Would Not Recommend

Provider Review

• 4 Feb 2018

Honestly, I feel that this practice specializes in marketing, above anything else. My experience was so bad that I had originally planned on recommending friends based on the good before and after photos, but could not after seeing my own results. The staff is extremely unorganized, and they will overcharge whatever they can. Also, appointment times are never honored. They expect you to wait approximately 1-2 hours. I scheduled for a surgery about a year prior and had to cancel due to a family death and other things that followed. I had already put down a deposit of $750.00 and realized that it was non-refundable, but contacted Rose, the coordinator, to let her know. She was very sweet about it in her e-mail response and told me that I should just contact them when I could go ahead with the surgery. A year later, I contacted her for a consultation and to go ahead with the surgery. I had to pay the consultation fee, of course, and then was surprised when she quoted me about $2,000 more. I figured it was my fault, and I didn’t say anything. We had also discussed a chin implant revision, and was shocked at the price she quoted since I had gotten a few quotes elsewhere that were not so high. She said that she was able to get a “discount” for me for doing multiple procedures. Also, to get the look that I had wanted, she told me the doctor recommended a facial fat transfer. I paid up, thinking I was working with the best and he knew what he was doing. A few weeks after I had come in to get blood work done, and just about a week and a half before the scheduled surgery date, the nurse e-mailed me to tell me that I needed to go get a test done elsewhere because the results came in inconclusive. I mean, that’s fine, but it doesn’t take a few weeks to get lab results back and they do state that if you do not have your lab results cleared a week before surgery, they cannot go ahead with it. I had to take off from work and have the lab results rushed. They offered to compensate me for the lab test, and I figured everything after that would be smooth sailing. The doctor and I had discussed everything before the surgery, and he had me pick a nose curvature that I liked and send photos of it, along with any photos that he might find helpful. What was odd was that most doctors will make recommendations, but I was surprised with this doctor that he let you tell him what you wanted, and just went along with it. I had my follow up visit with the doctor, and discussed my concerns about the stitching that was done on my nostrils. It was poorly done, and there were spaces that were skipped, which I was worried would heal unevenly. He reassured me that they would be able to use Dermabond to fill that in so it would not leave gaps. About three months after the surgery, my face was still very bloated where the fat was put in. I was not given any information for the recovery process on the fat transfer, and when I did my research, it should have settled at about three months. I was starting to worry, and asked Aman, the nurse, how much fat had been injected. She told me she would get back to me that day and did not. I had to follow up with her three times in a week until she finally got back to me. I asked if anything could be done at this point, because I had important events coming up, and she told me that the swelling would last longer because multiple procedures were performed and I should just be patient. Well, that was great and all, but why didn’t anyone tell me that prior? I had another follow up visit to address my concerns, and at this point, the incisions by the nostrils were uneven due to the stitching, and when I asked about the Dermabond, the doctor told me that it was too late at that point. My right nostril was also flat. The curvature of my nose was starting to go convex, and he addressed that with an injection of cortisone. The “custom” chin implant also had a wing that protruded and could be felt on my left side, which he said was fine. I could feel it when I smiled. There was also a bit of a ptosis that was visible. I had told Rose prior to this that if he was not experienced in chin implant revision, I did not want to go ahead because of the fear of ptosis occurring, and she said that he was. Turns out after talking to a chin implant revision specialist, the excess scar tissue had not been removed. When I had told him that I was not happy with the fat transfer because it was uneven, he told me that it looked great and I just needed to be patient, and that it should not be uneven because he injected equal amounts on both sides. He basically told me that I was seeing things, because I “look at my face everyday.” I trusted this man to have good aesthetic and paid good money for it. Because of the problems and the answers I was given, I went to see other doctors for their opinions regarding the fat transfer. All of them were dismayed that the Dr. Ghavami had chosen to only inject fat in the bottom half of my face when I already had a long face to begin with. They had all stated that my face would need to be balanced, which would start with the upper half of my face. Because the fat was injected only in the lower half, my face looked unbalanced and like I had jowls. Since Dr. Ghavami said there was nothing else that could be done at this point, one specialist proposed a temporary fix, which would be to add fillers to the top half of my face to balance everything out and give my face a lift. The next follow up I had with Dr. Ghavami, I was still not happy with the fat transfer and wanted to dissolve it if at all