The business of healing: care, commerce and the people selling hope

Australia has a large, highly organised health system.

There are doctors, nurses and specialists. There are pharmacists, psychologists, physiotherapists, dentists and other allied health practitioners. Medicare subsidises many services, while private health insurers pay benefits under their policies.

This system does not cover every service that Australians use in the pursuit of better health.

Beyond hospitals, medical centres and registered clinical practices is a broad healing economy encompassing counsellors, rehabilitation services, health retreats, wellness coaches, naturopaths, meditation teachers, massage businesses, spiritual practitioners and people offering treatments that do not sit comfortably within conventional medicine.

Some provide useful care within clear limits.

Others sell little more than hope.

Understanding the difference has become an important consumer skill.

The regulated health system

Australia’s most closely regulated practitioners operate under professional standards governing education, registration, conduct and continuing competency.

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency maintains a public register of practitioners across 16 nationally regulated health professions. Registration is intended to establish that a practitioner has the required qualifications and meets professional and ethical standards. Consumers can search the register and check whether conditions or restrictions apply.

Allied health is also a substantial part of the formal health workforce. Government descriptions generally define allied health professionals as trained practitioners, commonly with university qualifications, who use evidence-based methods to help prevent, diagnose, manage or treat health conditions. They work in hospitals, private practices, aged care, community organisations, schools and other settings.

Medicare supports parts of this system, but not every service and not necessarily the full cost. Eligible patients may receive Medicare benefits for certain allied health treatments through structured care arrangements, while private health insurers may contribute to other approved services.

This creates a recognised commercial model.

The practitioner provides a defined service. The patient pays directly, receives a Medicare benefit, makes a private insurance claim or uses a combination of these.

Qualifications, scope of practice and complaint mechanisms are generally visible.

What exists outside that system?

Outside the regulated core is a much broader collection of practitioners and businesses.

The word “healer” has no single commercial or clinical meaning. It may describe someone offering emotional support, complementary therapies, spiritual guidance, lifestyle education, addiction recovery assistance or an alternative explanation for illness.

The category can include:

• Counsellors and psychotherapists
• Drug and alcohol recovery coaches
• Naturopaths and herbal practitioners
• Massage and bodywork providers
• Meditation and breathwork teachers
• Reiki and energy-healing practitioners
• Spiritual healers
• Wellness consultants
• Health retreat operators
• Nutrition and lifestyle coaches

These services should not automatically be dismissed.

A person may benefit from structured conversation, rest, exercise, massage, meditation, social connection or assistance changing damaging habits. Counselling, for example, can help people work through relationship difficulties, grief, stress, addiction and other life challenges.

The important distinction is between providing support and claiming to diagnose or cure disease.

The counselling business

Counselling occupies a complicated position.

Psychologists are regulated health practitioners. The wider titles of counsellor and psychotherapist do not necessarily indicate registration under the national health practitioner scheme.

Nevertheless, many counsellors undertake substantial education, professional supervision and voluntary membership of professional organisations. Others may have less training.

The most common business model is fee-for-service.

A client pays for an appointment, usually by the hour. Sessions may be delivered in person, by telephone, online, individually or in groups. Some practitioners build specialist practices around grief, relationships, trauma, workplace stress, dependency or family conflict.

Revenue may also come from:

• Employee assistance programs
• Community service contracts
• Group programs
• Workshops
• Residential recovery programs
• Online courses
• Corporate wellbeing packages

The legitimate counsellor does not need to claim to be a doctor. The value offered is time, structure, confidentiality, emotional support and techniques that may help a client change behaviour or manage difficult circumstances.

The risk arises when credentials are vague, boundaries are weak or severe mental and physical symptoms are treated as matters that can be resolved by motivation alone.

Drug and dependency counsellors

Drug and alcohol recovery is another area in which clinical care, community support and private enterprise overlap.

Some dependency counsellors work within hospitals, rehabilitation centres, charities and government-funded services. Others operate private practices or residential programs.

Their business model may involve individual sessions, family counselling, group therapy, accommodation, supervised routines and continuing aftercare.

A reputable recovery service should be clear about the qualifications of its staff, the evidence supporting its methods, emergency procedures, medication policies and how it coordinates with doctors or mental health professionals.

A vulnerable family may be prepared to pay almost anything to help someone escape dependency. That urgency can support legitimate treatment, but it can also make the sector attractive to businesses selling costly programs without adequate clinical oversight.

The strongest providers recognise that addiction may involve physical dependence, psychiatric illness, trauma, housing, relationships and employment. No single motivational speech or proprietary technique can address every case.

Health retreats

Health retreats sell a combination of accommodation, environment and personal improvement.

Their commercial model resembles hospitality as much as healthcare.

Customers may pay for:

• Accommodation
• Meals
• Exercise classes
• Massage and spa treatments
• Meditation
• Counselling
• Weight-management programs
• Digital-detox programs
• Sleep programs
• Educational seminars

A well-run retreat can provide rest, routine, healthy meals, exercise and distance from the pressures of everyday life.

These are real products.

The danger is not the retreat itself. It is the promise attached to it.

A business offering a peaceful week, nutritious meals and supervised exercise is making an understandable proposition. A business suggesting that the same week will cure cancer, reverse a serious psychiatric condition or eliminate the need for prescribed treatment enters far more dangerous territory.

