With hundreds of doctors to choose from in Beverly Hills alone — and an onslaught of seemingly dramatic before and after images on social media — selecting the right professional for a cosmetic procedure can be overwhelming.
“There are people who don’t know where to begin and need help navigating the process along with those who may have made poor choices in the past they want to correct,” says Melinda Farina, founder of Beauty Brokers Inc., the leading global aesthetics consultancy for the past 25 years.
Based in New York, Farina was motivated to start her company after witnessing friends and colleagues wind up with inferior results. “So many people were getting botched and winding up on the cover of tabloids,” she says. “They were choosing the wrong surgeons for themselves, and I wanted to help provide a beautiful outcome.”
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Zoom consultations start at $450, with Farina or one of her 11 colleagues learning what the patient is interested in addressing, followed by reviewing doctor wish lists, providing background info on each doc and making suggestions. Given their trusted relationships with medical practices all over the world, Farina and her team are also able to help expedite appointments.
Julie Obst and Alana Ungvari, partners in LA Beauty Connect, provide a new, similar service specializing in L.A.-based doctors. “There are consultants for colleges, for summer camp, for seemingly everything, and given that choosing a surgeon is one of the most important decisions you can make, it makes sense to help clients cut through all the nonsense and overstimulation to create an easier, more compassionate and fact-filled journey for them,” says Obst (daughter-in-law of producer Lynda Obst).
With fees starting at $5,000, Obst and Ungvari curate the entire cosmetic surgery experience. “We take care of it all from beginning to end,” says Ungvari. This includes helping select a doctor, making hotel reservations and arranging private air travel for out-of-towners, advising on the parking and check-in process at the medical practice, and booking in-house chefs and nurses during recovery and post-op treatments like lymphatic drainage and hyperbaric oxygen chamber sessions. “It’s about the little details,” Ungvari adds. “Being organized and well planned on behalf of our clients makes a difference between a great recovery and a tough recovery.” And they are available to their clients for a couple of months after the surgery as well.
“Although most plastic surgeons provide internal surgical consultants to guide patients through the cosmetic enhancement journey, sometimes patients can hire ‘external’ beauty consultants or brokers to provide an additional layer of assistance in navigating through the surgeon curation process,” says Dr. Gabriel Chiu of Beverly Hills Plastic Surgery. “Working with an ‘external’ plastic surgery consultant generally involves collaborating with an outside professional who provides advice and guidance on various aspects of plastic surgery, particularly in matching the patient with the most appropriate surgeon or office. Whether a patient uses an ‘external’ or ‘internal’ consultant — or both — it is ultimately the plastic surgeon’s responsibility to discuss the patient’s goals and access surgical candidacy, evaluate potential procedures/techniques and their respective pros and cons with the patient, and to help the patient understand the risks/benefits/complications involved.”
What Beauty Brokers Inc. and LA Beauty Connect also provide is peace of mind thanks to their focus on natural-looking, high-quality outcomes and keeping abreast of each doctor’s work. “I’m always in the operating room and observing everything, from which type of sutures the doctors are using to focusing in on those technical nuances that translate into solid results,” says Farina. Both consultancies are always auditing and editing their list of recommended surgeons. And neither company accepts money from doctors. “The best way to retain integrity is to make it a patient-focused business,” says Farina. “I tell the surgeons, ‘You pay me with good results.’ ”
A version of this story first appeared in the August 14 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
