A medical practice website in Morocco: what the code of conduct allows

The rule, and what it separates

The practice of medicine in Morocco is governed by law 131-13 and by the profession’s code of conduct. The line those texts draw is consistent: advertising is prohibited; communicating information is regulated but permitted.

The code, as applicable, tolerates and regulates doctors’ presence in media and on social platforms, setting conditions on the nature of what is communicated: information must be general in nature, consistent with current scientific data, objective, correct and verifiable. Practitioners are further asked to refrain from boasting about their "competencies" or "achievements".

The text explicitly allows certain practical information to be communicated — the location of the practice, a cessation or resumption of activity, a temporary absence, a change of hours. Non-compliance carries disciplinary sanctions.

This guide describes what that constraint means for designing a site. It does not replace the view of the Ordre, which is the source to consult for a specific case.

What that removes from the usual toolkit

A practice website cannot rely on what sells an ordinary commercial site. That is a real constraint, and it is better known before mockups are commissioned.

• Patient testimonials used promotionally. Beyond the code, they raise a confidentiality problem few practices can resolve cleanly.
• Comparisons and superlatives: "the best", "the first", "the most experienced". That is precisely what the rule targets.
• Results presented as performance, including before-and-after photographs framed as a promise.
• Offers and promotions. A medical procedure is not sold like a commercial service.

What a good practice website does instead

The constraint is more fertile than it looks, because it forces the site to be designed around the patient rather than the practitioner. Which is exactly what the patient is looking for.

• Answer the practical questions. Where exactly, how to get there, where to park, which floor, is there a lift. Those are the real first questions, and almost no site answers them.
• Say what happens during the appointment. What to bring, how long it takes, what it feels like. This information reduces anxiety, and reducing anxiety is a service, not promotion.
• State verifiable facts. Qualifications, specialty, languages spoken, membership of a learned society. Facts, presented as facts, without adjectives.
• Explain a condition or a procedure in general terms. That is explicitly the permitted register, provided it stays consistent with current scientific data and verifiable. It is also what makes a patient arrive prepared.
• Let people book an appointment. The most requested service, and the one that relieves the front desk most.

Patient data raises the bar

An appointment form collects personal data, and a reason for consultation makes it sensitive data. The processing falls under law 09-08 and is declared to the CNDP like any other, but the sensitivity calls for extra care.

The safest design rule is not to collect what is not needed. An appointment needs a name, a phone number and a slot. The reason is discussed in the consultation, not typed into a free-text field that ends up in a shared inbox.

Local visibility, within that framework

A patient looking for a practitioner almost always searches by specialty and by place. What Google shows first in that case is not a website but a business listing.

Filling that listing in properly — exact address, real hours, a phone number that answers — is practical information, not advertising. It is also, by a distance, the most effective visibility lever for a practice, before any consideration of a website.

Online appointment booking, concretely

This is the feature patients ask for most and the one that helps the front desk most. It needs designing with a few precautions specific to the field.

• Ask for the minimum. Name, phone number, slot. No free-text reason: it turns an appointment into health data, with everything that entails.
• Distinguish first visit from follow-up. The durations differ, and it is the only sorting information genuinely needed at booking time.
• Say what to bring. Documents, previous test results, current prescription. That one sentence saves a phone call per appointment.
• Provide for cancellation. A link to cancel or reschedule reduces no-shows more than a reminder does, because it gives the patient a way to act rather than an instruction.
• Keep a phone number visible. A share of patients will never book online, and forcing them is a disservice.

Frequently asked

And at Noor Studio Agency?

We design these sites from the patient’s questions rather than the practitioner’s: access, what happens, how to prepare, how to book. That is what the professional framework permits, and it is also what makes the site genuinely useful — the two point the same way.