Experience worked in Korean plastic surgery clinics

[jen5456]

Hello~ I'm very exciting found out this forum and like to share my experience in Korea.
I'm Korean and worked for several years in big clinics in Seoul. Now I live in TX in the United States. All my family moved to here last year. I still miss the time I lived in Seoul = )
I found out this forum yesterday and read many threads here. I saw good information and wrong information given out from the threads. I don't want to say my information is true but would like to share my experience and opinion.

If you decide to get PS in Korea, that decision is the right one.
The reason why I say this, you have to understand the characteristics of Korea. I can say Korean is the most trendy and picky group in the world. The clinics in Korea have to meet Korean's standards if the clinics want to survive there.
They must always try to survive in the PS jungle.

Once you decided to get surgery in Korea, you will go to great pains choosing clinics among more than 1000 PS clinics in Seoul.

Let's see which hospital is good for you.

Big clinic vs Small clinic?

I saw someone posting the blacklist and others wrote it down. HAHAHA. That is the most reason that makes me start this long thread. I can see the few clinic names I worked for on the list. =)
Someone who wrote the blacklist put many good clinics on her blacklist. I understand that is very personal but no good if someone got affected by that info.

I would like to ask you what is the most concern about choosing the clinics.
Price? or Safety? (I don't mention the "result", cuz most of the clinics got good skills and the satisfaction of surgery is very personal)

If you choose "Price" you should get rid of "ID, Banobagi, DA, BK etc" from your list.
Many of you already know there is a foreigner's price. No offense, but any of you expecting to get the same price as Korean? That could be wrong . Can't be possible. Especially for those big hospitals.
Of course, you can find out small clinics offer you "Good price" Sadly, those big hospitals don't have the reason for giving you the low price like "Apple". Even though Apple keep raising their price, still so many people out there want to buy it.
The price is your first concern, you need to spend more time searching for good clinics.
You have to be very careful which clinic offer you the lower price.
Plastic surgery is not an industrial product. There are no volume sales at a low unit margin of profit.
If they offer you a low price, there is a reason I believe.

If you choose "Safety" you should think about the big clinic.
The reason why they ask you for more money, they have all the very expensive machines and many staff who can take care of you.
Let me talk about "ID" for example,
I saw many bad things about them. However, I still think that they are good hospital among big clinics.
If you visit ID, you will be surprised how big they are. There are good doctors and new machines that are good enough to compete with university hospitals
I feel sorry about who had bad experiences there. However, can you imagine how many ppl getting surgery at ID?
This is not an accurate statistic number but they have 5~10 times more patients than the normal clinics.
It is reasonable things that ID got 5~10times more bad feedback because they have more patients.
The results can be very personal as I mentioned many times. They can't be satisfied 100 patients out of 100.
I believe "ID" needs to spend at least a few hundreds thousand US dollar per month for compensation for surgeon and staff and etc. If they are really bad, they can't even bear the fixed cost.
I know someone died in "Grand" and "BK" but No one died in "ID" even though they have so many patients and done for many dangerous cases. But you still complaining they asked you to do more surgery? or not happy with surgery scheduled? high price? Are you really think all these really matter for the safety and result?
oppositly, a doctor is very kind, the staffs are always smiling, feels comfortable etc ...
It seems nice but I don't think it is a good point(feedback) to choose the right doctors.
The doctor only tells with skill and patient's satisfaction.

I'm not defending them at all. But, if someone asks me "would you send your family to ID?"
I will say defiantly "Yes" because they have good surgeons and facilities.

Whenever you go for PS, you need to check up their facilities and emergency surgeons. If the emergency happened while you getting surgery, the good facilities and surgeons can keep you alive. That is a really important thing too.

Price

We live in the high competitive market system.
More than 1000 PS clinics compete in Seoul.
One Korean idiom saying that "The thirsty man is digging a well." If the clinic really needs patients, the clinic lowers the price.
Of course, I'm not saying more money= better hospital. I'm saying please careful with the clinic offer you cheap price.
Also, the price can be different even though you and your friend do the same surgery at the same hospital. The costs may vary depending on the difficulty of your operation.

