Some initial thoughts of mine on Belotero. These will change from time to time. Much of this is consider off-label-FDA usage.
Belotero Balance and Botox for CROWS FEET
Off label FDA usage of Botox around the eyes has been the mainstay of treatment. In my Modesto, CA practice, I’ve recently tried Belotero Balance – a dermal filler, to fill in the medium-fine lines that make up some of the crows feet. Belotero seems to integrate nicely into the skin. In conclusion, I think Belotero is a nice add-on in addition to Botox treatments around the eyes. Belotero is most outstanding in those static line crows feet.
Belotero Balance for TEAR TROUGHS UNDER THE EYES
Under the eye area – I’ve been super pleased with Belotero Balance, as have our Modesto patients. I have in the past used Restylane and Juvederm ultra in these areas under the eye. But I feel I get even smoother appearances under the eye with Belotero.
Belotero Balance for SCARS
This is where Belotero doesn’t seem to do as well. Scars around the eyes and other areas on the face – I feel that even with freeing up some of the tissue under the scar, the Belotero isn’t able to lift the scars up as much as I’d like it to. I think in these areas I may prefer a thicker dermal filler product.
www.SurgeryToday.com (209) 551-1888. Calvin Lee, MD. Surgical Artistry. Modesto, CA.
The 60% growth of Botox and Juvederm (and Latisse too) mentioned in the title refers to the growth of new patients. This does not reflect the growth in sales or profits, just purely the number of people our Modesto, CA practice has shared the usage of Botox, Juvederm and Latisse.
Unique Patients Seen Per Year on Brilliant Distinctions
Thank you for trusting me as your injector. This shows a nice increase of about 60% new patients per year. Data from our 635 patients enrolled in Botox/Juvederm’s Frequent Flyer Program called Brilliant Distinctions and our statistics since we started participating in the program in 2011. Unique patients means that if a patient came four times a year, that patient is only counted as one Botox visit or one Juvederm visit (not 4).
The growth rate here of 68% for a year in 2012 and 53% for a year in 2013 for our Modesto Botox injection is just a growth rate of new patients coming to our practice. It doesn’t reflect the growth rate of the amount of Botox used. That would be another study. Juvederm on the other had had a 62% growth rate for Juvederm in 2012 and 71% growth rate in 2013.
The full “year” was counted from August 15-August 14 of the following year.
We’ll see what 2014 brings.
Comparison to Latisse growth rate in terms of number of unique patients per year.
In 2012 and 2013, the total number of unique patients using Latisse is almost exactly the same as our number of Juvederm Patients.
Brilliant Distinctions is a way for patients to get discounts on Allegan Products. The program is run by Allergan, not by our office. But we accept Brilliant Distinctions coupons – even if you are new to Modesto, and have received Brilliant Distinctions coupons and points from other Botox/Juvederm practices in a different state. BD = “Brilliant Distinctions”, but also means “Botox Discounts!”
I’m normally not fond of discounts, but Brilliant Distinctions fills in this gap for me and offers discounts to patients who usually like discounts. I’m fond of consistency – which is what I want in my results – excellent consistent results, and thus I like the rest of my practice, which includes pricing, to remain consistent.
$51,000 paid to Surgical Artistry patients who are members
As of 8/13/13 we have 633 BD members. This represents a special occasion because it is the doubling of the original number when I first started paying attention to our BD statistics on 5/20/12.
I wrote this email to our staff congratulating them for sharing the Botox/Juvederm/Latisse coupons
We have been growing at a wonderful rate. I need to also thank our wonderful patients for supporting us – thank you!!
Office (cc: Alyssa / Chris),
I’m cc’ing Alyssa and Chris from Allergan because they are part of our team.
Congratulations! We grew the our Surgical Artistry / Brilliant Distinctions membership by one of the highest rates in our history. Although it isn’t that much higher than our average growth, it is still one of the highest rates we’ve ever had.
This month we grew our patient base at a rate of 1.1 patients per day (based on ~30 days per month).
Last month we grew our patient base at a rate of 1.4 patients per day.
The months before that ranged from 0.53 to 1.28 patients per day.
1.1 patients per day is wonderful. If I look back in time, we have been steadily averaging 0.6-0.7 patients per day and the last two months, we beat our own averages. I think this is great. Attached is an Excel spreadsheet graph (you know how I like these), which shows that today, we doubled our membership from May 22, 2012 – the day I tracking our usage of Brilliant Distinctions. Thank you all for a record 2 months. I’m looking forward to continued excellence for our Botox & Juvederm patients.
Celebration with Botox, Juvederm, Latisse, and Obagi at Surgical Artistry, Modesto, CA
Purpose of this page: To share information with other plastic surgery or cosmetic minded practices regarding open houses. Our first open house had 235 people come through. I’ve decided that was too many people, and have since come up with strategies to focus the open house to have fewer people. We are 2 doctor, husband-wife, plastic surgery practice located in Modesto, CA specializing in Plastic Surgery, Cosmetic Injections, Veins, and Acupuncture.
My wife and I became a team when we met as part of the Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME) at Brown University. My wife, Dr. Tammy Wu, eventually graduated top of her class with the award for highest grades among the women doctor graduates of that Brown University program. I on the other hand, as a violinist, had the fortunate experience of being the concert master of the Orchestra and a two time winner of the concerto competition at Brown University (had to add something in there so I didn’t sound too shabby in comparison). We also helped to start a marthon in Modesto, California called the Surgical Artistry Modesto Marathon – how exciting. We are now getting ready for the 5th annual edition of this marathon.
