Your marketing partner should understand the rules you practice under.
Most clinic marketing agencies are built for other markets, ones where testimonials, before-and-after galleries, and limited-time pricing are standard practice. In Alberta, that playbook runs against the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta's advertising standard, and Bill 11 just raised the cost of getting it wrong. We build marketing for the rules you actually practice under.
Built for: Alberta clinics in an eligible specialty, preparing to offer non-Plan services under the dual practice model.
Not built for: clinics that want testimonial-driven, discount-driven campaigns. That playbook does not clear the CPSA standard.
Why This Matters Now
What rules stack on a dual practice clinic in Alberta?
Alberta's dual practice model launches in September 2026. Before a single ad runs, a clinic offering non-Plan services is already governed by three separate sets of rules. Get any one of them wrong and the cost has just gone up.
1
The CPSA advertising standard
Physician advertising in Alberta must contain factual and relevant information supported by current, best-available medical evidence, and must identify services that lack public funding. It is prohibited from including testimonials, claims of better results than another provider, guarantees, warranties, time-limited pricing, discount coupons, or "makeover" events. This standard applies today, independent of Bill 11.
Bill 11, section 8.2: disclosure and written consent
Before providing a non-Plan service, a flexibly participating or non-participating physician must tell the patient their status, the nature of the service, the amount to be charged, that payment is required, that the patient cannot claim it back from the Minister, and that the patient has the right to receive the same service as an insured service from a participating or flexibly participating physician instead. The patient must acknowledge all of this in writing before the service is provided. This is not a marketing suggestion. It is a legal requirement built into the booking process itself.
Source: Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2025 (No. 2), SA 2025, c 21, section 8.2. canlii.org: SA 2025, c 21
3
Higher penalties, and the Minister can name you publicly
Bill 11 raised first-offence fines from $10,000 to $50,000, and repeat offences from $20,000 to $100,000. False statements now carry fines of $10,000 to $25,000. The Minister can issue administrative penalties directly and can go back up to six years after a contravention comes to light. Under section 20.31, the Minister may also disclose to the public any information relating to a contravention. Patient information is protected, but the clinic and physician are not.
Source: Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2025 (No. 2), SA 2025, c 21, sections 14, 27, 28.1 to 28.5, 20.31. canlii.org: SA 2025, c 21
Put those three together and the question a surgeon should be asking in September is not "how do I get more patients." It is "how do I do this without a CPSA complaint or a news story." That is the question this page answers.
Dual practice launches September 2026. Clinics that fix their marketing before launch enter with a clean slate.
Not ready to book a call?
Start with the free compliance guide. Statute-cited, plain English, straight to your inbox.
A fixed-fee engagement that scores your existing marketing against the rules above, then shows you exactly what to fix and in what order. You get a written report and a working plan, not a slide deck.
What is in it
01
CPSA advertising standard review. Your website, existing copy, and any current ads scored line by line against the advertising standard. Every flagged item cites the exact clause it runs against, with compliant rewrites of your own copy.
02
SEO and website health audit. Site speed, mobile experience, crawlability, and on-page structure. Most clinic sites have problems here that cost patients before an ad ever runs.
03
Local search and reviews audit. Your Google Business Profile, map visibility, and patient review presence, benchmarked against the clinics competing for the same patients.
04
Measurement and tracking review. Whether your analytics would actually record a booked consult if one happened today. Most clinics cannot answer that question. After this audit, you can.
05
Readiness scorecard and roadmap. A one-page grade across compliance, consent readiness, private-pay readiness, and visibility, plus the phased order of what to fix first.
Delivered as a written report and a working session, typically within two weeks of getting access to your site and booking system.
What You Get
What does $3,500 actually produce?
Not a slide deck. A written report and a one-page scorecard you can hand to your team.
The audits inside it
CPSA advertising standard review
Private-pay page blueprint
SEO and website health audit
Local search and reviews audit
Measurement and tracking review
Readiness scorecard and roadmap
Readiness scorecard, fictional example
ComplianceC
Consent readinessB
Private-pay readinessD
VisibilityB
Who We Are
Private-pay surgery is new in Alberta. Highly regulated marketing is not new to us.
This is a new category for Alberta physicians. It is not a new category of problem for us. We have built marketing inside industries where the rules constrain what you are allowed to say: finance, insurance, education, government and municipalities, and regulated medical clients. Most agencies have never had to work that way. We have.
Mitchell Baptista, founder
You talk to me, not an account manager three levels removed from your account. I have built marketing inside regulated industries for years, and I am the one who reads your site before we ever get on a call.
Tactical range: buying beyond Search and Social
Most media buyers only know Search and Social. Catmo also buys enterprise programmatic, connected TV, audio, and digital out-of-home, including waiting-room and elevator screens. We proved it in a category the major ad platforms would not accept, moving a medical client's patient acquisition onto programmatic inventory built for that environment. That range is what makes CPSA compliance survivable rather than crippling: when the standard closes off most of the usual persuasion tactics, having channels beyond Search and Social means we still have room to build something effective.
Who we choose to work with
We would rather work with businesses that measurably improve people's lives than with businesses chasing a quick margin on whatever they can dropship that quarter. That preference shapes which clients we take on.
We take on fewer clients than we could, and we turn work down when it does not fit. This is not a comment on any type of medicine or on private-pay care generally. It is simply how we choose who we work with.
What Alberta Requires
Alberta has its own rules for physician advertising. We know them cold, and by the end of the audit, so will you.
We do not believe in keeping clients in the dark so they stay dependent. You hold the licence. You should understand every rule your marketing runs under, and our job is to make that easy. An agency that learned its playbook in another market will build you campaigns that are normal there and a problem here. Ours are built for here, and we show you why, line by line.
