Botox & The "Spock" Look

Botox + fillers that make your patients look like Vulcans?

The clinical and cosmetic uses of neurotoxins continue to grow. Botox, perhaps after aesthetician visits, are often the first procedure consumers consider. It is very common for patients to tell me that they have been considering Botox treatments for 3 to 5 years. We frequently see these patients pleased with there Botox treatments and then very interested in fillers, non-invasive body contouring, and often surgical procedures. However, what quickly interrupts this transition to other services is a result from neurotoxins that looks unnatural.

In our practice, we have increased patient retention and satisfaction after their initial Botox treatment by reviewing with them possible outcomes. Patients will often complain about a quizzical or "Spock" look after glabellar and sometimes forehead injections. I am still surprised that patients are not told of this and that there is a simple remedy. As most practioners know, 2-4 units additional neurotoxin at or just above the over arched area will soften the arch of the eyebrow.  A follow-up call/visit or just good instructions to the patient can turn a dissatisfied patient into a lifelong member and proponent of your practice.

Botox Training MD Special Offer

Botox Training MD has slashed their Botox training course membership for a limited time.

I'm not sure if this is just a temporary discount or a new pricing strategy but if you're in need of some botox or filler training this would be a great opportunity to snag all of this at a fantastic deal.

Check out what's included in this offer:

As A Botox Training MD Member You'll Have Access To Everything You Need To Know To Add High-Profit Botox & Dermal Filler Treatments To Your Practice:

• Hands-On Botox & Filler Training Videos: Learn how to perform all common Botox and dermal filler treatments with 11 detailed video overviews and demonstrations; Brow lifting, crows feet, gummy smile, smile lift, lower face treatments and more!
• Comprehensive Training & Resource Guides: Illustrated PDF treatment guides showing exactly how each treatment is performed and how it can be modified for the best results. Resource Guides show you where to find the best deals on products and services to grow your cosmetic practice, from legal services to marketing resources.
• Insider Secrets From Experts: 5 interviews with physician experts that are already raking in cash that give you insider info on exactly what works; marketing, consultations, up-selling, pricing and more! Our experts spill the beans on everything from perfecting your consultation, to training your staff, to exactly how to prevent unhappy patients. These interviews give you access to information you can't get ANYWHERE else and are easily worth the membership all by themselves.
• 5 Special Bonus Products: Q&A sessions, patient marketing tips, consent forms, before and after pictures for your use, and the special Ultimate Botox Guide, a 35 page patient marketing eBook to distribute to your existing or prospective clients to position yourself as the expert in your market!

• FREE Botox Marketing Mini-Course: Just ask to be notified above (you don't have to by anything) and we'll send you a free mini-course on marketing your new cosmetic services! You'll find out how to set up your legal structure, where to outsource and where to do-it-yourself, and how to train your staff. It's completely free and without any obligation!

See the training course here: Botox Training MD

Managing Patient Expectations Part 2 - Botox Training MD

Read Managing Patient Expectations Part 1

Managing patient expectations is a learned skill but one that you have to master in order to run a competitive and profitable cosmetic practice.

Be aware of is patients who are complaining about previous providers. It's a potential indicator that this client might be a difficult client to deal with.

Clearly if someone is continually bashing another doctor (provided that the didn't do something that caused obvious harm) and they're angry with that doctors and his staff, that's going to put me on guard.

Now, there are situations where a patient's anger is appropriate.

I have a patient right now, that for years, went to another provider, and when she came to me and told me that she's switching providers, I did become a little alarmed right out of the bat. But once I got to know her my misgivings were removed. She had been going to this other physician for years and years and years, and she was upset with him because of the treatment she received for the previous several injections... but she attributed it to the front desk since the clinic had became very busy and impersonal. So I think you have to look at each patient individually. She was legitimate with her complaint and we have a great relationship but there are others.. If a patient is very, very angry, and constantly bashing a former provider and complaining about results you need to be aware, because you could be the next one on their hit list.

I think it's important to take as much time as you can so that you're comfortable and the client's comfortable. To simply make a decision that you're not going to treat that patient and you are now wasting your time, sitting in that room with the patient is the bad approach because then the patient's gonna be angry.

