Back Room Secrets

Last year, time and again, I was offered private phone numbers to a large number of "back rooms." It didn't take me very long to wonder why I was being invited into clandestine-like, albeit legal "meetings." It got so bad, I nearly had a complex every morning when I looked in the mirror.

All of this occurred in the course of planning a large health care event (one that failed, but that's another hub). I was very quick to notice, that these secret back rooms, were in virtually the majority of the the finest and most respectable physician offices. Finally, my curiosity and chagrin got the best of me, I had to ask one respected cardiologist, "What's the deal with the med spa in the back room?"

The doctor's answer was surprising, "I'm disillusioned and disenchanted with the current American medical system. Far too much red tape, too many hassles and expenses when it comes to both insurance and keeping an office running. I'm developing this business, so I can have more personal freedom and a more reliable income."

Stunned, I looked glanced down at my appointment calendar to check. Yes, I was in the right place. This physician is a well-known cardiologist, and has been in the same location for years. While I was aware of the fact that many doctors are finding governmental regulations and rising malpractice insurance so cumbersome, that they are leaving our state like stampeding cattle in a thunderstorm -- I couldn't comprehend the magnitude of what he was implying. I left that office with more questions than answers on the topic of back room med spas.

My next appointment was with a well-known urologist. His office manager insisted we were waiting on his wife to arrive for our meeting. Knowing that many doctor's wives are intrinsically involved in the day-to-day operations of their office -- I waited patiently for over an hour before I gave my presentation. When I was done, she gave her impromptu, but well rehearsed presentation about their back room beauty spa operation, while her husband saw a scheduled patient.

When he returned, I had to again ask the question-of-the-day, "What's the deal with the med spa in the back room?"

The urologist's response, was equally bewildering, "Women will gladly pay cash up front for these services. As a urologist, I can wait up to six months or more to get paid for services, especially from insurance companies, Medicaid, and Medicare. It takes fourteen staff to keep up with medical records, insurance claims, the phones, and collections. Then we have to deal with what portion of the bill isn't covered. People treat their owed medical bills like afterthoughts, sending in five dollars a month, when they owe thousands. I can't run an office on air."

Over the course of the next six months, I probably met with at least five hundred or more physicians and other medical professionals, all running side-line medi spas of one sort or another. As a baby-boomer, I came very close to becoming paranoid about my normally very self-confident physical appearance. Not since my teens had I checked the mirror so often.

Being closer to age sixty, than age fifty -- without exception, I was constantly being offered trial or freebie "treatments" in exchange for reduced rates or bartered services at the health fair I was promoting. Granted, I have the normal wrinkles and age spots of someone who partied a little too much with el sol -- so I had a hard time deciding if they were just promoting their businesses, or implying I needed serious help.

Moreover, in what seems like a lifetime ago, I was a legal liaison in a major teaching hospital. My job primarily focused on "fielding malpractice suits." That experience, married with the education and knowledge of having also been a health care lobbyist -- listening to the many "med spa treatment" sales pitches -- threw up some very red flags of concern about the safety of these cosmetic procedures. 

1. The ethical issue of running side businesses from medical facilities (as discussed above)
2. A largely unregulated industry with few safeguards (as discussed above)
3. Issues with Botox
4. Issues with common wrinkle treatments
5. Questions with numbing creams
6. Laser treatment problems
7. Mesotherapy issues

Here is a closer look at the rest of those concerns:

It is important for the general public to know that this is a largely unregulated industry in the throes of tremendous growth. In a youth fixated American culture, med spas are one of the hottest crazes in terms of start-up businesses.

We baby-boomers are the worst serial offenders in the early adoption of trying anything new, to hold onto what remains of our youth.

As a result, not only are medi spa back rooms showing up in physician and other medical related businesses, but also in beauty parlors, nail and tanning spas, and strip mall store fronts. Depending on what state you live in, there can be little or no regulation, either governmental or professional of these businesses.

While the results of these med spa treatments can be very pleasing, there are huge risks in complications. You need to make safe choices and educate yourself in assessing if such minor medical procedures are worth the risks.

We've all seen the scary celebrity pictures of those who have played Russian Roulette with Botox, but there are other risks involved with this and other similar drugs. There is a serious problem with untrained individuals and unapproved uses with Botox, currently going on in this country. Some of the complications from Botox are:

• Death
• Difficulty swallowing
• Difficulty breathing
• Drooping eyelids
• Flattened lower lip
• Speech impediment
• Serious disfigurement
• Botox travelling to other areas of the body

Additionally, only a physician with lots of experience and good credentials should be using Botox and other similar drugs should be administering this medical procedure. The side effects can get worse as more injections are given over time and it is absolutely not recommended for anyone under the age of forty.

We used to joke that one of our grandmother's had more wrinkles than a road map. However, the filling of the highways and byways of a wrinkled face is no laughing matter, nor are the procedures to be taken lightly. These days, most of these med spa procedures are many. Some of the more popular, and lasting, and generally safe ones are:

• CosmoDerm
• Juvederm Ultra
• Perlane
• Restylane
• Zyderm

They are more short term (lasting up to six months) than semi-permanent wrinkle treatments or fillers, which can last a couple of years. These long term wrinkle treatments have more side-effects, and may have some real concerns in terms of being "safe."

Laser treatments for treating sun damage, spider veins, and laser hair removal -- is nothing new and fairly common place in terms of med spa or beauty treatments. What you need to be concerned with are several things:

1. The age of the laser equipment being used-- Older laser treatment equipment will take lots of treatments (i.e. more money over the long term) to do the same job that the newer laser equipment does in just a few. Use of the wrong machine or the wrong setting can cause burns and scars.
2. Having laser treatments if you have dark skin or light hair - - Both are more like to have scars, loss of pigment, and dark spots. Always seek a patch test before trying any laser procedure.
3. Having age or sun spots removed -- It's simple, as nice as it is to have them removed or lightened, concealing these lesions is a relatively unknown high risk of also concealing melanoma. It could cost you your life! Always seek a dermatologist's expert opinion prior to undergoing a laser removal of such spots.

Popular use of numbing creams (often used in laser hair removal), have serious risks, among them:

• Death
• Irregular heartbeats
• Slowed breathing
• Coma
• Irritated skin

Note: They should never be used in conjunction with over-heating the treated portion of your skin, with wrapping in plastic wrap, or when exercising.

These injections are being touted as the newest minor medical procedures that are supposed to dissolve fat. In use in other countries, they have not yet been approved by the FDA. There may be considerable risk in having such procedures, due to potential warning of side effects, especially if being administered for the wrong reasons, or by the hands of an inexperienced non-professional.