Persana Gives You Direct Access to “Invite-Only” Plastic Surgeons and Dermatologists—So Why the Controversy?
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At only seven weeks old, Persana is hardly a household name, but the peer-vetted doctors on this glossy platform are among the most famous in the fields of plastic surgery and dermatology. If you’re even a casual follower of aesthetics—and happen to have been scrolling Instagram on July 10, when the site debuted—you likely thumbed past at least a few black-and-white posts from newly “Persana verified” derms and surgeons. They were all announcing the launch of what they describe as the “first and only aesthetic health services platform that connects you with best-in-class physicians.”
Dubbed “Your Aesthetic Concierge,” the site features doctor profiles, uncomplicated synopses of procedures (face and body, surgical and non), and a curated collection of insider tips (like: Hey, despite what you’ve been told, fillers can actually last for many years, so limit repeat injections to avoid an overfilled look). But at its core, Persana is a communication platform. While reporting this story, I made the mistake (twice) of describing Persana as a “referral site” in conversation with cofounder Babak Azizzadeh, MD; I was quickly corrected (both times). “We’re helping consumers find vetted physicians, but really, we’re facilitating their communication, so they can interact with doctors one-on-one, immediately,” explains Dr. Azizzadeh, a double board-certified facial plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, clinical chief of otolaryngology at Cedars-Sinai, and associate clinical professor of surgery at UCLA.
Dr. Azizzadeh’s goal in creating the site (in collaboration with the venture capital firm Initiate Studios) was twofold: He wanted to streamline into “a 60-minute endeavor” what is normally a months-long process of finding, researching, and meeting with a specialist. And he wanted to provide patients with “on-demand accessibility to high-level aesthetic doctors,” he says—doctors who’ve been carefully evaluated by him and his team of fellow physicians and formally invited into the Persana fold.
The surgical side of the platform is particularly robust—but, at this time, heavily male. The leaner dermatology arm, on the other hand, comprises many women and individuals of color, notes board-certified New York City dermatologist and Persana advisory board member Michelle Henry, MD: “The team is dedicated to including a diverse range of physicians known for their predictable outcomes, excellent service, and ability to prevent and correct complications.”
By credentialing doctors for us, removing the customary gatekeepers (receptionists, medical assistants), and shrinking wait times, Persana lets aesthetic treatment-seekers skip straight to the good part: the consultation.
The vetting process
If I’m being honest, when I first heard about Persana and the heavy hitters involved—Drs. Ben Talei, Mike Nayak, Rod Rohrich, Kami Parsa, Guy Massry, Mary Lupo, Michelle Henry, Doris Day—it felt a little cliquey in a cool-kids’ table, you-can’t-sit-with-us sort of way. All lovely individuals, in my experience, but as a collective? Formidable.
When influential doctors refer patients to their equally influential peers, are they providing an invaluable medical service, pumping up each others’ practices—or a little bit of both? In fairness, some of these doctors do have personal relationships offline. And it’s not unusual for them to refer patients back and forth. Dr. Henry maintains that recommendations from respected doctors are “ideal,” and believes that Persana can “help patients cut through the deceptive social-media marketing that often steers them in the wrong direction when making decisions about aesthetic physicians.”
When I ask Dr. Azizzadeh about Persana’s vetting standards, he intuitively addresses the elephant in the room: “We didn’t want this to just be a group of friends [vouching for each other], so the vetting process has a lot of objectivity.”
Before inviting a physician into the network, the Persana advisory board, which includes some of the names listed above, authenticates their medical license and board-certification status. (Doctors have to be board certified in a relevant specialty: dermatology, plastic surgery, otolaryngology with fellowship training in facial plastic surgery, or ophthalmology with fellowship training in oculoplastic surgery. Hair restoration surgeons must be boarded in one of the aforementioned core specialties and belong to either the International or American Society of Hair Restoration Surgery.) Persana’s board also assesses each doctor’s online reputation (via their website, patient reviews, and social platforms) and “confirms they’re in good standing, without any recent or major malpractice actions,” Dr. Azizzadeh adds.
While there is arguably some inherent bias in this—and every vetting system carried out by humans—the background check aims to save us some legwork. After all, who better than a doctor (or panel of them) to spot the cracks in another MD’s facade? They know the subtleties of training, licensing, certification, research, and results. They know where to look for potential skeletons. (Still, it’s wise to do your own homework before fully committing to a physician.)