As far as I know, I've never sent anybody out of the office angry because I declined the treatment.

I really make the decision very rapidly as to whether I'm going to treat them or not. I think with time you develop that. I know within the first minute or so if I'm going to treat or won't, but I spend the same amount of time sometimes for both of them - the person I'm going to treat versus the person I'm not going to treat -  because to make that person angry is not what I want to do for a number of obvious reasons.

Often, I can convert them into doing something else that's realistic or telling their friends that's I'm genuine person.  I listen to exactly what they want and I try to understand what they want to have done. Sometimes it's a very small,small correction they're asking for and I don't think I can alleviate it... a very tiny line that I can barely see. So I listen to them, I give them a mirror, I have them point it to me. I try to totally understand what they are pointing up. And most of the time, I can see what it is they want me to correct.

However, if I don't think I can correct it and I think that it's unrealistic, I don't tell them: "That's unrealistic", I explain to them the limitations of the product and the scientific discussion. This product is made for this procedure, not unfortunately for what you want to have done and what you want to have done, I'm unable to correct this in the way that you're asking for.

Some patien'ts don't accept that and will respond with..  "But you're a plastic surgeon or you're an aesthetic physician, this is what you do." So then you have to educate them more with, "Unfortunately we don't have all the tools available". (The 'no magic wand' defense.)

So, even if you've decided that you're not going to treat a specific patient, I think it's really important to spend time with them, see what they want you to do and have them leave happy.

Managing Patient Expectations Part 1 - Botox Training MD

Managing patient expectations are crucial to the success of any aesthetic practice.

If you are not 100 % on board with understanding and dealing with patient expectations, I believe it's going to be difficult to be successful with any aesthetic practice.

The way that I manage patient expectations starts from the initial correspondence with my clinic. My front desk staff typically will notify me if anything out of the ordinary is discussed on the phone at a new patient's consultation request. So, if for instance, they have a request that's perhaps out of the ordinary or they're perhaps not comfortable with the way the conversation went, they'll let me know so I'll have right off the bat, I'll have a little understanding that maybe it'll take a little bit more time with describing what can be done or perhaps the mode where I am not going to perform a procedure.

It's just as important and more difficult sometimes to actually refuse to perform a procedure than it is to do a procedure, have an unsatisfactory outcome, and recover from that. So I want to make that kind of clear again that if somebody presents to you that you do not feel comfortable treating, it may be more difficult to refuse that treatment than it is to actually deal with somebody who develops a complication or unsatisfactory result. However, interestingly enough, if you take the time to explain to a person why you don't feel you can't perform what they want, it can actually turn into a positive experience in the form of her/him recommending other patients to you. Or maybe that person selecting a different treatment that you offer. So, again, we start off right out of the bat, by making sure that our front desk is well aware that I need to be informed of anything out of the ordinary when a patient calls or comes in for the first time, not matter what it is.

There are two things I'm looking for. Out of the ordinary being number one, and number two would be behavior that is really not acceptable social behavior, like anger or overly demanding behavior. I like to know that too because if somebody is angry or demanding with the front desk in an unacceptable manner, then that is a clue that perhaps their behavior will be the same after I treat them.

If you're in this field long enough, you're going to hear some strange requests.

We get calls not too infrequently, once or twice a year from clients that are in the process of changing from a male to a female or a female to a male and they would like to have some, not only surgical procedures but some nonsurgical procedures like Botox or Dysport and a filler like Restylane or Juvederm. Typically, they are often required to have psychiatric evaluation before they undergo the actual transgender operation. So I've had a few instances where I had to contact their psychiatrist or actually put them in contact with a psychiatrist before treating them. So that's a little out of the ordinary.

And the other out of the ordinary are extremes of age. Teenagers calling for Restylane to augment their lips or Botox and knowing how to deal with that. And that would simply be... they have to be over 18. I mean you have to understand the..or appreciate the indications for Botox and it's right on the label.

