Few people can pinpoint the exact moment in their lives that set them on a lifelong course in the most profound way. Dr. Jonathan Kaplan, the plastic surgeon, working from his San Francisco practice called Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery, was only 16 when he first saw a plastic surgeon taking a skin graft from a patient’s neck and using it to cover a hole where there was skin cancer. The whole procedure was great, but what impressed young Jonathan was the skill with which the scar from the graft was hidden by the wrinkles in the patient’s neck.
That’s how plastic surgeons are born—by falling in love with the finesse with which things get hidden or removed. Dr. Kaplan turned into a skilled surgeon who developed the SIMI neck lift, a minimally invasive neck lift surgery. The doctor didn’t stop at that, however.
Finding a Way to Help Other Surgeons
There are plenty of reasons why regular patients might forget that the people who treat them are also human beings, susceptible to all the things the regular, non-medical mortals are, from being in a bad mood to having health problems. Even though it might be that their patients sometimes treat them as superheroes (or robots, in less fortunate scenarios), Dr. Kaplan’s time practicing as a surgeon showed him the extent to which the people who do what he does can suffer because of the work.
Burnout is a great example and one that might be familiar to many other professionals. The question of physician burnout has been slowly moving to the front of the conversation about doctors’ well-being, but Dr. Kaplan’s been on the case for a while now. His recipe for avoiding it involves having a lot of independence and autonomy.
For example, Dr. Kaplan would say that plastic surgery is one of the surgical fields which offers the most independence. It also allows the surgeon a certain degree of autonomy if their practice has an in-office accredited operating room.
Next, surgeons might embrace automation where possible, so they can prioritize their practice while also having the time to work on something that would become a hobby. Dr. Kaplan, for example, is interested in marketing, too, and has written on the topic a great deal. Still, it’s his entrepreneurial spirit that guided him toward solving big problems that led him to investigate a particular angle on the patients’ well-being.
Helping People Figure Out the Costs
One of the things that was glaringly obvious to Dr. Kaplan from his practice was that people had a hard time finding out the exact cost for their procedure before they were given the bill, after the procedure. They would spend lots of time talking to the staff over the phone, trying to get the exact sum they would be charged.
It wasn’t like the staff wasn’t helpful. It was sometimes difficult to figure out the price without thorough consultations, and maybe even an examination. The other problem was determining costs specific to a patient’s insurance plan. This would create uncertainty in both the patient and the medical practice.
That’s why Dr. Kaplan decided to develop BuildMyBod Health. It’s a platform that allows patients to have easy and understandable access to pricing for any practice that uses the platform. This includes cosmetic cash pay services as well as insurance-based medically necessary services. BuildMyBod Health is also valuable to medical practitioners because it doubles as a lead-generation tool; it can be used to qualify a lead and gather their information.
From burnout to price transparency and lead generation, Dr. Kaplan tackled some of the biggest problems facing healthcare systems today. He did it without stopping his work as a plastic surgeon, and while also being an entrepreneur, marketer, and avid communicator who uses the blog posts on his website to further educate patients and colleagues alike. That’s the real meaning of “care.”