For the big clinic, WORK-IN price and through Agency price is the pretty much same as long as your agency is not playing with the price. Of course, the Work-in price will be cheaper if you go to small clinics. They will lower the price to have you in their clinic
So, if you decided to have a surgery in a small clinic, better work in. Just one thing, you still have a chance to get the higher price even though you work- in the small clinic. To avoid this happen, please compare the price at 3~4 different clinics.
Also, you can still talk to the clinic about bargain the price. Trying to negotiate them. Do not nod at their first offer.

Agent vs Work-in

I believe there is no right answer for this.
I mentioned above, big and famous clinics offer the same price to the agency and work-in patient.
If you think that your agency is trustable, go with the agency.
If you don't feel like, go by yourself.

Of course, there is a good point that going to clinics with agency.
You can barking at your agency if you don't like the results.
The clinics would listen to you or agency?
The clinics and agency are the symbiotic relationships. If an agency sends 10~100 patients per month to the clinic.
the clinics need to be nice to the agency and listen to what they saying.
If your result is not satisfied after you went alone, you have to fight yourself against big monsters.
Once more, you should be careful if your agency or the clinic ask you for the much higher price.

I'm not saying here which one is good or not, it is all up to your choice and I want to give you an idea of good things and bad thing might happen.

Conclusion

I understand it is really hard to find the right clinic and right surgeon. .
The result can be very different from the same clinic by the surgeon.
You have to spend much time for researching.
If someone says Vidal Sassoon hair salon in England sucks because I don't like my haircut there, do you really think that Vidal Sassoon England got lack of skills after seeing the negative feedback??
I don't think so. Just the person couldn't meet the right designer. .
I told my friends that only trust the feedback with pictures speically for the bad feedback.
Because all the clinics are very good at manipulating the feedback.
They easily can make themselves good feedback in Babitalk or google, even purseforum here.
but also, they deliberately create a malicious rumor for their competitor clinics.

Come to Korea more than 2 weeks and work around the clinincs on your list.

There is more than 1000 PS in Seoul. Spend more time finding the right surgeon for yourself.

If you have any question, PM me. I will be trying to answer the questions.

Thank you

 

[utcucduoi]

jen5456 said: ↑

Hello~ I'm very exciting found out this forum and like to share my experience in Korea.
I'm Korean and worked for several years in big clinics in Seoul. Now I live in TX in the United States. All my family moved to here last year. I still miss the time I lived in Seoul = )
I found out this forum yesterday and read many threads here. I saw good information and wrong information given out from the threads. I don't want to say my information is true but would like to share my experience and opinion.

If you decide to get PS in Korea, that decision is the right one.
The reason why I say this, you have to understand the characteristics of Korea. I can say Korean is the most trendy and picky group in the world. The clinics in Korea have to meet Korean's standards if the clinics want to survive there.
They must always try to survive in the PS jungle.

Once you decided to get surgery in Korea, you will go to great pains choosing clinics among more than 1000 PS clinics in Seoul.

Let's see which hospital is good for you.

Big clinic vs Small clinic?

I saw someone posting the blacklist and others wrote it down. HAHAHA. That is the most reason that makes me start this long thread. I can see the few clinic names I worked for on the list. =)
Someone who wrote the blacklist put many good clinics on her blacklist. I understand that is very personal but no good if someone got affected by that info.

I would like to ask you what is the most concern about choosing the clinics.
Price? or Safety? (I don't mention the "result", cuz most of the clinics got good skills and the satisfaction of surgery is very personal)

If you choose "Price" you should get rid of "ID, Banobagi, DA, BK etc" from your list.
Many of you already know there is a foreigner's price. No offense, but any of you expecting to get the same price as Korean? That could be wrong . Can't be possible. Especially for those big hospitals.
Of course, you can find out small clinics offer you "Good price" Sadly, those big hospitals don't have the reason for giving you the low price like "Apple". Even though Apple keep raising their price, still so many people out there want to buy it.
The price is your first concern, you need to spend more time searching for good clinics.
You have to be very careful which clinic offer you the lower price.
Plastic surgery is not an industrial product. There are no volume sales at a low unit margin of profit.
If they offer you a low price, there is a reason I believe.

