how to choose a cosmetic surgeon

How to Prevent Botched Plastic Surgeries?

As the demand for plastic surgery services increases, the number of shady plastic surgeon services being offered to the public increases as well. Legitimate plastic surgeons are fighting this with proper marketing.

Plastic surgery is becoming increasingly popular despite all the stigma attached to it. In 2018, there were around 4 million cosmetic procedures done in the US alone! With this growing demand comes the increase of cosmetic surgery services offered to the public – this includes services coming from unlicensed surgical practitioners. While the authorities are doing what they can to control this, another way this can be fought is by providing legitimate practitioners with good plastic surgeon marketing strategies.

Plastic Surgeon Marketing vs. Botched Plastic Surgeries

A botched plastic surgery is one that doesn’t deliver the results that the client desired due to malpractice. It’s basically a bad surgery job that may not only look horrific, it opens up doors for complications as well. While this can happen by accident even when performed by a licensed surgeon, most of these cases occur at the hands of shady, unlicensed individuals.

Botched surgeries can result from a variety of mistakes but are commonly due to:

  • An anesthetic miscalculation.
  • Prescription or administration of the wrong medicine.
  • Nerve damage.
  • Insufficient aftercare.
  • Miscalculation of incision area and size.

A botched surgery victim can most definitely take the surgeon to court following a bad surgery. But even if the practitioners of these surgeries can be sued, the damage done to the client has been done and would take time and money to reverse – that is, if the procedure can be reversed. Licensed surgeons oftentimes refuse to accept correction jobs if they are overly complicated and risky to perform.

That said, it’s much better for all parties involved to prevent the surgery from happening in the first place. But why do they happen? Why do people choose to get cosmetic surgeries from shady and oftentimes unlicensed practitioners?

Misinformation or Lack of Information

Getting plastic surgery is a commitment that people really need to do their research on before actually getting it done. Unfortunately, due to this growing plastic surgery craze, this research phase is often overlooked.

When looking for a cosmetic surgeon, some people just do a quick Google search and go with whatever results they can find. Add the next factors discussed below, and the risks of someone landing an appointment with an unlicensed practitioner increases ten-fold.

plastic surgeon marketing

By skipping the research phase, those interested in getting plastic surgery miss to be fully informed about all the potential risks that the surgery may have on their bodies. They will not be aware of the standard procedures and safety precautions licensed surgeons take before, during, and after the surgery – they won’t be able to recognize or detect any red flags and malpractice done by an unlicensed practitioner until it is too late.

If the research phase is not skipped, people are faced with yet another problem: the lack of relevant information on the topic. Even if plastic surgery is all the rage now, it’s not easy to find informative articles that actually teach the public about the things they should expect when deciding to undergo plastic surgery.

Price Difference

Cosmetic surgery is not cheap, especially if done by an experienced practitioner with a good track record. Throw in a list of celebrity clients, and expect to pay double or even quadruple the average cost for the surgeries.

Services offered by inexperienced and unlicensed practitioners are often priced much less than the average cosmetic surgery cost, making people overlook the risks to save a pretty penny.

The average cost of the top 19 plastic surgery procedures is $6,300 with the most expensive procedures being body lifts and face lifts at an average of $15,000 and $12,000 respectively. These averages may seem very expensive but clients really get what they pay for: surgeon fees, material costs, anesthesia costs, aftercare, and overhead expenses.

Aggressive Advertising

One would think that bad or unlicensed cosmetic surgeons would keep things low key to keep the authorities away from their business. However, the opposite is true for most cases.

It’s been found that these practitioners are actually pretty aggressive with their advertising strategies to lure in more clients. They advertise all their successful surgeries and the low prices they offer people who want to achieve the same results. They make use of websites, social media pages, and sometimes even posters and newspaper ads!

Because their advertisements can be found practically anywhere, people get the wrong impression that these practitioners are the real deal.

Countering the Rise of Botched Surgeries

Licensed practitioners can counter the aggressive marketing methods of their unlicensed counterparts with their own aggressive plastic surgeon marketing strategies. Despite having a lot of factors operating in their favor, shady practitioners and their botched surgeries and malpractice are no match for SEO marketing and education. 

SEO Marketing for Licensed Practitioners

Getting SEO services to advertise their work would be a good investment for surgeons to not only promote their own businesses, it’d also help knock shady practitioners off of search engine results pages.

SEO allows the people in their area to find their businesses when they look up plastic surgery services on popular search engines. The better the SEO services they get, the better ranking they can achieve in these search engines and the more exposure they get for their businesses.

Allowing licensed practitioners to dominate search engine results move shady practitioners farther and farther from relevant search pages, giving them less exposure and consequently giving them less opportunities to hurt anyone with botched surgeries.

Education for the Public

One of the best ways to prevent more botched plastic surgeries from happening is to get people to stop skipping the research phase by actively educating the public about the risks involved with cosmetic surgery as well as the safety standards that surgeons must comply with.

Licensed practitioners can use education as a marketing tool as well. They can release informative articles about cosmetic surgery to educate potential clients. Paired with SEO services, they can get these articles to top search engine rankings, too. It’ll not only inform people about the malpractices of shady practitioners, it’ll also give more exposure and credibility to a licensed practitioner’s business.

Salman Zafar

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