Frequently asked
The questions below cover the areas patients most often ask about that are not addressed on the other patient information pages: who is legally allowed to perform cosmetic procedures in Australia, why Australian clinics are restricted in what they can publish, what normal recovery looks like compared to what is not, and how to assess any clinic before booking.
MBBS · Registered Medical Practitioner · Ahpra MED0002627622
These topics are answered in full elsewhere in Patient Information. This page does not repeat them.
General risks, urgent care thresholds, the Sept 2025 framework, complaint pathways
Duration, what to bring, the four steps, deciding on the day
The five elements, cooling off, withdrawing consent, under-18 protections
What the fee covers, the free consultation model, Medicare position
Who is legally allowed to perform
cosmetic procedures in Australia
7 questions
No. Beauty therapists, aestheticians, dermal therapists and unregistered individuals cannot legally administer prescription cosmetic medicines in Australia. This is not a grey area or a matter of clinic policy. The substances used in these procedures are Schedule 4 prescription medicines, and only specific categories of Ahpra-registered health practitioner may administer them. If the person offering to treat you is not Ahpra-registered, the procedure is illegal regardless of what training certificate they hold or how experienced they claim to be. The practitioner categories legally permitted are medical practitioners, dentists, nurse practitioners, and registered nurses working within the requirements set out in the September 2025 AHPRA guidelines.
Registered nurses performing non-surgical cosmetic procedures must now meet a minimum of 12 months general clinical experience plus cosmetic-specific training. This requirement commenced 2 September 2025. Before that date, a registered nurse could move into cosmetic practice with minimal general nursing experience, which was one of the specific problems the guidelines were written to address. The guidelines also closed a regulatory gap: previously only doctors had clear cosmetic practice guidelines, while nurses and midwives were guided by a position statement rather than binding requirements.
Yes. A real-time consultation with the prescribing practitioner is mandatory before any cosmetic prescription can be issued. This requirement commenced 2 September 2025 and cannot be satisfied by an online questionnaire, an intake form, or a remote sign-off. The rule exists because questionnaire-only prescribing and extremely brief telehealth consultations, including documented cases of 52-second consultations, were widespread before the guidelines took effect. At this practice, Dr Hawli conducts the consultation and Dr Hawli performs the procedure.
Not necessarily, and this is worth asking at any clinic. The guidelines permit a prescriber to prescribe and a different authorised practitioner to administer, provided the prescriber has confirmed the administering practitioner is legally authorised, appropriately qualified, skilled and experienced. What it means practically: you should know who will actually perform your procedure, and you should be able to verify their registration independently. Ask directly. At this practice, Dr Hawli conducts both the assessment and the procedure personally.
Contact the local council or the relevant state or territory government for the area the clinic is located in. Licensing requirements exist for premises where these cosmetic procedures are performed, and the licensing authority can confirm whether a specific premises is licensed. This matters because illegal procedures are documented as occurring in beauty clinics, residential homes, hotel rooms and, in reported cases, airport locations.
Ask specifically: what is your protocol if a serious complication occurs, and who manages it. A practitioner who can answer this clearly and without hesitation has thought about it and prepared for it. A practitioner who cannot, or who deflects, has not. The follow-up question worth asking is what happens if the practitioner who performed your procedure is not available when a complication develops. Under the September 2025 guidelines, formal alternative arrangements for post-procedure care must be made in advance, documented, and made known to you.
Yes, and you should. The Ahpra Register of Practitioners is public and free to search at ahpra.gov.au. Enter the practitioner’s name or registration number to see current registration status, the profession and division they are registered in, any conditions on their registration, and any published disciplinary findings. A practitioner who hesitates to provide their registration details has answered the more important question. Dr Hawli’s registration is MED0002627622.
Why Australian clinics
cannot tell you certain things
5 questions
Australian law prohibits the advertising of prescription medicine brand names to the public, which means clinics cannot publish or advertise the specific products they use. This is a legal restriction on the clinic, not evasiveness. The important part: you can ask directly at consultation, and you should. The restriction is on advertising, not on informing a patient during a clinical consultation. Ask what product will be used, what it is, how it works, how long it lasts, and why it has been selected for your case. You are entitled to that information before consenting.
Under the September 2025 AHPRA advertising guidelines, showing prices for higher-risk non-surgical cosmetic procedures is a breach. Price-based advertising, discounts, package deals and financial inducements for these procedures are prohibited because they encourage decisions based on cost rather than clinical appropriateness. You will be told the cost. It is provided when you book a consultation, and the full cost of any proposed procedure is discussed openly and in writing at consultation before any consent.
Publishing before and after imagery for higher-risk non-surgical cosmetic procedures falls within the September 2025 advertising restrictions. The reasoning is that such images are inherently selective, cannot represent typical outcomes, and encourage unrealistic expectations. This has a practical consequence worth knowing: a clinic still publishing extensive galleries for these procedures after September 2025 may not be operating within the current advertising rules, which raises a broader question about their compliance generally.
