The Butt Lift Boom
-
Shaved Costs, High Risk, Maximum Profits
Unlike ambulatory surgery centers and hospitals, where a patient might stay overnight for observation after treatment, office-based surgery centers offer procedures that don't typically require an inpatient stay and are regulated as an extension of a doctor's private practice.
But such surgical offices are often owned by corporations that can offer discount prices by contracting with surgeons who are incentivized to work on as many patients per day as possible, in as little time as possible, according to state regulators and physicians critical of the facilities.
Ruston said she now lives with constant pain, but for other patients a Brazilian butt lift cost them their lives. After a rash of deaths, and in the absence of national standards, Florida regulators were the first in the nation to enact rules in 2019 meant to make the procedures safer. More than three years later, data shows deaths still occur.
Patient advocates and some surgeons — including those who perform the procedure themselves — anticipate the problem will only get worse. Emergency restrictions imposed by the state's medical board in June expired in September, and the corporate business model popularized in Miami is spreading to other cities.
"We're seeing entities that have a strong footprint in low-cost, high-volume cosmetic surgery, based in South Florida, manifesting in other parts of the country," said Dr. Bob Basu, a vice president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and a practicing physician in Houston.
During a Brazilian butt lift, fat is taken via liposuction from other areas of the body — such as the torso, back, or thighs — and injected into the buttocks. More than 61,000 buttock augmentation procedures, both butt lifts and implants, were performed nationwide in 2021, a 37% increase from the previous year, according to data from the Aesthetic Society, a trade group of plastic surgeons. -
Shaved Costs, High Risk, Maximum Profits
Unlike ambulatory surgery centers and hospitals, where a patient might stay overnight for observation after treatment, office-based surgery centers offer procedures that don't typically require an inpatient stay and are regulated as an extension of a doctor's private practice.
But such surgical offices are often owned by corporations that can offer discount prices by contracting with surgeons who are incentivized to work on as many patients per day as possible, in as little time as possible, according to state regulators and physicians critical of the facilities.
Ruston said she now lives with constant pain, but for other patients a Brazilian butt lift cost them their lives. After a rash of deaths, and in the absence of national standards, Florida regulators were the first in the nation to enact rules in 2019 meant to make the procedures safer. More than three years later, data shows deaths still occur.
Patient advocates and some surgeons — including those who perform the procedure themselves — anticipate the problem will only get worse. Emergency restrictions imposed by the state's medical board in June expired in September, and the corporate business model popularized in Miami is spreading to other cities.
"We're seeing entities that have a strong footprint in low-cost, high-volume cosmetic surgery, based in South Florida, manifesting in other parts of the country," said Dr. Bob Basu, a vice president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and a practicing physician in Houston.
During a Brazilian butt lift, fat is taken via liposuction from other areas of the body — such as the torso, back, or thighs — and injected into the buttocks. More than 61,000 buttock augmentation procedures, both butt lifts and implants, were performed nationwide in 2021, a 37% increase from the previous year, according to data from the Aesthetic Society, a trade group of plastic surgeons.@George-K said in The Butt Lift Boom:
More than 61,000 buttock augmentation procedures, both butt lifts and implants, were performed nationwide in 2021, a 37% increase from the previous year, according to data from the Aesthetic Society, a trade group of plastic surgeons.
Amazing
Idiots