Hi. I’m someone here who’s been living the plastic-surgery life for about 10 years now.
10 years ago, I had medial and lateral canthoplasty + nose surgery + facial contouring at a certain hospital near Apgujeong Station (apparently they’ve moved to Cheongdam now).
I wasn’t happy with my nose and facial contouring, so last year I had revision rhinoplasty, and this year I had cheekbone revision surgery.
First, the nose revision was a complete success, and it turned out even better than I had imagined, so I was living very happily. But I couldn’t get out of the swamp of plastic-surgery addiction, thinking, “now if I just do my cheekbones…,” and in the end I got cheekbone surgery again this year…
For the nose, I had only written a consultation-hopping review in this community, but during the period when I couldn’t come in here, a lot of comments were posted, and I didn’t know, so I couldn’t replyㅠㅠ But I’ll definitely write a review later!
Moving on to the cheekbones.. For cheekbone revision surgery, it wasn’t that I saw no effect at all, but
1. Asymmetry 2. Heavy apple zone 3. Width of the lateral cheekbones
These three were my concerns. My list had more places besides the ones I went to for consultations, but in the end I had in-person consultations at four places. The reason is that quite a few hospitals charge 30,000-50,000 won as a consultation fee because it’s a revision surgery, you know? But I filtered out those hospitals. Why? The CT they take for the consultation isn’t different for primary-surgery patients and revision-surgery patients. But they only take money from revision patients for the consultation? Logically, I couldn’t accept that.
I wondered whether a hospital that doesn’t understand a patient’s feelings before worrying about, deciding on, and coming in for revision surgery would really do its best for the surgery. Of course, since they can’t operate during consultation time, maybe they set it as an opportunity cost for that time…. But the feeling that they see patients as money (I know there probably isn’t a plastic surgery clinic that’s 100% not like that) was too obvious.. In short, I felt offended and didn’t want to go.
Anyway, the hospitals I went to for consultations were: 1. 1 Percent 2. Lavian 3. Note 4. Bondi 5. 1 Percent re-consultation
That’s it!
1. ㅇㅍㅅㅌ An acquaintance said they had booked a consultation here, so I did some online digging, and their before-and-afters definitely felt somehow different from other hospitals. As I said, as someone with 10 years of plastic surgery/procedure experience, when I look at review photos, I get a certain sense. Here, first of all, I felt, ah, something is different. So I went to the consultation with expectations.
While waiting at the beginning, you fill out a questionnaire about what your current concerns are and how you want them improved. Then you consult with the consultant manager, but honestly I think consultant managers are all pretty much the same, so I’ll skip that. One unusual point was that I said my current face isn’t ugly either, so I hoped this surgery wouldn’t become a needless waste of money and time. I also said I was wondering whether I should really do it if there wouldn’t be a definite effect on the areas I wanted improved.
Even after finishing the consultant manager consultation, the wait was quite long, but once I actually entered the director’s room, did the consultation last about 10 minutes..? The director looked at my photos and said, “During your first surgery, your cheekbones didn’t go in as much as expected. As for the concerns you wrote down.. I think you can see enough effect.” Then he asked if I had any more questions, and when I said no, he said, nice to meet you~ and it ended. I felt a bit like, is this right..? But I went back to the consultant manager to get the price explanation. But there was another point here where I couldn’t trust them. When I said my first surgery was 10 years ago, they said revision surgery basically starts at xxx million won, but 1 million won is added per year, and since it had been 10 years, an extra 10 million won would be added to the base price. So the amount is this, and with this discount and that discount, the final amount can be brought down to this much. That’s how they explained it. But that “1 million won per year” pricing method just didn’t resonate with me at all.
For plastic surgery, especially surgery that involves bone, I think it’s right for the doctor to look at the patient’s condition during the consultation, estimate and judge the surgical method and difficulty, and then set the surgery fee. So I felt uneasy, like, what kind of marketplace-style calculation is this? The hospital facilities and aftercare looked really good, but it was the hospital I had the highest expectations for, and I felt the consultation really wasn’t it.
But there was a deposit discount, so I paid a 1 million won deposit and came out.
2. ㄹㅂㅇ I went for a consultation here with the expectation that they might really take care of the lateral cheekbones that had been my concern. There were many comments saying they definitely push in the posterior cheekbones. (But they weren’t actual reviews, just things people said they heard.)
First, same as before, the consultation went in the order of consultant manager - director - consultant manager (price explanation), and the consultant manager asked which places I had consulted at. I said I had been to ㅇㅍㅅㅌ and told them that these and those things about the consultation there bothered me. To summarize, they didn’t talk about the surgical method at all and just said there would be an effect.
Of course I knew the manager would relay this to the director. Still, because I wanted a sincere, thorough consultation from the director, I intentionally let it slip. As expected, he consulted very carefully and kindly, but the problem was that he recommended all sorts of other surgeries. Things like temple reduction, and saying my square jaw bone had grown a little and we should shave it together..
This hospital is where I decisively lost interest while receiving the price explanation. By my standards, they quoted an absurdly high amount. So when I said, “That’s too expensive,” the consultant manager said, “Isn’t ㅇㅍㅅㅌ around that much too?” At that answer, I really lost trust. Honestly, consultant managers are all pros, and they probably all know which hospital’s director moved from where to where, what happened, what price range that hospital has, and so on. But I already knew ㅇㅍㅅㅌ was originally very expensive, so they quoted around what I expected (though that pricing method was a bit…). Here, honestly… If I start talking about this, it’ll get really long again, but when choosing a hospital, when you look at the doctor, there are people where you think, that person is worth that money. There are many standards for that judgment, but anyway, based on my personal judgment, ㅇㅍㅅㅌ was worth it, and here felt a bit over the top, you know?
But it felt like the consultant manager thought, “ㅇㅍㅅㅌ must have quoted around this amount, so they’re probably roughly expecting this much,” and inflated the amount far above what they normally charge.
There was no pressure to pay a deposit, and since my rule is to filter out hospitals that give a new name to a surgery many other hospitals don’t do and talk as if only they can do it, I passed on this place too.
Writing this is exhausting, so I’ll post 3 and 4 laterㅠㅠ But I don’t know if it’s okay to write this in such detailㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