Testimonials about clinical aspects of regulated health services are restricted in Australian advertising law, and the September 2025 guidelines specifically address influencer and testimonial content for higher-risk cosmetic procedures. Publishing patient testimonials about outcomes is a breach. Compliance industry sources note that the majority of advertising breaches in this sector are posted by marketing staff rather than clinicians. TGA infringement notices against a single body corporate have totalled over one hundred thousand dollars.
Compare on the things the rules do not restrict: practitioner registration and qualifications, who will actually perform your procedure, consultation structure and duration, whether the practitioner discusses the option of not proceeding, complication protocols, aftercare arrangements, and whether the practice will answer direct questions clearly. These are better comparison criteria than a price list or a photo gallery in any case. A gallery shows selected outcomes. A practitioner’s willingness to tell you when a procedure is not appropriate for you tells you considerably more.
What is normal after a procedure,
and what is not
6 questions
Swelling typically peaks within 24 to 72 hours of a procedure and then reduces progressively. For most non-surgical procedures, the substantial majority of swelling resolves within the first week, with complete settling taking up to two weeks depending on the procedure and the area treated. The important principle is direction, not amount. Swelling that is improving day by day, even slowly, is following a normal pattern. Swelling that is worsening after initially improving is not, and should be assessed.
Yes, in the first several days. Uneven swelling is common and expected, because the body’s inflammatory response rarely behaves identically on both sides of the face. Sleeping position, habitual muscle use, local tissue differences and pre-existing facial asymmetry all affect how much each side swells. Most early asymmetry from differential swelling resolves within 7 to 14 days. The assessment principle is the same: it should be improving, not worsening. Asymmetry that appears or worsens after the initial swelling has settled is a different situation and warrants assessment.
Wait until swelling has fully settled before judging the outcome, which for most non-surgical procedures means a minimum of two weeks, and often four. Judging the result at day three or day seven means judging swelling, not the actual outcome. This matters because premature touch-ups are a real problem. Adding more before the true result has expressed itself commonly produces overtreatment, which is harder to correct than undertreatment. A practitioner who declines to touch up at day five and asks you to return at week four is exercising good judgment.
Normal healing improves progressively and is broadly symmetric. A complication typically involves one or more of the following: swelling that worsens after initially improving, disproportionate pain, spreading redness with warmth, discharge, fever, sudden asymmetry appearing after initial settling, skin colour change, or any vision change. The single most useful distinction is the direction of change over time. Getting better, even slowly, is reassuring. Getting worse after a period of improvement is the pattern that warrants prompt assessment.
Dissatisfaction with an outcome is a separate matter from a medical complication, and it is handled differently. The first step is a follow-up appointment with the treating practitioner once the result has fully settled, so the actual outcome can be assessed rather than the healing process. Options are typically: allow more time where the result is still developing, a conservative adjustment where clinically appropriate, reversal or correction where possible for the specific approach used, or accepting that the realistic limit has been reached. If the practitioner refuses to see you, refuses to discuss the outcome, or becomes dismissive or hostile, that is a separate and more serious problem.
Serious complications from non-surgical cosmetic procedures are uncommon, with practitioner education sources placing true complications at fewer than one in one hundred cases for common procedures. Uncommon is not the same as zero, and the small proportion who experience them need to be recognised and managed promptly. This is why the emergency thresholds matter more than the statistics. A one per cent event recognised early and managed correctly has a very different outcome from the same event ignored for two days.
Unlicensed practice, overseas products
and online purchases
4 questions
No. The substances used in these cosmetic procedures are Schedule 4 prescription medicines in Australia and can only be legally accessed with a valid prescription. Products purchased online, particularly from overseas sources, may be counterfeit, non-sterile, incorrectly labelled, or contain substances entirely different from what is claimed. The Cosmetic Physicians Society of Australasia has issued warnings about this specifically, including a documented case of a woman who suffered severe disfigurement after being treated by a friend using a product purchased online.
Cost is not the relevant comparison. What matters is practitioner qualification standards in that jurisdiction, product regulation and supply chain integrity, sterility and infection control standards, what happens if a complication develops after you fly home, and whether any Australian practitioner will take on management of a complication from a procedure they did not perform and cannot get records for. The specific practical problem is continuity of care.
Treat a price well below market as information about the procedure, not a bargain. Prescription cosmetic products have a genuine wholesale cost that does not vary much between clinics. A price substantially below market generally means one or more of: diluted product, product not approved for use in Australia, a practitioner working below the required qualification level, or a practice cutting costs on clinical infrastructure such as sterility, emergency preparedness, or indemnity cover. None of those savings are passed to you as a benefit. They are passed to you as risk.
Report unregistered practice to Ahpra at ahpra.gov.au or 1300 419 495, and report illegal product supply or use to the TGA at tga.gov.au. For state-level health service concerns in Victoria, the Health Complaints Commissioner is at hcc.vic.gov.au or 1300 582 113. Reporting does not require your own case to have gone wrong. Reporting a practice you believe is operating unsafely is a public safety action, and both bodies accept reports from members of the public.
