Start with the register, not the Instagram feed
A clinic's social media tells you how good their marketing is. The AHPRA register tells you whether the person actually treating you is a registered nurse or nurse practitioner. You can search anyone by name in under a minute, for free, at ahpra.gov.au. If a clinic is vague about who treats you and what they are registered to do, that vagueness is your answer.
Understand the 2025 rule change
From September 2025, tighter national guidelines for non-surgical cosmetic procedures came into effect, covering both advertising and consultations. Good clinics treat those rules as a floor, not a ceiling — the minimum standard, not the goal. If a clinic seems to see the new rules as an inconvenience, take note.
Assessment before treatment, every time
A "free consultation" at a lot of clinics is a sales meeting with a treatment menu attached. A real skin assessment looks at your skin first and tells you what it needs — including the possibility that the honest answer is nothing yet. The order matters: assess, then recommend. Not the other way around.
Be wary of the promised result
Skin does not work on promises. Honest clinics talk in realistic timelines and are willing to tell you when something will not suit you, or when it is worth waiting. A promise of a fixed result in a fixed number of sessions is a marketing line, not a clinical one.
How we do it at Eila
Eila is a nurse-led clinic in Robina. Care is led by Sheila Manubag (RN, founder) and Gabrielle Munro (NP, clinical director), both AHPRA-registered. Every visit starts with an assessment; if a treatment is not right for you, we say so. We follow the science, not the trend of the month.
Check the register. Insist on assessment before treatment. Be sceptical of promised results and bait pricing. The clinic that is happy to tell you "not yet" is usually the one worth trusting.