If you choose "Safety" you should think about the big clinic.
The reason why they ask you for more money, they have all the very expensive machines and many staff who can take care of you.
Let me talk about "ID" for example,
I saw many bad things about them. However, I still think that they are good hospital among big clinics.
If you visit ID, you will be surprised how big they are. There are good doctors and new machines that are good enough to compete with university hospitals
I feel sorry about who had bad experiences there. However, can you imagine how many ppl getting surgery at ID?
This is not an accurate statistic number but they have 5~10 times more patients than the normal clinics.
It is reasonable things that ID got 5~10times more bad feedback because they have more patients.
The results can be very personal as I mentioned many times. They can't be satisfied 100 patients out of 100.
I believe "ID" needs to spend at least a few hundreds thousand US dollar per month for compensation for surgeon and staff and etc. If they are really bad, they can't even bear the fixed cost.
I know someone died in "Grand" and "BK" but No one died in "ID" even though they have so many patients and done for many dangerous cases. But you still complaining they asked you to do more surgery? or not happy with surgery scheduled? high price? Are you really think all these really matter for the safety and result?
oppositly, a doctor is very kind, the staffs are always smiling, feels comfortable etc ...
It seems nice but I don't think it is a good point(feedback) to choose the right doctors.
The doctor only tells with skill and patient's satisfaction.

I'm not defending them at all. But, if someone asks me "would you send your family to ID?"
I will say defiantly "Yes" because they have good surgeons and facilities.

Whenever you go for PS, you need to check up their facilities and emergency surgeons. If the emergency happened while you getting surgery, the good facilities and surgeons can keep you alive. That is a really important thing too.

Price

We live in the high competitive market system.
More than 1000 PS clinics compete in Seoul.
One Korean idiom saying that "The thirsty man is digging a well." If the clinic really needs patients, the clinic lowers the price.
Of course, I'm not saying more money= better hospital. I'm saying please careful with the clinic offer you cheap price.
Also, the price can be different even though you and your friend do the same surgery at the same hospital. The costs may vary depending on the difficulty of your operation.

For the big clinic, WORK-IN price and through Agency price is the pretty much same as long as your agency is not playing with the price. Of course, the Work-in price will be cheaper if you go to small clinics. They will lower the price to have you in their clinic
So, if you decided to have a surgery in a small clinic, better work in. Just one thing, you still have a chance to get the higher price even though you work- in the small clinic. To avoid this happen, please compare the price at 3~4 different clinics.
Also, you can still talk to the clinic about bargain the price. Trying to negotiate them. Do not nod at their first offer.

Agent vs Work-in

I believe there is no right answer for this.
I mentioned above, big and famous clinics offer the same price to the agency and work-in patient.
If you think that your agency is trustable, go with the agency.
If you don't feel like, go by yourself.

Of course, there is a good point that going to clinics with agency.
You can barking at your agency if you don't like the results.
The clinics would listen to you or agency?
The clinics and agency are the symbiotic relationships. If an agency sends 10~100 patients per month to the clinic.
the clinics need to be nice to the agency and listen to what they saying.
If your result is not satisfied after you went alone, you have to fight yourself against big monsters.
Once more, you should be careful if your agency or the clinic ask you for the much higher price.

I'm not saying here which one is good or not, it is all up to your choice and I want to give you an idea of good things and bad thing might happen.

Conclusion

I understand it is really hard to find the right clinic and right surgeon. .
The result can be very different from the same clinic by the surgeon.
You have to spend much time for researching.
If someone says Vidal Sassoon hair salon in England sucks because I don't like my haircut there, do you really think that Vidal Sassoon England got lack of skills after seeing the negative feedback??
I don't think so. Just the person couldn't meet the right designer. .
I told my friends that only trust the feedback with pictures speically for the bad feedback.
Because all the clinics are very good at manipulating the feedback.
They easily can make themselves good feedback in Babitalk or google, even purseforum here.
but also, they deliberately create a malicious rumor for their competitor clinics.

Come to Korea more than 2 weeks and work around the clinincs on your list.

There is more than 1000 PS in Seoul. Spend more time finding the right surgeon for yourself.

If you have any question, PM me. I will be trying to answer the questions.

Thank you

Click to expand...

 

[utcucduoi]

Hi Jen,
Thank you for writing your post. I really appreciate it! I am in the process of researching a safe great PS place in Korea. I am so confused and really don't know where to go. I just want somebody to tell me here are three good places go check them out. Since you lived and worked in some clinics, would you recommend three places for me and I'll do my research with them? My budget is $15,000 usd for the eyelid correction and lower facelift plus three weeks flying and staying in Korea. Do you think that is a doable budget?