Oftentimes, “the only criteria patients have [to go on] is board certification,” says Ben Talei, MD, a double board-certified facial plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, who is on the Persana advisory board. “Board certification is great for safety—it means they’re not going to kill you—but it doesn’t say anything about skill level. The doctors on Persana aren’t just board-certified, they’re vetted [by their peers] to be experienced, safe, and talented in the cosmetic world.” Beyond the fundamentals, “those involved are known for their integrity,” he adds. “We’re all in academia. We’re not aggressive influencer types. We’re not bullshitters. That’s why doctors want to be a part of this.” (As I’ve previously reported for Allure, there’s a distinct difference between the so-called “Instagram doctor”—one who seems famous on social media, but is otherwise unknown in the field of aesthetic medicine—and a physician with years of experience and a solid reputation who has genuinely earned a loyal following online.)
For Daniel Gould, MD, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, a big part of Persana’s appeal is the peer-review process—being scrutinized and validated by doctors who are “leading the charge in academics and education,” he says. When he was approached about joining—by surgeons who have known him for years, seen him lecture at conferences, and observed him in the operating room—he was asked to provide his CV, a list of recent articles he’s published in medical journals, and a series of before and afters. “They were like, ‘You’ve got some great B&As on your website, but show us your last 20 consecutive surgeries—show us what you do, one after the other, consistently,’” he says. “That was unique.”
Prior to receiving his invite, board-certified Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Ritu Chopra, MD, was told that Persana “would be looking into my online background as well as verifying my standing with the medical board and American Board of Plastic Surgery,” he says. “They knew about my social media activity and my position as a fellowship director for The Aesthetic Society.” (While Dr. Chopra’s account of his experience isn’t identical to Dr. Gould’s, Dr. Azizzadeh assures me the vetting process is standardized.)
How Persana works
First, the site welcomes you to “the Persana Matching Process, where we help you find the physician who meets your needs.” (Matching not referring—got it.) If you know which procedure you’re interested in, you enter it along with your ZIP code, how far you’re willing to travel, and how much you’re able to spend. If you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, you’ll be led down a slightly different digital path.
Since I’m familiar with many of the treatments and doctors on the site, I experimented with the parameters. Like a gambler hoping to outsmart the slots, I tried to coax the algorithm into returning the exact physician I had in mind for my imaginary surgery. (Sure, I could've just searched for her by name, but where's the fun in that?) She’s about 135 miles from me (Persana’s drop-down menu tops out at 100) and on the pricey side, so I cast a wide net: Blepharoplasty. No max distance. $30K budget. But when I clicked “continue,” no dice. Persana didn’t deliver the Connecticut oculoplastic I was betting on (who is, indeed, on the site), but instead offered up a facial plastic surgeon in New York City and two other oculoplastics, one on each coast.
As Dr. Azizzadeh explains, the work-in-progress algorithm is engineered to consider not only the procedures and budgets we feed it, but certain nuances that are perhaps unknown to users, like a physician’s availability or the regularity with which they perform various procedures. So, as I discovered, search results aren’t always predictable. And since the site is still in its infancy, glitches are inevitable. “I got a call from someone saying, ‘Oh my god, I was trying to get Botox and it referred me to a surgeon who does Botox only rarely,’” Dr. Azizzadeh tells me. “It’s not perfect yet, but almost every day, we have a new update to the technology.”
Once you find a physician, you can contact them in one of two ways: by sending a direct message for $100, or scheduling a live video call for a higher, doctor-determined fee. These calls are akin to traditional virtual consultations, tend to cost around $300, and are limited to 25 minutes. If you DM a doctor when they’re on the site (indicated by a green “online now” button on their profile), they can reply instantly. Otherwise, they have 72 hours to respond. “I answer multiple DMs on a daily basis—mostly questions about procedures, and people sending me pictures to ask if they’re candidates for surgery or fillers,” says Flora Levin, MD, a board-certified oculoplastic surgeon in Westport, Connecticut (and the doctor I’d been targeting with my own search). “About 60% of those chats turn into appointments.” (Currently, only nonsurgical procedures can be booked directly via the platform.)
