Problem · Healthcare
Google keeps disapproving our ads and our agency cannot tell us why.
The campaign was built, the budget was set, and the ads sit in disapproved with a policy label nobody on your side understands. Some healthcare categories require third party certification before Google or Meta will serve a single ad, the application takes weeks, and an agency that has never carried an account through it will stall for months. This is a known process with known steps.
How people search thisgoogle ads disapproved healthcare · legitscript certification for google ads · healthcare ad account suspended · restricted medical content google ads policy · addiction treatment ads certification
Catalyst at $5,000 a month runs the campaign once certified, and the content system runs while certification is pending. We have carried accounts through LegitScript scoped programs and policy constrained categories. Category rules are scoped before we commit to any number. Pricing is published.
Which categories need certification
LegitScript certification is required by Google and Meta before running ads in restricted healthcare categories including addiction treatment and certain telehealth and pharmacy services. Other categories carry policy restrictions on claims, targeting, or landing page content without a formal certification. The first step is naming your category precisely, because the fix for a disapproval in one is different from the fix in another.
What the process actually takes
Weeks, when someone who has done it runs it. Months, when nobody has. The application asks for licensing, ownership, policies, and landing page details, and a single mismatch between the site and the application restarts the clock. Ask any vendor which accounts they have carried through certification, by name. An agency that answers with a category is guessing.
What runs while you wait
Search does not stop. The service line pages, the symptom spokes, the covered intake, and the content cadence all build organic demand that does not need an ad account, and they are what the ad campaign will land on once approved. A practice that spends the certification window building the hub launches ads into pages that convert, instead of launching ads into a homepage and wondering why cost per lead is high.
Questions on this problem
Often, when the suspension is a policy mismatch rather than a repeated violation. We have resolved certification and policy issues that had stalled other agencies. We scope it before promising it.
It matters as much as the ad. Claims, consent language, and covered intake on the page are part of the review. We build the page and the campaign as one system.
Same certification in restricted categories, plus the HIPAA problem: no pixel on a page where a patient can book. Tracking runs server side from a covered system.
George Stoff, Founder and Lead Engineer
Thirty years building software, brands, and demand. On every account.