Overpaid for Scar Treatment because of a Surgery Broker

[Guruwho]

Hi, I am visiting Seoul for a month with my wife.

We have very good service from JW clinic, our second visit after breast, eye and nose treatment for my wife in 2010. My wife has very fine eye and nose revision this trip. It is going very well. Unfortunately, our visit is not all good.

Our interpreter lead us to a surgery for laser treatment – Bonita at 565 Gangnam do. On 28 and 29 May my wife has laser to her stomach, to treat scars and surface irregularities. She also has the first of 3 facial dermabrasion treatments. The facial treatment was startling for 3 days but 10 days later her face looks very fine. The skin is smooth and a lighter colour.

The stomach is more concern. The colour looks more even but the stomach has like diagonal lines across the skin, like channels. The surgeon says this will resolve in time as new collagen develops so now we must wait.

The unfortunate aspect with Bonita is the discovery our interpreter received 30% commission on the cost of the services so we paid US$5000 for the one time laser treatment of my wife’s stomach. My wife weighs 48 Kgs, her stomach is not large.

I don’t doubt the competence of the Bonita doctor but in my country a doctor who facilitates a secret fee or commission would face felony charges and probably lose their medical practising certificate. This experience is really sour. Korea’s plastic surgery expertise, I believe, is world leading but the country apparently lacks a doctors code of conduct or consumer laws to stop rip offs like ours.

Our friendly vietnamese/ korean speaking lady has charged herself out at roughly US$1500 per day. We were paying her $1-150 per day to “interpret”. i guess we were very naive but where I come from a raft of laws in that mid 20th century stamped out consumer piracy. So do not trust any interpreter or broker. Lesson learned.

[Jeet Singh]

Hi Gurowho,

Welcome to the forums. Thanks for sharing your story with us.

How did you find this interpreter?

Did the interpreter say she is a licensed medical facilitator or just a freelancer?

This means they’re registered with the ministry of health, have insurance, a physical office and at least 100,000,000 Korean won of financial capital in their business bank account.

Did you find Bonita clinic on your own or via an interpreter?

It sounds like the treatment at Bonita went well albeit finding out about the hidden fees. But if you are happy with the results and care, and it’s still within your budget, then just chalk this up as lesson learned and try not to worry too much about it. But we know what it feels like to learn later that you could have saved money.

In all honesty, the majority of clinics do not like working with these middle parties, but they feel forced to because of lower than expected local demand. Also, it’s sort of an accepted industry practice that foreign patients pay more than locals. This is due to special taxes for accepting foreign sourced money, costs for clinics to service foreigners such as hiring multilingual staff and meeting regulations to service foreigners. All that makes sense if the clinic is genuinely setup to handle foreign patients. However, a lack of transparency of local pricing and knowing that you are tourist can also be factor in a price increase for both foreign friendly and local only clinics. Paying more than locals is usually the case with many tourists traveling to any tourist hotspot around the world, i.e. overpriced souvenirs.

However you are absolutely correct that split medical fees is illegal if the interpreter is not a licensed medical facilitator and you can report it here.

[Author]

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