Listings and credentials
How this works
Where our listings come from, what each label on a profile means, and what we do not claim.
How a surgeon gets listed
We start from the public federal registry of healthcare providers, filtered to the specialties that perform cosmetic surgery. That gives us candidates — nothing more. A registry number proves a number was issued. It does not show that someone is licensed today, board certified, or that they perform elective cosmetic surgery at all. Many candidates are residents or reconstructive surgeons at teaching hospitals.
Most listings come straight from that registry and are labeled “From public records”. For those, we have not checked the license, the board certification, or which procedures the surgeon performs — each profile says so, and links to where you can check it yourself.
A listing becomes a reviewed profile only once all four of these are confirmed:
- The identity is unambiguous. The right person, not someone with the same name.
- There is a current practice location with a working way to make contact— a phone number that belongs to the practice, or the practice’s own website.
- The state medical license is active, checked against the licensing board’s own public record, with the page and the date written down.
- At least one elective cosmetic procedure is recorded for that surgeon, with the page that says so. A clinic-wide list is not enough: “this practice performs rhinoplasty” does not show that this surgeon does.
This is enforced in the software, not just in the process. Publishing a record that fails any one of the four is refused, and the reviewer is told which requirement is missing.
What the certification labels mean
Board certification appears on every profile in one of three forms. Only the first is something we checked ourselves.
A reviewer looked the surgeon up on the certifying board’s own register and saw a current certification. The profile names the board in full and gives the date of the check, with a link to what was checked.
The practice’s website says so and we have recorded where. We have not confirmed it with the board. This never counts as verified and never passes the “board certification checked” filter.
Nothing is recorded yet. This is a statement about our work, not about the surgeon.
We always print a board’s full name. Abbreviations like “ABPS” are ambiguous, and some boards have names close to better-known ones. Where a board is not a member of the American Board of Medical Specialties, the profile says so in that sentence.
Checks are never edited. If something changes, a reviewer records a new check and the profile shows the most recent one. The older ones stay in the record.
What we do not claim
- Results are ordered by distance from the place you searched, then by last name. We do not score surgeons or publish a “best” list.
- We do not host reviews or ratings, and we do not summarize anyone else’s.
- A license and a certification are facts about training and standing. They are not a measure of anyone’s results, and we will not present them as one.
- We do not give medical advice, and nothing here is a recommendation to have surgery or to choose a particular surgeon.
- Typical costs are estimates, not quotes. Every published price we show carries what it covers, where it came from, and when it was checked against its source.
Coverage
The directory covers the whole United States, from public records, and reviewed profiles are added over time. If a search returns nothing, that is what our records say — not a statement about who practices in that area. We would rather show you an empty result than someone three hours away presented as nearby.
Something wrong?