Dermatology marketing for medical and cosmetic practices
A rash referral and a filler consult are different patients with different budgets. We market them separately, so the cosmetic book grows without the medical schedule paying for it.
Most dermatology practices are two businesses sharing a front desk. The medical side is insurance-driven, often waitlisted, and fed by primary care referrals and patients searching for the nearest dermatologist who takes their plan. The cosmetic side is cash-pay, competes with every med spa in town, and lives or dies on photos, pricing questions and how quickly a consult gets booked.
Lumping them together is where the money goes missing. A practice with a six week wait for new medical patients does not need more acne leads from paid search. It needs the cosmetic calendar full, the open medical slots filled with the visits the providers want, and reporting that shows which side each dollar went to.
This page covers how dermatology patients choose a practice, where dermatology marketing usually breaks, and the seven systems we build for medical and cosmetic practices, with examples you can use whether or not you hire us.
Who we work with
Medical dermatology practices
Insurance-based, often booked weeks out for new patients, fed by referrals and "dermatologist near me" searches. The priority is filling the providers and locations that do have openings, and growing the cash-pay services alongside the medical schedule.
Medical and cosmetic practices
General and procedural dermatology running alongside injectables, lasers and skincare. The priority is two funnels, two intake paths and reporting that shows what each side costs and earns.
Multi-location and PE-backed groups
Groups built by acquisition, with providers, listings and brands that never got consolidated. The priority is provider-level pages and profiles across every office, one reporting view, and a repeatable launch for each new location.
How patients are looking for you
673Ksearches for "dermatologist near me"
Average monthly US Google searches, September 2025 to August 2026. Source: DataForSEO.
How dermatology patients choose a practice
Dermatology has two kinds of patient with almost nothing in common at the moment of search. A medical patient wants someone in network who can see her soon, and she often compares wait times more than credentials. A cosmetic patient is shopping: price, provider, photos, reviews, and whether a dermatology practice is worth more to her than the med spa down the road.
Provider choice matters on both sides. Most practices see patients with a mix of MDs, PAs and NPs, and patients increasingly search for and book with an individual. A patient who can see each provider's training, focus areas and next opening books faster than one who has to call to find out.
Timing matters too. Skin check interest rises with awareness campaigns and the start of summer, cosmetic interest rises before holidays and events, and a practice with open slots in those windows should be in front of those searches.
How patients search versus how practices write
The patient searches
The practice website says
mole that changed shape
Lesion evaluation
full body skin check near me
Total body skin examination
dermatologist that takes Aetna
We accept most major insurance plans
acne scars treatment
Fractional resurfacing
red face that will not go away
Rosacea management
online dermatologist
Teledermatology
Primary care referrals and the medical side
Medical dermatology still runs heavily on referrals from primary care, urgent care and other specialists. Referring offices care about how fast their patients are seen, whether a note comes back, and how much work the referral takes. A practice that makes referring easy and reports back reliably gets more of the referrals it wants.
Marketing to referrers is relationship work: a referral page with fax and portal details, a direct line for referring offices, a fast path for lesions the referring provider is worried about, and regular visits from a liaison. It can also steer referrals toward the providers and locations with capacity.
Where dermatology marketing usually breaks
One funnel for two kinds of patient
The same ads, landing pages and phone script handle a mole check and a laser package. Cosmetic patients who want prices and galleries hit an insurance form, and medical patients get sold to.
Paying for demand you cannot serve
When new medical patients already wait weeks, ads that drive more general dermatology calls add hold time and frustrated reviews. Spend belongs on the services and providers with open slots.
Losing cosmetic patients to med spas
Cosmetic patients compare a dermatology practice to med spas on price, convenience and Instagram. A practice that keeps its training and medical oversight invisible ends up competing on price, the one fight it is least built to win.
PAs and NPs nobody can find
Practices add PAs and NPs to expand access, then list them only on an About page. Patients never learn they could be seen sooner, and those schedules fill slower than they should.
Cosmetic ads that trip platform rules
Meta rejects ads that imply the viewer has a skin condition, and before and after creative gets extra scrutiny everywhere. Practices that learn this from disapprovals lose weeks of a launch.
1 Split the practice into the funnels it actually runs
Before any campaign, separate the business by funnel and by capacity. General medical dermatology, procedural work such as Mohs where the practice offers it, cosmetic injectables and lasers, and cash-pay services like self-pay skin checks or teledermatology each have different patients, different economics and different wait times.
Then decide where marketing pushes. If general medical is waitlisted, spend goes to the providers, locations and services with open slots, and to the cosmetic and cash-pay lines the practice wants to grow. Cosmetic positioning leans on what a med spa cannot claim, dermatology training and medical oversight, stated plainly and without safety claims.
