If you scroll the “Beauty” section of the Groupon app, you will see deals seemingly too good to be true—Botox, Brazilian butt lifts, Breast augmentations, liposuction, procedures galore for as much as 90% off. Recently, a news team dug into cosmetic surgery deals, uncovering the fraud and malpractices that fuel Groupon’s deep discounts.
Safety should be the first component of plastic surgery, performed with ethical efficacy and high medical standards. Doctors should be competent and skilled because surgical mistakes happen and can cause death and injuries and can cost patients their emotional wellbeing and additional money in fixing damages. The Philadelphia plastic surgery attorneys at The Weitz Firm, LLC can fight to protect you.
In 2018, 6 ABC and their action news team investigated the ugly side of cheap cosmetic procedures. They researched over two dozen area doctors who had provided Groupon deep discounts for various plastic surgeries.
They found about 25% of these discounted doctors had been disciplined or charged by their respective state medical boards within the last decade. Multiple doctors had been disciplined for watering down Botox. Other doctors had prescribed improper drugs, and a chiropractor had served time for health care fraud.
One of the worst offenders on Groupon was Dr. Ayman Shahine. He worked under the banner of Perfect Curves Laser Lipo Center in Havertown, Pennsylvania before opening another practice in Delaware County.
The New York Board for Professional Medical Conduct filed many charges against him including:
He was also accused of:
Dr. Shahine denies the allegations and claims he has been “doing cosmetic surgery for the past 12 years,” and his “license is clean.”
One of his patients, Connie Zuniga claims she went to Shahine for a tummy tuck back in 2014, but he upsold her on a Brazilian butt lift which cost $10,000. Zuniga states the procedure was incredibly painful and Shahine kept saying “whoops, oh whoops.”
The surgery was botched, and Zuniga was later featured on the reality show, “Botched,” where Dr. Terry Dubrow tried to correct Shahine’s mistakes.
Qualified medical experts claim the problems stem from doctors specializing in different fields who have begun to perform cosmetic procedures with little training and oversight to make absorbent amounts of money.
In the United States, plastic surgery is a $10 billion a year industry, but so many patients do not account for the potential risks involved with cosmetic surgery. Each year, medical experts estimate more than 4,000 preventable mistakes occur during surgeries. These numbers are assumed by the same experts to be vastly underreported.
If doctors are negligent, they should be held accountable for their actions. You can count on the Philadelphia medical malpractice attorneys at The Weitz Firm, LLC to provide you with skilled representation to make sure you get the compensation you deserve.
Contact us for a free consultation of your case by clicking here or calling 267-587-6240.