How the legitimate healing business works

Legitimate businesses outside the conventional medical system generally sell one or more of four things.

Time

Many customers feel rushed or unheard within busy systems.

A healer, counsellor or wellness practitioner may offer a long appointment and detailed attention. The customer is partly paying to be listened to.

Experience

Retreats and wellness programs package environment, hospitality and activities into an experience.

The commercial product is not necessarily a cure. It may be rest, personal reflection or the opportunity to establish healthier habits.

Accountability

Coaches and counsellors often help people set goals and return regularly to review progress.

This can be valuable even when the practitioner is not treating disease.

Community

Group recovery programs, retreats and workshops create a sense of belonging.

For people dealing with dependency, grief or isolation, community itself can be a meaningful service.

None of these business models requires deception.

Problems begin when a provider sells certainty that cannot be justified.

The fake healer’s business model

The fake healer operates differently.

Rather than defining a limited service, the fake healer makes expansive promises.

They may claim access to a secret treatment, hidden knowledge, special energy, suppressed scientific discoveries or a cure that doctors supposedly do not want the public to know about.

The business model often follows a recognisable pattern.

Find a vulnerable customer

The ideal customer may be frightened, chronically ill, recently bereaved, dependent on drugs, dissatisfied with conventional treatment or desperate for an explanation.

Vulnerability increases willingness to suspend normal commercial caution.

Discredit ordinary medicine

The fake healer may claim that doctors are ignorant, governments are concealing information or pharmaceutical companies suppress natural cures.

This separates the customer from credible sources of advice.

Provide a simple explanation

Complex illnesses are attributed to toxins, blocked energy, parasites, negative thinking, spiritual imbalance or one particular food.

The explanation is attractive because it appears understandable and controllable.

Sell the proprietary solution

The customer is then offered supplements, consultations, devices, retreats, memberships, testing programs or repeated treatments.

Frequently, the seller controls both the diagnosis and the proposed remedy.

Create recurring revenue

The first purchase is rarely the end.

Customers may be told that recovery requires ongoing sessions, increasing doses, advanced programs or exclusive products available only through the practitioner.

Explain away failure

When the customer does not improve, the treatment is rarely blamed.

Instead, the customer may be told that they lacked belief, failed to follow the program, were exposed to further toxins or need a more expensive level of treatment.

This protects the business model from its own poor results.

Hope is the product

The most powerful product sold by an unscrupulous healer is not a herb, consultation or retreat.

It is certainty.

Conventional medicine often acknowledges uncertainty. A doctor may say that a treatment might work, that tests are required or that a condition can be managed but not cured.

The fake healer can appear more reassuring because there are no qualifications in the promise.

For a frightened person, absolute confidence can be more emotionally attractive than honest doubt.

That makes hope commercially valuable—and potentially dangerous.

Advertising still has rules

Operating outside Medicare does not place a business outside consumer law.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission states that claims about the benefits, value, qualities or performance of a service must be accurate, truthful and based on reasonable grounds. Misleading health representations can therefore be a consumer-law issue as well as a health concern.

In June 2026, the ACCC commenced Federal Court proceedings against a health and wellbeing program provider, alleging misrepresentations and the use of unfair contract terms that restricted consumers’ ability to cancel. The allegations remain matters for the court, but the case demonstrates that wellness businesses are still commercial enterprises subject to ordinary legal standards.

Some jurisdictions also impose codes of conduct on unregistered health practitioners. In New South Wales, for example, a statutory code applies to unregistered practitioners and to registered practitioners providing services outside their registered profession.

Unregistered does not necessarily mean unregulated.

It does, however, require consumers to look more carefully at who is providing the service and what accountability exists.

Questions consumers should ask

Before engaging any healer, retreat or alternative practitioner, consumers should ask:

What are your qualifications?

Are you registered with Ahpra, where that profession requires registration?

What professional organisation are you accountable to?

What evidence supports the service?

What exactly are you promising?

Will you work with my doctor or other treating practitioners?

Do you advise clients to stop medication?

What are the total costs?

Can I cancel?

Is there a written complaints process?

A credible practitioner should be comfortable answering these questions.

Evasion is information.

A place for care outside medicine

The answer is not to suggest that only doctors contribute to wellbeing.

Human health is influenced by medical treatment, movement, food, sleep, relationships, work, housing, addiction, stress and community.

There is room for counsellors, retreats, coaches and complementary services that help people live more comfortably or make constructive changes.

But these services must be honest about what they are.

Listening is not diagnosis.

Relaxation is not a cancer treatment.

Motivation is not a substitute for psychiatric care.

A retreat is not a hospital.

The boundary does not diminish legitimate wellness services. It protects them from being grouped with businesses that exploit illness.

The Evening Times View

Healing has become an industry because the demand is immense.

People want relief from pain, fear, dependency, loneliness and uncertainty. Conventional healthcare cannot always provide unlimited time, complete certainty or an immediate solution.

Legitimate businesses can help fill some of those gaps through counselling, recovery support, retreats, education and personal attention.

The fake healer sees the same gap and reaches a different conclusion.

Instead of selling care within limits, the fake healer sells certainty without evidence.

The most important consumer question is therefore not whether a practitioner belongs inside or outside the Medicare system.

It is whether the person is honestly describing the service being sold—and whether hope is being offered as support or packaged as a cure.