A brand new breed of beauty surgical procedure chains, some backed by personal fairness traders, is competing for a slice of the nation’s rising body-contouring market. The chains promote an array of body-reshaping operations, akin to “Mommy Makeovers” and liposuction, focusing on clients prepared to pay as much as $20,000 out of pocket for a brand new determine.
A joint investigation by KFF Well being Information and NBC Information discovered that beauty surgical procedure chains have been the goal of scores of medical malpractice and negligence lawsuits alleging disfiguring accidents — together with 12 wrongful loss of life circumstances filed over the previous seven years.
Courtroom data present that injured sufferers have accused the chains of hiring docs with minimal beauty surgical procedure coaching, failing to acknowledge and deal with life-threatening infections and different harmful surgical issues, and utilizing high-pressure gross sales ways that minimized security dangers. The businesses have denied the allegations in court docket.
“These individuals promise to show you into the fairest individual within the land, and the dangers aren’t typically definitely worth the actuality,” stated Sean Domnick, a Florida legal professional who heads the American Affiliation for Justice, a trial attorneys’ group.
Robert Centeno, a medical director for Sono Bello, the biggest of the chains, disagrees. He stated the corporate’s mission is to “assist every one in all our sufferers stay their finest lives now.” Sono Bello affords “life-changing transformations” that improve an individual’s “look in addition to their high quality of life,” stated Centeno, a surgeon on the firm’s Troy, Michigan, workplace. Sono Bello boasts it’s “America’s high beauty surgical procedure specialist.”
Nonetheless, many established plastic surgeons fear that chain surgical procedure teams could also be inclined to spend extra effort on advertising and marketing and gross sales than on ensuring their docs are correctly credentialed and able to dealing with any issues that come up.
Medical practices owned by personal fairness or funding companies have more cash to spend on drawing in sufferers and “the power to function and supply high quality affected person care is now much less essential,” stated Mark Domanski, a plastic surgeon in Northern Virginia.
Erin Schaeffer, 37, spent per week in a Florida hospital battling a extreme an infection after having a kind of tummy tuck and liposuction on the Jacksonville department of Sono Bello.
Greater than a 12 months later, scars stay on her decrease physique. In a lawsuit, she is accusing Sono Bello of utilizing an obstetrician-gynecologist who was inadequately skilled to take away her extra pores and skin and fats, a process she says prompted excruciating ache. Sono Bello and the physician denied the allegations in a joint court docket submitting.
“I actually felt like I used to be skinned alive,” Schaeffer stated.
KFF Well being Information is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is likely one of the core working packages at KFF, an impartial supply for well being coverage analysis, polling, and journalism.