possible. Also, the nose was not going so great. There was a bulge between my eyes where the cartilage was placed. He claimed he could not see it, but for whatever reason, everyone else I know could. As per his directions, I pushed out the flattened nostril with a q-tip and massaged my nose on a daily basis. This “muscle memory” which he claimed my nose would have just did not work as I had hoped. For the bad stitching job that healed badly, he proposed that I do a microdermabrasion and PRP, which would be paid out of my pocket. He said that I should just be more patient with the fat transfer and that it “looked much better”. He also said that he may have put more fat on one side than the other, but would have to check his records. This completely contradicted what he had said the last visit, and if he thought it was all in my head that it looked bad, how could it look “much better”? I waited for about a year, and during that time, I had tried every non-surgical procedure available to try to reduce that fat on the bottom half of my face, but was unsuccessful. The doctor agreed to do a revision at no charge, by which point I was already fuming, after having consulted with different specialists who agreed that it was not all in my head and the results I had gotten were not good. Since the doctor waited so long to do anything with the fat transfer, there would already be scar tissue, which would make thing difficult. I would need to pay thousands more to fix this, on top of the thousands I’d already paid because I trusted Dr. Ghavami. Following this, I e-mailed Rose a detailed list of things that needed addressing and asked what the plan of action would be. She just responded that everything would be taken care of. When it was nearing the revision surgery date, I was starting to get nervous because no one had contacted me. All I got was an e-mail saying that Rose was stepping down, and that Nancy would be the new coordinator. I had to call and ask Nancy if the surgery was still on, because I had not yet heard from anyone about it. She told me they had me on the calendar. Before the surgery, I got an e-mail saying that I was not suppose to have any food past a certain time. Then, Nancy sent me another e-mail stating that it was okay to have food up until 7 AM, so I thought I would have a protein shake. Once we got there and I talked to the anesthetist, I found out this was a problem, because that was not true and we would need to wait several hours before the we could go ahead with the surgery. I was extremely irritated, and Nancy told me that she could comp me with a free Hydrafacial, which was a joke, after having had such a horrible experience here. On top of that, as I would find out, someone was supposed to have scheduled a consultation prior to the revision so I could talk to the doctor about what needed to be fixed, as well as been given a prescription for the medication. I had to run to the nearby Rite Aid and wait for my prescription to be filled minutes before they told me my surgery was to be done, at noon. I came back rushing at noon, glad to be on time, only to have to wait. The actual surgery itself was not performed until about 3:30 PM. Only minutes before that, the doctor consulted with me on what I needed to have revised, which was clearly outlined in the e-mail that I had sent Rose. He did not seem to have any knowledge of it. One of the things that we could not do was fix the chin implant and the protrusion, because no one had given me a plan of action and I did not have the time in my schedule to allow for the recovery. All I was told up until this point was that I would only need about a week for recovery. If I was told this ahead of time, I could have made arrangements. Also, he had recommended Ultherapy to fix the saggy jowl look, which I didn’t have prior to this. I paid for this to need to spend more money to fix this? What a joke. Also, the doctor told me that he was not trying to make excuses, but because of my thick skin, it was not possible to have that curvature that I had selected for my nose. Okay... the problem is that he should have told me that as the expert BEFORE the surgery. I would have been fine with just going with a straight nose profile if he had told me that, rather than ending up with a slightly convex shape. As the expert that he is always claiming he is, teaching at all these seminars, he could have made a recommendation. It’s not like I didn’t already have thick skin before I came to consult with him. Speaking of work, my sister, who had driven me there for the surgery, ended up having to take the day off from work because of their disorganization. She waited in the waiting area and told me that another patient’s surgery was hours behind, and that patient was waiting with her kids. After my surgery, I have not heard from anyone to follow up, and the whole experience has left me with a bad taste in my mouth. The results have improved things by maybe about 40%, and it has been about three months since. I am looking at about $6K now to fix the chin implant, about another $2K to do Ultherapy on my jawline, and will need more microdermabrasion to fix the nostril area. I spent almost $30K for Dr. Ghavami to make things better, and then have already spent $5K trying to fix things with fillers and non-surgical procedures. I don’t normally regret things, but I definitely did coming here. This was a very expensive mistake. The customer service is atrocious, the wait times are horrible, and the doctor constantly makes excuses. If you are blown away by the before and after photos, make sure you do your research first.