An aftercare instructions app is a clock with text attached, and the text is the part that gets read.

When should the instructions arrive?

On the clock of the treatment. Three moments earn their place and the rest are noise. The first hour after they leave, which is the send that prevents the damage, because that is when someone takes the dressing off to look at it. The next morning, which is when the swelling or the redness turns up and people decide something has gone wrong. And the service's own check point, often day three, where you ask them to look at a specific thing and tell you if it is happening. Three short messages beat one long leaflet nobody finishes.

Sending it all at checkout fails for a dull reason. The person is standing up, holding a card, half into their coat. Nothing read in that state survives the walk home. Your app already knows the appointment time, so every send is arithmetic on a field you have rather than a new thing to maintain. If your appointments live in a shared calendar rather than inside the app, then calendar sync is what makes the whole schedule possible, because without the real appointment time you are timing follow up instructions from the booking, which can be six weeks out.

Two practical limits worth knowing before you promise anything. A notification scheduled on the phone lives on that one phone and dies with a reinstall, which is fine for a nudge and not fine for a record, so keep the sent history on your side as well. And a message that lands at three in the morning is worse than no message at all, so clamp every calculated send into waking hours before it goes out. A visit at nine in the evening pushes its next morning send to the morning, not to midnight plus one minute.

What does Apple require if the aftercare text is health related?

One sentence, and it is weaker than people assume. App Review Guideline 1.4.1, under Physical Harm, says apps should remind users to check with a doctor in addition to using the app and before making medical decisions. Should, not must. The hard requirement in the same guideline is about measurement rather than advice: apps must clearly disclose data and methodology to support accuracy claims relating to health measurements, and if the level of accuracy or methodology cannot be validated, Apple says it will reject your app. Its example is an app claiming to take x-rays or to measure blood pressure, body temperature, blood glucose levels or blood oxygen levels using only the sensors on the device. Aftercare text measures nothing, so that clause rarely bites. The reminder is the part that lands on your screen.

The same guideline sets the tone for how your app gets looked at. Medical apps that could provide inaccurate data or information, or that could be used for diagnosing or treating patients, may be reviewed with greater scrutiny. And if your medical app has received regulatory clearance, Apple asks you to submit a link to that documentation with the app. Aftercare for a wax, a tattoo or a haircut is nowhere near that line. Aftercare after a dental visit, a podiatry appointment or a minor procedure is close enough that both the reminder and a plain statement of what the app is not belong on the screen.

One neighbouring rule catches people who add a helpful extra. Guideline 1.4.2 says drug dosage calculators must come from the drug manufacturer, a hospital, university, health insurance company, pharmacy or other approved entity, or receive approval by the FDA or one of its international counterparts, and gives the reason: given the potential harm to patients, Apple needs to be sure the app will be supported and updated over the long term. Printing the dose from the packet as fixed text is not a calculator. A field where somebody enters a weight and the app returns a number is one, and it changes what your app is.

If you were planning to write the aftercare into Apple Health, read 5.1.3 first. Apps must not write false or inaccurate data into HealthKit or any other medical research or health management apps, and may not store personal health information in iCloud. Aftercare notes from a medical visit are personal health information, so the backup you never thought about becomes a decision. The same section also bars using health data gathered in that context for advertising, marketing or other use-based data mining, which rules out hanging an offer off a healing reminder.

Apple, App Review Guidelines, guidelines 1.4.1, 1.4.2 and 5.1.3, read 14 October 2026

The two sentences Google wants, and where they go

Google is the specific one. Its Health content and services policy, under Health and Medical Apps, says other health and medical apps must include a clear disclaimer in their app description indicating that the app is not a medical device and does not diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical condition. The second sentence follows straight after: apps must also remind users to consult a healthcare professional for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Must, in both. The same policy opens with a line that explains the rest of it, which is that Google does not allow apps that expose users to harmful health content and services.

The three words people skip are in their app description. That is the listing text you type in Play Console, the words on your store page, not a screen inside the app. A carefully worded line on the aftercare screen does not satisfy a policy pointing at your listing. Write it in both places and the question goes away: the listing is what the policy asks for, and the screen is what the customer actually reads at eleven at night when something looks wrong. Apple, by contrast, names no location at all, which is why the safe reading there is to do the same thing twice.

Two more items in that policy belong on your release checklist. All developers must complete the Health apps declaration form on the App content page, which is a form in Play Console rather than something you can reason your way out of by deciding your app is not really a health app. And apps regulated as a medical device must provide proof of approval, clearance or certification on request. An aftercare leaflet is not a medical device, and the declaration form still has to be filled in before the listing goes live.

Google Play, Health content and services policy, read 14 October 2026

Where does paid aftercare run into the payment rules?

The second you sell something alongside the advice. Guideline 3.1.3(e), Goods and Services Outside of the App, says that if your app enables people to purchase physical goods or services that will be consumed outside of the app, you must use purchase methods other than in-app purchase to collect those payments, such as Apple Pay or traditional credit card entry. Read that as an instruction, not a favour. A tub of balm, a follow up appointment and a course of sessions are all consumed outside the app, so all three are collected on a card. Putting a physical product through store billing is the version that gets rejected, and people get it backwards because they read the rule as an exemption they can decline.

The neighbour catches the other half of the room. Guideline 3.1.3(d), Person-to-Person Services, allows a payment method other than in-app purchase for real time person-to-person services between two individuals, and Apple's own examples include tutoring students, medical consultations and fitness training. The same paragraph then says one-to-few and one-to-many real-time services must use in-app purchase. So a single video call to look at how a wound is healing and a group aftercare class land on opposite sides of one rule. If you sell both, you are building two payment paths, not one.

Digital only aftercare flips back again. A library of videos that exists purely inside the app is unlocking functionality, which guideline 3.1.1 puts firmly inside in-app purchase. That makes the pricing decision a product decision: the same advice sold as a service is a card payment, and sold as content is a store purchase with a cut taken. App monetisation is the wider picture, and what Apple's commission costs often decides whether a paid tier is worth having at all.