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'Medical spas' popping up without oversight
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PHILADELPHIA -- Over the last decade or so, thousands of "medical spas" have popped up around the country, enticing consumers with a name that suggests a surgeon's skill mixed with the pleasure of a massage.
Few states license or inspect them, and they rarely seek accreditation. Any place can call itself a medical spa. Anybody can operate one.
"There is a bit of a Wild West out there," said Leo McCafferty, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Pittsburgh who is president of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. Though providing a facial or chemical peel is fine, he said, for a more invasive procedure like liposuction, "I think the risks would increase exponentially if you are getting it in a place that is not following the tried-and-true guidelines that have been put in place for safe surgery."
Last month, one woman died and two others were hospitalized with dangerous infections after undergoing liposuction at King of Prussia-based Monarch Med Spa's location in Timonium, Md.; the state shut the facility down after raising questions about infection control. Pennsylvania and Delaware are investigating the chain's four other locations in their states, with at least one recent infection linked to a local site.
No one has been charged with wrongdoing in the investigations. But Monarch lists no accreditations by any of the national organizations that set standards and conduct inspections for ambulatory surgical facilities. And the "Board Certified Surgeons" touted on a website since taken down do not include the osteopathic physician who reportedly performed the procedures in Maryland.
The problems are not limited to Monarch -- or to liposuctions.
"About once every two to three weeks," said Kevin Cross, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Philadelphia, he deals with any of three scenarios:
One, an emergency department calls because a patient has shown up with an infection or other problem after a cosmetic procedure and "they don't know who the doctor is or the doctor is not reachable or doesn't have admitting privileges at the hospital or has disappeared. 'Can you help?' "
Two, "a patient shows up in my office and says, 'I went for this procedure, it was a little less expensive [than at a surgical facility], it was in my price range, I remember hearing board-certified something and I am now left with these scars, these impressions, these dimples, and when I call the office, nobody is willing to see me.' "
In the third scenario, Dr. Cross said, "the actual doctor calls and says he had problems. 'Will you help me fix it?' "
Spas have always been about wellness. Since the late 1990s, new technologies have allowed some medical procedures formerly done in hospitals and licensed surgical centers to find a home in a hybrid called a medi spa.
Among board-certified physicians working in accredited facilities, liposuction is among the most popular -- and safest -- of cosmetic surgical procedures. At medi spas, however, facials are the No. 1 treatment; liposuction did not make the top 10 in an industry survey, said Lynne McNees, president of the International Spa Association in Lexington, Ky.
Medi spas accounted for 8 percent of the 20,000 spas in the United States last year, according to the industry study commissioned by the spa association. The survey defined medi spas as places with a physician on site at all times.
Many marketing themselves as medi spas do not fit that definition, however, and would not have been counted.
As medi spas blossomed, medical groups have tried to set standards in areas they can control.
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons, for example, now requires its members to operate only in accredited surgical facilities.
Plastic surgeons undergo three to four years of general surgical training plus two or three more specializing in plastic surgery. Some general practitioners, dermatologists and gynecologists take weekend courses in cosmetic procedures and then perform them in medi spas, said Harlan Pollock, president of the American Association of Ambulatory Surgical Facilities.
"Liposuction is surgery. It is a relatively simple technique that doesn't typically have a problem -- unless there is a problem," said Dr. Pollock, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Dallas.
Pennsylvania -- where Monarch operates spas in Philadelphia, King of Prussia and Harrisburg -- doesn't require licenses for medi spas, said Holli Senior, a spokeswoman for the state Health Department.
With medi spas excluded from government regulation and generally not seeking accreditation from national organizations, experts say it is critical that customers realize the potential for harm and thoroughly research practitioner and place.
Medi spas "take all the things that human nature makes you afraid of, and they sort of turn it around: 'We'll do it in a spa, you don't need anesthesia, you don't need blood tests,' " said Alan Matarasso, a board-certified plastic surgeon in New York.
"You have to make choices here as if your life depended on it. Because it does."
First Published October 30, 2012 12:00 am