Aftercare, follow-up
and touch-ups
5 questions
Yes. Written aftercare instructions and advice on what follow-up will be provided are a requirement, not a courtesy. They should tell you what to expect, what to avoid, over what period, what warning signs to watch for, and exactly what to do and who to contact if you experience an unexpected effect. If you leave a cosmetic procedure with no written aftercare information, that is a documentation failure and a patient safety gap. Ask for it before you leave.
Formal alternative arrangements must be in place in advance, documented, and made known to you. Under the September 2025 guidelines, where the practitioner who performed the procedure or the authorised prescriber is not personally available for post-procedure care, they must have arranged for another suitably qualified registered health practitioner to provide it. This is worth asking before you book, not after a complication develops.
At this practice, where a follow-up appointment is part of an agreed procedure plan, it is included in the procedure cost. Additional appointments beyond that plan are charged separately. This is confirmed in writing at consultation as part of the discussion before consent. Ask any clinic this question specifically: whether follow-up is included, how many appointments, over what period, and what happens if you need more than the included number.
After the result has fully settled, which usually means at least two to four weeks depending on the procedure. A touch-up assessed too early is assessed against swelling rather than the actual outcome, and adding more at that point is how overtreatment happens. A practitioner who schedules a review at the appropriate interval and assesses the settled result before deciding anything is working correctly. A clinic that offers immediate same-week touch-ups without assessment is prioritising responsiveness over judgment.
For most procedures, a single review after the result has settled is worthwhile even where there is no problem. It confirms the outcome objectively, establishes a documented baseline for any future treatment, and creates the opportunity to adjust the plan for next time based on how you actually responded. Where a procedure has gone entirely as expected and you are satisfied, no ongoing schedule of appointments is necessary. A practice that requires a continuing appointment schedule without clinical reason is generating appointments, not managing care.
Making
the decision
6 questions
Being aware of the influence is the useful part. Practitioners report that regret is more common among younger patients, and specifically among patients whose decision was driven by something they saw on social media rather than by a concern they had independently identified in themselves. The practical test: would this still concern you if you had never seen it discussed online? If a concern predates your exposure to content about it, it is your concern. If it appeared only after repeated exposure to content about that specific feature, the useful next step is time rather than treatment.
Ask what the realistic limit of the proposed approach is, and what it cannot achieve. Most consultation discussions cover what a procedure can do. The more informative answer is what it cannot do, because that is where the gap between expectation and outcome is created. The second most useful question is what the practitioner would recommend against, and why. A practitioner who has clear views about what would not suit you has actually assessed you.
Yes, and it is sensible for anything significant. A second opinion is standard practice in medicine and cosmetic medicine is not an exception. Different practitioners assess differently, recommend differently, and are honest to different degrees about limits. A clinic that reacts negatively to you seeking another opinion has told you something useful about how they operate.
Contact the practice and let them know. You retain the right to decline up to the procedure beginning, without needing to justify the decision. Booking is not a commitment you cannot reverse.
Age is one factor in assessment, not a threshold. For patients under 18, additional mandatory protections apply, the assessment threshold is higher, and the recommendation not to proceed is more frequent. For older patients, the relevant questions are what is realistically achievable given the current tissue condition and what approaches are appropriate for it. The more useful framing than age is appropriateness: whether the specific proposed approach is likely to address the specific concern, given your specific anatomy, at your specific stage.
Some concerns fall within normal anatomical variation and do not warrant intervention. A properly conducted assessment will tell you that where it applies, rather than proposing a procedure for a concern that does not require one. The honest answer at consultation is sometimes that the concern you have identified is within normal range, is not noticeable to others in the way it is to you, and does not require treatment. That answer is more useful than a treatment plan.
Direction of change,
not amount
Improving, even slowly, is reassuring. Swelling that reduces day by day, asymmetry that evens out over a week, sensitivity that fades. All normal patterns.
Worsening after a period of improvement is the pattern that matters. Swelling that increases after settling, asymmetry that appears once initial swelling has gone, pain that escalates rather than fades. That is when assessment is needed promptly.
This single heuristic is more practically useful at day five than any list of symptoms. For the specific urgent-care thresholds, see Risks and Safety.
Cosmetic practice
in Glenroy, Melbourne
Level 1, 10 Glenroy Road, Glenroy VIC 3046. Close to Glenroy Station on the Craigieburn line and the Pascoe Vale Road corridor.
Consulting hours: Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, 10:00 to 17:00.
Registered medical practitioner, Ahpra registration MED0002627622. Level 1 Certification, American Academy of Aesthetic Medicine.
Last reviewed: [insert month year] · Next review due: [insert month year]
Ask the questions.
This page provides general information and does not constitute individual medical advice. Any cosmetic medical procedure carries risks. Individual outcomes vary and not all people are suitable candidates. Regulatory requirements described reflect the AHPRA guidelines for non-surgical cosmetic procedures effective 2 September 2025 and may be subject to change. Surgery is not performed at this practice. Any decision to proceed follows an individual consultation and assessment with a registered medical practitioner. If you are experiencing an urgent adverse effect, seek immediate medical attention at the nearest emergency department or call 000.