Map wait time and open capacity by provider, location and visit type
Point marketing only at services and providers with room to book
Set a separate budget and goal for cosmetic and for medical
Write cosmetic positioning around training and oversight, not around price
2 Give medical and cosmetic patients separate paths
The website should route patients on the first click. Medical visitors need insurance accepted, new patient wait times, referral instructions and booking by provider. Cosmetic visitors need treatment pages, pricing guidance, providers and a consult request. Sending both through one form and one phone tree frustrates both.
Every call and form should be tagged by side, so reporting shows what a cosmetic consult costs separately from a medical new patient. It also shows when cosmetic inquiries land on the general line and get booked as medical visits or not booked at all.
Separate navigation, landing pages and forms for medical and cosmetic
Online booking by provider, showing next availability
Call tracking per side, with cosmetic calls routed to someone who can quote
A teledermatology page with its own booking path, where the practice offers it
Example: provider profile outline
Name and credentials: MD, PA-C or NP
Training and areas of focus, medical and cosmetic
Locations and clinic days
Next available new patient appointment
Insurance accepted
Reviews that mention this provider
Book with this provider
3 Publish condition and treatment pages in the patient's words
Medical content should cover the conditions the practice treats, written for someone who has just noticed something and wants to know whether to book: when to see a dermatologist, what the visit involves, whether insurance usually covers it. A clinician reviews every page, and none of them promise outcomes.
Cosmetic content looks more like med spa content with more medical depth: treatment pages, cost pages, comparison pages and provider bios. Both sides benefit from short provider videos, which also give social channels something real to post.
Condition pages for the medical services the practice wants more of
Cosmetic treatment, cost and comparison pages
Skin check pages explaining what happens at the visit and how to book
Provider bios linked from every page for the services they perform
4 Make every provider and location visible on the map
For "dermatologist near me" the map pack decides a large share of new patient calls. Each office needs a complete profile with medical and cosmetic services listed, real photos and current hours. Individual practitioner profiles, where Google's guidelines allow them, help patients searching by name and give PAs and NPs visibility of their own.
Reviews that mention a provider by name help that provider's schedule fill. Replies must never confirm the reviewer is a patient or reference a condition. In dermatology that rule gets broken constantly, because the natural reply to a review about acne is to mention acne.
A complete profile per location, with both medical and cosmetic services listed
Practitioner profiles where guidelines allow, linked to provider pages
Review requests by text after each visit, naming the provider
Replies that never mention a condition, treatment or patient relationship
5 Answer cosmetic inquiries fast and fill medical gaps
Cosmetic inquiries behave like med spa inquiries. They come from social and search at all hours, and the practice that replies within five minutes with pricing guidance and a consult link gets the booking. Consults that did not book need a short sequence with the provider's name and an easy way back.
Medical follow-up is different: annual skin check reminders, recall for patients due back, and a cancellation list that offers earlier slots as they open. Medical patients who mention cosmetic interest at a visit should be flagged and followed up separately, with consent, not dropped into a general newsletter.
Automatic replies to cosmetic forms, calls and DMs, day or night
A cancellation list that texts patients when an earlier slot opens
Annual skin check reminders from the practice management system
A consent-based handoff when a medical patient asks about cosmetic services
Example: cancellation list text
Hi Tom, this is Lakeside Dermatology. An earlier new patient appointment opened on Thursday at 10:30 with Jordan Lee, PA-C. Reply YES to take it, or ignore this message to keep your current time.
6 Build referral relationships and provider reputations
Referring physicians remain the backbone of the medical side. Fast scheduling for referred patients, consult notes sent back promptly and a liaison who visits keep referrals coming, and they can steer referrals to providers with room.
On the cosmetic side, authority comes from the dermatologists being visible: local press commentary on skin health stories, talks for community groups and employers, and social content where providers explain treatments. Community skin check events build presence and local links at the same time.
A referral page and direct referral line for physician offices
Consult notes back to referring providers on a defined timeline
Community skin check events and employer partnerships
Provider commentary for local press during awareness months
7 Spend on open capacity and cash-pay services
Google Ads for dermatology should be built around what the practice can serve. Cosmetic treatments, cash-pay services and teledermatology each get their own campaign and landing page. General medical campaigns run only for locations and providers with openings, and pause when the waitlist grows.
Meta and Instagram suit the cosmetic side and seasonal skin check campaigns. Meta does not allow ads that assert or imply the viewer has a medical condition, so copy speaks to services and availability rather than the viewer's skin. Teledermatology campaigns target only states where the providers are licensed.
Separate campaigns for cosmetic, cash-pay, teledermatology and medical
Medical campaigns tied to open capacity by provider and location
Skin check campaigns scheduled ahead of summer
Teledermatology targeting limited to states where providers are licensed
Example: skin check ad
Skin Check Appointments This Month in Ridgewood
Book a full-body skin exam with our dermatology team. New patients welcome. Most insurance accepted, self-pay pricing available.
