The Aster Acne Program
Acne care with a schedule, not a shelf
A structured 12-week medical treatment cycle — assessed, prescribed, and adjusted on a schedule, so treatment actually gets somewhere instead of restarting every few months.
Why acne treatment fails, usually
Not because the medicines are weak — because the process is. Skin takes 8–12 weeks to answer any treatment, and most people quit, switch, or add products at week 3. The program exists to hold the plan steady long enough to read the result, then change it on evidence.
- Most acne plans need 8–12 weeks before skin shows its answer — we schedule around that biology instead of pretending it away.
- Scarring is easier to prevent than to fix. Active scarring moves treatment up a tier immediately.
- Isotretinoin, when appropriate, is a monitored program with monthly check-ins and labs — we run it fully in-house.
- Teens are welcome; a parent or guardian joins the first visit.
The cycle
Three visits, twelve weeks
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Week 0
Assessment visit
Grading (type, severity, scarring risk), history including everything you have already tried, and a written starting plan — usually two or three steps, not eleven.
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Week 6
Adjustment visit
Skin re-graded against Week 0 photos. Working parts stay; anything stalled gets changed. This is the visit most drugstore journeys never get.
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Week 12
Outcomes visit
Compare against baseline honestly. Most patients see meaningful clearing by now; if you are the exception, this is where we discuss the next tier — hormonal therapy or isotretinoin — with real information.
Pricing, plainly: Program visits bill as ordinary medical appointments — covered by the plans we accept, or $115–$185 self-pay per visit. There is no program fee, and no products you are required to buy.
What treatment can include
Three tiers, climbed on evidence
Nobody starts at the top, and nobody is left at the bottom out of habit. Active scarring moves treatment up a tier immediately — scars are the one thing on this page that is easier to prevent than to fix.
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Topical & routine tier
Who: Most mild-to-moderate acne starts here.
Prescription-strength retinoids and anti-inflammatories in a two-or-three-step routine, with the drugstore products worth keeping named specifically.
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Oral tier
Who: Moderate acne, or topicals alone stalling at week 6.
Time-limited antibiotic courses, and for many adult women hormonal therapy (spironolactone or the right contraceptive pill) — often the step that finally works.
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Isotretinoin tier
Who: Severe, cystic, or scarring acne — or anything that has beaten the first two tiers.
The monitored program: monthly visits, required labs and pregnancy prevention where applicable, honest side-effect counseling. Run fully in-house, and for the right patient it is life-changing.
Run day-to-day by Dev Raman, PA-C
Dev runs the day-to-day of the Aster Acne Program and sees follow-ups, rashes, and routine medical visits — always with one of the physicians in clinic and a low threshold for pulling them into the room. Patients describe him as the person who finally explained their prescription. Isotretinoin candidates and anything unusual are seen jointly with one of the physicians — that handoff is built into the program, not an exception to it.
Appointments
Week 0 is one booking away.
Acne visits are ordinary medical appointments — covered by the plans we accept, or $115–$185 self-pay, with no program fee. Teens welcome; a parent joins the first visit.