Today (Saturday, August 3, 2013) we celebrated the start of our 11th year in Modesto, California. To kick off the celebration we were supported by Allergan (the makers of Botox and Juvederm) to do an educational event regarding Botox and Juvederm. I had two models and we injected Botox into different areas of the face, and then the most dramatic changes were using Juvederm. In many ways, I guess you could consider this an open house.
11 balloons to celebrate the start of our 11th year in Modesto, CA.
Genesis of this event
I had originally talked with Allegan – the makers of Juvederm, Botox, and Latisse about having a 10 year celebration. So in essence this was the 10 year celebration of Dr. Tammy Wu and myself (Dr. Calvin Lee) being in Modesto. The first 3 years of this decade were spent at Sutter Gould and McHenry Medical Group (now known as GMMSA – Greater Modesto Medical Surgical Associates) respectively, for the two of us. Allergan’s Northern California Regional Manager presented to me the idea of having a nice lunch and then focusing the event on live demonstrations of Botox and Juvederm. I’ve never done a live demo before of Botox and Juvederm and I was excited by the idea. I’ve heard of other cosmetic practices having done this, but this would be a first for me. I didn’t follow his plan exactly. He had a small admission fee in mind and it was to be set on a work day (Monday-Friday) from 10am-2pm. The admission fee could potentially be applied to a Botox or Juvederm procedure. My reason for that was that Dr. Tammy Wu had already been planning an Obagi event from 9am to 11am – a Saturday breakfast kind of event. And she thought we could Piggy Back onto that event and attract even more people – people who were interested in Obagi and perhaps a separate group of people interested in Cosmetic injections. We thought the two groups of people would be interested in both events. So we combined them and didn’t charge an admission fee and had it on the weekend and extended the hours of the event.
Similarly, two months ago we did a Breast Augmentation Open House event sponsored by Mentor with mini lectures by Dr. Tammy Wu, Modesto Plastic Surgeon. We had a turn out of about 30 people, and the advertising method was similar – all via FaceBook.
How did I advertise our Botox / Juvederm / Obagi Modesto event?
I had advertised this cosmetic event on FaceBook . I advertised to the Modesto area, and spent about $1000 on advertising. I created an Botox Juvederm event page (which was free on FaceBook). But paid for those advertising on the sides and in boosted posts. I had trouble with boosted posts for some reason and never really figured out the reason. I’ll have to put in a query to the facebook posts. But I’ve had trouble in the past with plastic surgery type advertisements in FaceBook. The free event page received 124 “going” guests – I think that’s a great way to spread the word.
We got about 60 guests as estimated by our Surgical Artistry staff. I was pretty impressed. I think about 90% of the patients were new to the office. We offered specials on Obagi as well, and I’m sure this was partly a draw – so not everyone was here for the Botox and Juvederm demonstration.
DEWZ Restaurant was one of the main attractions
We had great food catered by DEWZ Restaurant. The food and amount worked out well. We had requested food for 30 people for the catering. In the past we had reserved for 60 people (we used Surlas before), and that was too much food. You can get overwhelmed with food. Back to the topic of DEWZ, Judy, one of the owners of the restaurant came herself to make sure the process went smoothly. We are very appreciative.
People were able to walk in and out of my procedure room. I think I heard that the injections into the lip seemed a bit much for patients – it just seemed somewhat “scary” perhaps. Perhaps lip injections weren’t the best public demonstration.
Regardless, many patients stayed for the demo and I think they learned a good deal and some of them even signed up for cosmetic injections.
Feedback on FaceBook
Here are some comments we got on FaceBook after our event:
Results of the Botox / Juvederm Banking (pre-sales)
When we counted up the results, we pre-sold 500 Units of Botox and 19 syringes of Juvederm. We had about 60 guests come to visit. 27 of the guests purchased something – either Obagi, Botox, Juvederm or Latisse.
Thank you very much for coming to our Botox / Juvederm / Obagi event. We truly appreciate the tremendous support.
Empty Botox bottles I’ve collected in Modesto, CA. I have much more, but my staff made me put them away.
Lessons Learned
Having a sign in sheet may improve the flow of the event for those waiting for the Obagi Rep who did free personalized skin care analysis with the reveal machine.
Having catered food for 30 people was enough.
It is possible to do all the advertising through FaceBook without tapping into our email list – especially if the goal is to introduce the practice to new patients. We love having many establish patients come by to mingle and talk about us with the new potential patients.
Most folks don’t come right at the beginning of the open house. The popular time is around 10am or later it seems. A shorter open house between 10a-2p might be a new possibility and this could possibly be done during a work day instead of a Saturday.
My continued struggles with plastic surgery advertising on FaceBook. The challenges are targeting requirements, and possible rejections based on their criteria for “text” as part of images ie. Botox logo or Obagi logo have too much text for FaceBook. And they do not take before and after pictures as part of advertisments, and they sometimes classify breast implants as sexual aids and sometimes Botox as illegal drugs.
Summary of the event pages used on FaceBook for my previous events.
I didn’t include our Surgical Artistry Modesto Marathon event pages here.
I had used three different FaceBook event pages for the Breast Augmentation event (June 1, 2013):