What we run for dermatology practices
Separate medical and cosmetic funnels
Distinct campaigns, landing pages and intake paths for each side, with insurance answers on one and pricing, galleries and consult booking on the other.
Local SEO and Google Business Profile
Condition and procedure pages, provider pages that rank for name searches, and listings managed per location.
Google and Meta ads
Search campaigns weighted toward cosmetic and cash-pay services, social creative written within Meta health policies, and budgets that follow open capacity.
Websites built to book
Online scheduling by provider, clear routing between medical and cosmetic, and tracking that tags every lead by side.
Reviews and reputation
Review requests after each visit, with replies that never confirm a patient relationship.
Cosmetic follow-up and recall
Sequences for consults that did not book, treatments due for a repeat visit, and skin check reminders.
HIPAA and advertising rules in dermatology marketing
Dermatology practices are covered entities, and the marketing risks are specific. Cosmetic gallery photos need written authorization, review replies cannot mention a condition, and tracking pixels on appointment and condition pages can send health information to ad platforms. We keep that data out of analytics and ads, use HIPAA-capable tools for forms and messaging, and sign a Business Associate Agreement where the work requires it.
Meta restricts ads that assert or imply a personal health condition and limits the health-related data advertisers can optimise on. Google restricts prescription drug terms in ad text, which affects cosmetic injectables. Teledermatology adds state licensing, so campaigns target only where providers can practise, and state boards set rules on testimonials and photos that campaigns are checked against.
What we measure
Clicks and impressions are inputs. These are the numbers we report on, by location and by channel, because they are the ones that show up in the practice's revenue.
Cost per booked visit, by side
Medical and cosmetic reported separately, by channel and location.
Open slots filled, by provider
Whether marketing is reaching the providers and locations that have room.
Cosmetic consult to treatment rate
Shows whether the cosmetic leak is in marketing or after the consult.
Cash-pay revenue from marketing
Cosmetic, self-pay and teledermatology revenue traced to source.
Referrals by referring office
Which relationships are growing and which have gone quiet.
Review volume by provider and location
The leading indicator for map visibility and provider bookings.
Working with us
Strategy call. Thirty minutes on your schedule, your channels and where new patients are leaking. You leave with the diagnosis whether or not we work together.
Audit and plan. We review your website, listings, reviews, ad accounts and follow-up, then propose a program built only from the systems you are missing.
Build. Foundation work first: tracking, pages, listings and follow-up, so the traffic we add later has somewhere to convert.
Run and report. A dedicated account manager, regular meetings and a live dashboard. Custom packages start at $2,500 a month, with discounts for multiple services, and you can pause or cancel anytime.
A good fit
Practices with cosmetic or cash-pay services they want to grow
Groups with providers or locations that have open capacity
Practices willing to separate medical and cosmetic at the front desk
Practices adding teledermatology, providers or locations
Probably not a fit
Practices booked months out on every service with no plan to add providers
Anyone who wants cosmetic ads that point at the viewer's skin
Practices that want more medical calls regardless of wait times
Questions dermatology practices ask us
Our medical schedule is already full. Why market at all?
Because full is not the same as the right mix. Marketing can shift the schedule toward the procedures and providers the practice wants busier, and grow the cosmetic book while medical runs on referrals.
Can you advertise cosmetic treatments on Instagram and Facebook?
Yes, within Meta rules. Ads cannot address the viewer as if they have a condition, and before and after images are limited. We write creative to those rules and lean on provider content, education and availability.
Do you compete with med spas for cosmetic patients?
Often, yes. A dermatology practice has a credibility story most med spas do not, and we build the cosmetic funnel around it. Positioning, pricing transparency and consult speed decide most of those patients.
Should we market our PAs and NPs?
Yes, usually first. They tend to have the open slots, and patients who want to be seen soon are glad to book with them once they can see their training and availability. Each gets a profile page and appears in booking.
Can you help us promote teledermatology?
Yes. It gets its own page, booking path and campaigns, targeted only to states where your providers are licensed, and positioned as a cash-pay or covered service depending on how you run it.
Do you work with private equity-backed dermatology groups?
Yes. Groups need consolidated listings, provider pages across every office, one reporting view and a repeatable launch for acquired locations. Each office keeps its own local presence.
Should we show cosmetic prices on the website?
Starting prices usually help. Cosmetic patients compare dermatology practices with med spas on price before they book, and a site with no numbers loses them before the consult.
Is your marketing HIPAA compliant?
We follow HIPAA-aware practices throughout, keep protected health information out of ad platforms and analytics, and will sign a Business Associate Agreement where the work requires one.
