Many physicians are branching out and opening up their own medical spas and the market has become very competitive. New medical spas seem to be popping up left and right, and sadly, many don't make it. To get an edge, it's important to carry the devices in high demand from consumers.
"I think today, if you really want to start in the aesthetic space and you want to be competitive, you want about three different devices," says Dr. Bruce Katz of JUVA Skin and Laser Center in New York. "You want something for body contouring, something for skin tightening and for wrinkles. If you get three devices like that, either the radio frequency for skin tightening or laser lipolysis for both skin tightening and body contouring, and then a fractional device for wrinkles, you're going to be competitive and you're going to be giving your patients great results."
These tried and true devices are critical but there are also some new technologies which are just now becoming popular, but may not offer the results patients are hoping to see. Dr. Katz says, "There are actually a number of new technologies that I find exciting out there such as ultrasound, cryolipolysis and some new radio frequency devices. I think the problem is that they're very, very early on in their infancy and they have to undergo major revision, major evolutions in the technology until they're really practical in terms of giving our patients results in a reasonable amount of time."
He says that it's important for these new devices to offer more significant results for patients to really get behind them and drive demand for these technologies. "Not just a centimeter or two centimeters of fat reduction, because people are not going to buy that. They're not going to find that very effective to have to spend two hours in your office to get two centimeters reduction in fat like some of these devices are now achieving. So they have a long way to go, but I think the potential is huge, but it will probably be more than a year - it will probably be 3?5 years until we actually see devices that are practical, that don't take a lot of time because people don't want to spend two hours sitting around until their fat gets a little better or their skin tightens a little more, they want effective treatments that you can see, you can see results in a reasonable amount of time at a reasonable price."
