We don't sell packages and that's a deliberate clinical and ethical position, not an oversight.

There are two reasons.

The first is regulatory. Pre-paid bundles, "buy 3 get 1 free" offers, and time-limited promotions are explicitly flagged under the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code and the AHPRA cosmetic procedures guidelines as inducements that can encourage patients to commit to medical treatment for the wrong reasons. Our profession asks us not to use them, and we agree with the principle.

The second is clinical. Every treatment plan at The Derm Clinic is individualised. After a comprehensive medical assessment, your Nurse Practitioner may recommend three sessions of one therapy, or one session of another, or no in-clinic treatment at all and a refined home program instead. If we sold you a six-session bundle up front, we would either be over-treating you or pressuring you to fit a clinical decision around a product you'd already paid for. Neither is acceptable.

We keep our pricing transparent and per-session so you only pay for the care that's right for you, when it's right for you.

Several of the treatments we provide involve prescription medicines, which are regulated as Schedule 4 substances under Australian therapeutic goods legislation. The Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code prohibits advertising prescription medicines, by name or by indication to the general public. The AHPRA cosmetic procedures advertising guidelines reinforce this for our profession.

That means the public website can describe the services we offer (consultation, medical assessment, individualised treatment planning) but cannot list every medicine or detailed treatment option. The level of detail that's appropriate to share is at your one-on-one consultation, where the conversation is medical, individualised, and confidential.

Because we treat skin medically, not cosmetically.

The initial consultation is a comprehensive, one-on-one appointment with the Nurse Practitioner. We take a full medical history, examine your skin, discuss your concerns and goals, and develop a tailored plan. For some patients that plan is entirely home-based; for others it includes in-clinic procedures, prescription skincare, or referral to another practitioner. We can't responsibly recommend any of those options without seeing you first.

The consultation is also where we discuss benefits, risks, costs, expected outcomes, and any alternatives the conversation regulators expect to happen privately, between you and your practitioner, before any treatment is offered.

It means we don't have a default protocol that everyone gets a version of.

After your assessment, we look at the specific clinical picture, your skin type, your medical history, what you've already tried, your goals, your budget, your tolerance for downtime, and how your skin responds to active ingredients. We then build a plan that may include any combination of in-clinic procedures, prescription skincare, lifestyle adjustments, sun protection, or further investigation. We are constantly reviewing this plan and making adjustments as needed.

Two patients with what looks like the same concern, acne, melasma, rosacea, almost always need different plans.

A Nurse Practitioner (NP) is a registered nurse with advanced clinical training and an extended scope of practice. In Australia, becoming an NP requires a minimum of a Master's degree, several years of advanced clinical experience, and endorsement by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia under AHPRA.

In practice, a Nurse Practitioner can:

• Independently assess, diagnose, and manage patients within their scope of practice

• Order and interpret diagnostic tests

• Prescribe medicines, including those scheduled as prescription-only

• Refer to specialists and other healthcare providers

• Initiate and review treatment plans

The role exists to give patients access to high-quality, advanced clinical care in areas where it's needed- including skin health and aesthetic medicine.

Both roles are vital, but the scope of practice is different.

A Registered Nurse (RN) provides nursing care, may administer medicines, and in many aesthetic clinics performs procedures under a doctor or Nurse Practitioners prescription and oversight. The clinical decision-making, diagnosis, prescribing, treatment planning and adverse event management responsibility sits with that supervising medical practitioner.

A Nurse Practitioner is endorsed to make those clinical decisions independently. At The Derm Clinic, your assessment, diagnosis, prescribing, and treatment plan are all performed by the Nurse Practitioner- not subcontracted to an off-site doctor/NP signing off remotely.

Most over-the-counter skincare is limited by regulation in how much active ingredient it can contain and how it can be formulated. That's appropriate for general consumer use… but it also means that if you have a clinical concern (persistent acne, melasma, post-inflammatory pigmentation, photoageing), the products available on a pharmacy or department-store shelf often aren't strong enough to be effective, even when they're expensive.

Prescription skincare bridges that gap. After medical assessment, your Nurse Practitioner may prescribe a compounded formulation, prepared by an Australian compounding pharmacy, that contains the active ingredients at the strengths and combinations clinically appropriate for your skin. Because the formula is matched to you, it generally works harder per dollar than a stack of off-the-shelf products targeting the same concern.

We also work with you to formulate a simple routine- cleanser, moisturiser, sunscreen- so the products work together rather than against each other. This takes out the guesswork and is often more cost-effective than buying individual luxury products that are essentially ineffective and overlap in function.

It's worth comparing total spend, not unit cost.

A common pattern we see at the first consultation is patients spending several hundred dollars a month across cleansers, serums, toners, eye creams, masks, and treatments most of which are minimally effeective, duplicating function or working against each other.

A focused, Prescribed Skincare program is usually fewer, more effective products, and often costs less in total than the stack it replaces. Your Nurse Practitioner will discuss costs with you transparently as part of your treatment plan.

You can book an Initial Consultation directly through our booking link on the website, or send us an enquiry if you'd like to ask a question first. Existing patients can book follow-up and review appointments through the same online booking system or directly through The Derm Clinic App.

We ask for at least 24 hours' notice for cancellations or rescheduling, so we can offer the appointment to another patient. The full policy is provided when you book.

We provide skin health care for younger patients in some circumstances, with parent or guardian consent and involvement. We do not advertise or perform higher-risk non-surgical cosmetic procedures on patients under 18.

We are a skin, health and medical aesthetics clinic. We do not provide formal full-body skin cancer screening, but if we identify a lesion of concern during your assessment we will refer you appropriately. If a skin cancer check is your primary need, please see a GP, skin cancer clinic, or dermatologist.