The DM option seems to be a hit with doctors, because it provides a HIPAA-compliant space for patients to safely share personal information and photos. “I get so many inquiries on social media—it’s just a free-for-all,” says one Persana-vetted surgeon who requested anonymity. People feel comfortable reaching out on social—it’s easy, unintimidating, free—but from the doctor’s POV, “it’s hard, because I don’t want to come off as avoidant or dismissive, but if I’m really paying attention to HIPAA and legal issues, I shouldn’t be engaging,” he adds. Dr. Talei echoes this sentiment: “We’re all scared to answer medical questions on Instagram—we don’t want to get sued, we don’t want stuff to go public.” Now doctors can funnel advice-seekers on Insta over to Persana, where DM-style conversations can happen in a secure and above-board fashion, assuming folks are willing to pay for the guidance they’re soliciting.
To set up a more in-depth live video call through Persana, it helps to also keep tabs on your doctor’s social channels—that’s where they post their upcoming availability for these virtual consults. Since Persana is still somewhat under-the-radar (for now), it’s often easier to nab one of these spots than to book a consultation through a doctor’s office. “On Persana, I may be able to do a consultation within a week’s time,” Dr. Levin says. “In the office, I usually schedule two to three months out.” (She typically charges the same amount for both kinds of consults.) That said, some doctors confess that they don’t have much time to devote to Persana chats. Others haven’t quite figured out how to integrate the platform into their existing scheduling system.
Criticism and controversy
Persana has already attracted a fair amount of controversy. Soon after its rollout, a non-doctor friend who works in aesthetics texted me: “The people who were not invited are pissed.” Naturally. There’s the sense of rejection, the FOMO. “But this isn’t meant to be an ostracizing process,” Dr. Talei insists. “If someone’s not on the platform, does that mean they’re not a good surgeon? No, of course not—it doesn’t mean that at all. It could be that they didn’t care to be on it. Or that somebody sent an email that wasn’t received.” (The list of doctors on the site is set for now; Persana plans to expand its directory within the year.)
Aiming to further clarify intentions, our anonymous doctor adds, “Persana needed a critical mass of doctors, at all different stages of their careers, with time to be involved, who could use the network and test it, essentially. This wasn’t some grand award ceremony.”
While the invite-only aspect clearly touched a nerve, Dr. Azizzadeh suggests that the model could change in the future—to an extent. Going forward, “if someone wants to self-nominate, we’ll look at everyone. But if they don’t fit the core of what we’re looking for—if they don’t have the strongest reputation amongst peers and patients—then, obviously, they may not be accepted.”
“Conflict of interest”—that bias I mentioned earlier—is another phrase being whispered by industry insiders. Can a group of doctors fairly judge who among them is most exceptional? To skeptics, this alliance feels a bit fraught and self-serving. A connected contact in Beverly Hills even remarked: “By the looks of it, Persana might just be a bunch of buddies getting together to fuel their egos by calling each other ‘best in class.’”
As with similar services—like the OG research-and-referral site RealSelf—there’s also the usual suspicion around finances: Who’s paying whom? “It’s funny, when I first posted about Persana,” my anonymous source reports, “I immediately had friends asking, ‘How much did you pay to be a part of this?’” According to every physician I interviewed, Persana does not charge doctors to be in the network. This was a calculated move, Dr. Azizzadeh says. They wanted to eliminate the pay-to-play element that breeds distrust among patients. Persana does, however, charge doctors a fixed transaction fee for the chats and video calls hosted by the site, as well as for appointments booked directly on the platform. (For the record, some Persana doctors are also investors in the platform.)
While on the subject of money, it’s hard not to notice that Persana’s directory boasts the most expensive plastic surgeons in the country—the six-figure facelift set. This aligns with the brand’s “luxury” vibe, of course, but the show of extravagance could make some prospective patients feel excluded, alienated, Persana non grata. (I get it—that lunchroom trauma just never fades.) When I raise this point, Dr. Azizzadeh counters that the site also includes physicians who have “incredible outcomes and sterling reputations and charge more modest fees.” As the network grows, he says, so too will the range of price points.
Ultimately, Persana is poised to be a valuable resource for aesthetic enthusiasts, but it shouldn’t be your one-stop-shop for a dermatologist or plastic surgeon. “Patients need to have at least six points of contact [like previous patients, Google and Yelp reviews, the practice’s own website] where they can independently verify a doctor’s reputation, credentials, and the quality of their work,” says Dr. Gould. “Persana gives them one more place to find me.” And in his opinion, it’s a welcome departure from sites that (allegedly) charge for “verified” status—“it’s not just another app selling checkmarks.”
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Originally Appeared on Allure
