Understanding How Plastic Surgery Ads Can be Ethical

Plastic surgery can seem to promise all sorts of solutions to people's unhappiness with how they physically look. Much of this perception has to do with how the medical service is marketed, both in medical information as well as advertisement.

Most doctors and medical firms are keenly aware that they can't offer physical perfection in their services. However, there is a vast and broad area of room between not advertising at all and where the law says a plastic surgery business can't go with marketing. Because of this fact, many people believe that better looks can be automatically had as long as the right price is paid in cash. This isn't always the case. There have been numerous cases where a plastic surgery has gone wrong, causing disfigurement or scarring.

Most states regulate their own medical practices through a consumer affairs agency and medical doctor licensing. As a result, state laws will vary from location to location, depending how the given state legislature decided to define the related rules. That said, there are certain aspects almost all states follow consistently. These include:

• Medical services in plastic surgery cannot guarantee perfection in procedures offered. They have to inform consumers of the various risks involved before a procedure is performed.
• Youth and teens under the age of 18 years must have parental consent before any kind of treatment or procedure is performed.
• Many states require a specific time period or "cooling off" after a surgery is committed to and before the procedure actually occurs to allow a consumer a chance to change her mind.

Further, industry standards are laid out by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons for ethical marketing as well. In these industry recommendations, members and surgeons should:

• Avoid being deceptive or misleading in advertisement information provided.
• Only advertise products and services that are accepted in the legal practice of medicine and plastic surgery.
• All relevant FDA information should be provided in the advertisement when marketing a plastic surgery product.
• Specify that the image or information is an advertisement so there is no confusion by a reader as to the purpose of the material.
• All statistics and scientific information must be based on actual scientific reports and not made up assumptions.

While plastic surgeons and medical firms are free to tailor their marketing to their needs in an open business market, sticking to ethical parameters services everyone well by advertising viable services and avoiding any kind of miscommunication that could lead to a mistake.

If you're a past or current customer of a plastic surgery procedure with issues and need legal advice on the matter or just have questions on the legality of medical information provided to you, contact a long term disability lawyer. If you are a salesperson looking for help with lead management software, visit Inside Sales.