1. It starts with your complaint, not a menu
The first useful question is some version of: what is it that bothers you, and when do you notice it. Not which treatment are you interested in.
The difference matters because the thing patients name and the thing that is actually causing it are frequently different. Somebody who arrives asking for filler in the nasolabial folds may have a volume problem higher in the cheek. Somebody asking for toxin for a tired appearance may have a sleep problem, a skin quality problem, or nothing wrong with them at all.
A practitioner who starts with your complaint can tell you when the treatment you asked for is the wrong one. A practitioner who starts with the menu cannot, because the question was never asked.
2. A real medical history
Current and past medical conditions. All medication, including anything bought without a prescription, supplements and anything obtained online. Allergies, including to fish where relevant products are being considered. Previous cosmetic treatment, what was used and when, including anything had abroad. Autoimmune conditions. Pregnancy and breastfeeding. Bleeding tendencies and anticoagulants. A history of cold sores if lips are being discussed. Recent or planned dental work, which matters more than most patients expect.
This takes several minutes and it is not a formality. A one line form ticked in reception is not a history, and the absence of one is the clearest sign that a treatment is being sold rather than provided.
3. Examination, in decent light, at rest and moving
You should be examined without makeup where relevant, in good light, sitting upright, and both at rest and in movement. Dynamic and static features behave differently and only one of them can be assessed with a still face.
Facial asymmetry is close to universal and most people are unaware of their own. A practitioner who points out pre existing asymmetry before treatment is protecting both of you, because asymmetry noticed afterwards is often attributed to the treatment that revealed it.
Photographs at rest, in consistent lighting, taken before anything is done, should be standard. Their use is covered in how to read before and after photographs.
4. An explanation of what is causing it
The most valuable minutes of a consultation are usually the ones where somebody explains why your face looks the way it does: which lines are movement lines, which are static, where volume has gone, what has descended, what is skin quality and what is structure.
That explanation is what allows you to evaluate the proposal that follows. Without it you are being asked to accept a recommendation on trust alone.
5. Options, including no treatment
You should hear more than one option, with the trade offs of each, and you should hear what happens if you do nothing.
You should also hear the option that this clinic does not provide. If the change you want is a surgical change, the right answer is to say so, and a practitioner who refers you away from their own treatment menu has just demonstrated something no gallery of results can.
6. A clear statement of what it cannot do
Every treatment on this site has a limit, and every one of them is routinely sold slightly past it. A careful practitioner states the limit unprompted: this will soften the movement but not remove the line; this will add support but will not tighten skin; this will improve the texture but will not lift anything.
If you leave a consultation without a single sentence about what the treatment will not achieve, you have not been consented properly, whatever you signed.
7. Risks, specifically and in proportion
Not a list of everything imaginable read at speed, and not a reassurance that complications never happen here. What you need is the common and expected, the uncommon and manageable, and the rare and serious, with the last group explained properly.
For filler that means vascular occlusion described plainly: what it is, what it feels like, what to do and who to call. See vascular occlusion. For anything involving a prescription only medicine it means being told who prescribed it and whether they assessed you, which is covered in who can prescribe.
8. A written plan, a price, and time
You should leave with, or shortly receive, a written record of what is proposed: product, quantity, sites, sessions, total cost, what is included afterwards and what a review costs.
And you should leave. Being treated in the same appointment as the first consultation removes the interval in which people change their minds, which is precisely why it is so common. Our page on consent and cooling off sets out why that interval matters.
9. The part that is not on a checklist
Did they listen. Did they ask why now. Did anything make them slow down. Were you comfortable saying you were unsure. Did the conversation ever include the sentence you do not need that.
Those are not soft factors. In a field where the main risk to most patients is gradual overtreatment rather than acute injury, a practitioner's willingness to decline work is the most protective quality available, and you can only assess it in the room.