicit, cannot be made for the outcome of any procedure.
• Claims of benefit must be based on currently accepted scientific and medical understanding.
• Patient testimonials must be labeled as not indicative of all results.
• The use of actors portraying patients is forbidden.
• Any patient compensation for a testimonial must be prominently noted.
• Clinics cannot make false or misleading statements about accreditation, compliance, or certification from oversight, regulatory, or standards organizations.