The standard closes off most of the tactics clinic marketing relies on in other markets. Which ones, and what to do instead, is exactly what the Readiness Audit maps for your clinic, clause by clause. On a call, we will walk you through the two or three items on your current site we would flag first.
Pricing
Transparent, fixed where it can be, month to month where it should be
Readiness Audit
$3,500 fixed fee
One-time. Covers the full CPSA and SEO review, section 8.2 readiness check, private-pay page blueprint, local search audit, tracking review, and readiness scorecard described above.
Launch Package
$5,500 one time
For clinics that want the work done, not just diagnosed. Your private-pay pages built to match your current site and pointed at your own subdomain, the section 8.2 consent step built into your real booking flow, and the full launch plan with channels, sequence, and budget shape. Up to two pages included, $750 per additional page or location. You keep everything, whether or not you ever hire us again.
Ongoing Retainer
$2,500 to $4,500 per month, depending on scope
Ad management is included in the retainer up to $10,000 per month in ad spend. Above $10,000, we add 12% of the portion of spend above $10,000. You own your own ad accounts at every stage, we never hold them hostage. No long-term contract. Month to month, with 30 days notice to cancel.
See what you would pay
$10,000 per month in ad spend
Retainer only. No percentage fee. At this spend level we earn exactly the same amount whether you spend $2,000 or $10,000 a month.
Retainer: $2,500 to $4,500 per month, depending on scope, before any percentage fee above.
Below $10,000 a month in ad spend, we make exactly the same money whether you spend more or less. We only earn a percentage once you have decided to scale past that, and only on the amount above it.
We do not require you to buy anything further to get the audit. It is priced to stand on its own: you will know exactly where you are exposed, exactly what to fix, and in what order, whoever you have do the fixing.
Ready to see where you stand?
Twenty minutes. No pitch deck. We will tell you plainly what we see on your current site and booking flow.
Last verified July 28, 2026, against currently published sources.
Has the dual practice program actually launched?
Not yet, as of this writing. The Government of Alberta has said launch is September 2026, without naming a specific day. Expression of interest opened June 22, 2026. The formal application window has been described as "later this summer" by the province and as August 2026 in press coverage, and the two have not been reconciled. We will tell you plainly what is confirmed and what is not, rather than guessing.
Which procedures are actually eligible?
The government's June 18, 2026 announcement named hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery, select ear, nose and throat procedures, gynecological surgeries, dermatology, plastic surgery, and minimally invasive general surgeries such as hernia repair. Procedures must already be accredited by CPSA for non-hospital surgical facilities. Cancer care, life-threatening conditions, and emergency or urgent procedures are excluded.
Why start with cataract surgery specifically?
Cataract surgery is the highest-volume eligible procedure, wait times are long (Alberta's average wait is 12.4 weeks, with the 90th percentile at 34.9 weeks, about 8 months), and premium intraocular lens upgrades are already legally chargeable today, ahead of the September launch. That means there is a real, current market to build for before the broader dual practice model even starts.
How does the retainer pricing actually work with ad spend?
The retainer covers ad management up to $10,000 a month in ad spend at no extra charge. Above that, we add 12% of the amount over $10,000. That means below $10,000 a month, we earn the same fee whether you spend more or less inside that range, so we have no reason to push your budget up. Full worked examples are in the pricing section above.
Do you guarantee results from the audit or the retainer?
No, and you should be wary of anyone who does. Too much of the outcome sits outside our control: how fast your team follows up on an enquiry, how consults convert, your pricing, competitor activity, seasonality, and changes the ad platforms make on their own schedule. Guarantees also distort the work. An agency that guarantees a cost per lead has a reason to chase cheap, unqualified leads instead of qualified surgical consults, just to hit the number. Anyone offering a guarantee is either pricing that risk into your fee already, or planning to game the metric. What we do instead: we agree on targets up front, and show you the actual numbers against them on your own dashboard.
Who controls the ad account?
The account is yours. We manage it day to day through our agency manager account, which is standard practice and how optimization actually gets done, but ownership and admin access stay with you from day one. The data in that account is business intelligence about your own market and your own patients, and it is rightfully yours. If an agency will not give you admin access, or tells you the account belongs to them, treat that as a red flag. If we ever part ways, we unlink and you keep everything, including the history.
Have you worked with an ophthalmology or surgical clinic before?
Not in ophthalmology. Until September 2026, this category did not exist in Alberta, so nobody in Canada has a dual practice track record yet. What is not new to us is marketing inside regulated industries where the rules limit what you can say: finance, insurance, education, government and municipalities, and regulated medical clients. That is the transferable skill here, and it is rarer than a shelf of clinic logos.
How long does the audit take?
Typically two weeks from the day we get access to your current site, booking system, and any existing ad accounts. Complex multi-location clinics can take a little longer, and we will tell you up front if yours will.
Do you do the fixes too, or just find them?
The audit is the diagnosis. The Launch Package is the one-time build. The retainer is ongoing management. You can buy them in any combination, or take the audit findings and have someone else do the fixing.
Book a 20 minute call
Tell us where your marketing stands today. We will tell you, honestly, what we see.
Catmo Media is a marketing agency. We are not a law firm and do not provide legal advice. Information on this page about Bill 11, the Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2025 (No. 2), and the CPSA advertising standard reflects our reading of publicly available sources as of the date of publication and may change as regulations, ministerial orders, and government guidance are finalized. Clinics and physicians should confirm their specific obligations with their own legal counsel and with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta.