Read: Managing Patient Expecations Part 2

About: Marc S Scheiner MD is a plastic surgeon who teaches Botox and filler injection technques to physicians and clinicians through Botox Training MD and his 14 credit CME two-day hand's on seminars.

New Skin Clinic & Laser Center Products

There are a number of new product launches for physicians, skin clinics and laser centers coming.

The first three or four of these will be launched over the next two weeks or so and include a webinar on how to protect and control your online reputation, a Botox training membership site that teaches physicians how to add cosmetic Botox and fillers to their existing clinical practice, some videos on social marketing and building relationships, a course in creating additional revenue for surgeons, and quite a few others. These are being launched in conjunction with other physicians and businesses to have information and expertise that are of value to our community.

You can find all of the current medspa products and services here.

We are also working on integrating a number of new technologies into our systems and providing greater conductivity for our membersand will be rolling out some new systems in the (hopefully) near future.

One of the principles that we founded this site (and Freelance MD) on is the idea that there are many physicians who have information that is of value but that is siloed and unavailable outside of the confines of a medical conference or seminar.

One of our goals is to take that information, specialized knowledge and skill set and to make it much more widely available to physicians who want and need it. We're doing this by building information products and membership sites that allow very specialized information a broad reach and benefit both the author and the consumer.

We will be announcing a number of these products in the next few weeks... and besides just building in the announcements of these new products, I'll be diving into great deal of detail about how we produce this content and how physicians can benefit from it. My hope is that you'll take a look and give this new system a chance.

PS: As a side note, if you're a physician or medical service provider that has some specialized knowledge that  would benefit from a wider physician audience please contact us and let's discuss if there is a way that we get that online.

The American Society of Aesthetic Medical Professionals

We're happy to announce a new partner for Medical Spa MD, the American Society of Aesthetic Medical Professionals.

The American Society of Aesthetic Medical Professionals was founded by plastic surgeon Dr. Marc Scheiner and runs a number of Botox and filler injection training seminars, generally in the North East. Their training courses are attended by physicians, dentists, nurses, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners who are interested in adding Botox and fillers to their practice. You can find their main site here and view their upcoming course dates and registration page.

Their training training courses take place over 2 days. The first day of training is dedicated to Botulinum Toxin injections and the second day to dermal fillers. You may choose to attend one or both days of the course.

Here's some info about the course from the ASAMP site:

The courses assume you have no experience in aesthetic medicine and are designed to educate you in the evaluation and treatment of facial ageing using Botulinum Toxin and dermal fillers. You will be trained to inject Botulinum Toxin and dermal fillers with an experienced plastic surgeon. Participants in the certification courses will inject actual undiluted Botulinum Toxin and Dermal Fillers. You will find that many training programs use diluted Botulinum Toxin or normal saline. We will maximize your learning experience by replicating an actual client encounter using the correct product and live models. This is a hands-on course and you will be required to inject the products using a model that you bring.

After participating in many different training seminars it has become apparent that the most effective way to teach cosmetic injections is to have the participants provide their own models. Previous experience teaching injection methods using volunteer models has been unsatisfactory as often the models only want 1 or 2 areas treated. This leaves the participant without hands-on training in all areas. Furthermore, it is beneficial to the injector to actually see the results of his/her treatments in the weeks following the treatments. With a volunteer model, the participant will likely never see them again. Finding a model to inject Botulinum Toxin and dermal fillers requires you to simply bring a spouse, friend, brother, sister, mother, employee, or any other willing participant.

At the completion of your Botulinum Toxin and Dermal Filler training you will have the tools, as well as the confidence, to begin injecting Botulinum Toxin and Dermal Fillers on the day you return to your practice. In addition, as mentioned above, your course fee includes 12 months of complimentary telephone and/or e-mail support. If at the conclusion of your training, you feel that you are not able to begin injecting Botulinum Toxin or Dermal Fillers, you can repeat the course at no cost**. As you can see, our goal is to not only give you the absolute highest level of training but to provide you with on-going support as you begin to grow your aesthetic practice

There's always been a tremendous interest in training courses on Medspa MD. We hope that the inclusion of ASAMP and Botox Training MD will bring a valued asset to the commuity.