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Hospitals join in Botox bonanza

By Lisa Greene, Times Staff Writer
In print: Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Medical assistant Claudia Gualtiere prepares the laser as she sets up the room for the next client at Bayfront Rejuvenations inside the Bayfront Convenient Care Clinic at 7000 Fourth St. N in St. Petersburg.
	[DIRK SHADD | Times]

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ST. PETERSBURG — These days it's no surprise to see doctors who used to do other stuff — delivering babies, setting broken bones — opening up their own medical spas focused on youthful good looks.

But now there's a new player at the Botox party: your community hospital.

Bayfront Medical Center operates Bayfront Rejuvenations at one of its convenient care walk-in clinics at 7000 Fourth St. N. And BayCare Health System, which runs several nonprofit hospitals in the Tampa Bay area, plans to open a medical spa at its St. Anthony's Carillon Outpatient Center in late August.

"A lot of hospitals are getting into more retail medicine" to boost their bottom line, said Donna St. Louis, vice president of outpatient services for BayCare.

As medical spas have multiplied, so have concerns about the quality of services they offer and the level of medical supervision present. The hospitals see themselves as a natural alternative. They hope people will automatically associate their names with higher-quality medicine.

"A lot of medical spas, the doctor's not on site," St. Louis said. "My medical director is going to be on the same floor. I think there's a little more security knowing your physician's right there."

At Bayfront, Dr. Nathan Keith Waldrep does procedures himself. He's so concerned about the quality issue that he doesn't want to call the new venture a spa.

"We do not have a medical spa. We have an aesthetic medical practice," said Waldrep, medical director of the new practice and of Bayfront's convenient care clinics.

Waldrep conceded that others will call it that. Rejuvenations offers a variety of medical beauty procedures, from Botox and Restylane to laser hair removal. The one thing it doesn't have, Waldrep said, is nonmedical services, such as massages and wraps.

At Carillon, the spa won't offer Restylane or other injectables that should be performed, not just supervised, by a doctor, St. Louis said. It will offer several types of laser therapy, microdermabrasion, Botox, massage and "probably 10 types of facials."

Just as primary care doctors have found spas a way to bolster their bottom line, medical spas are a way for hospitals to bring in dollars to balance out other services that communities need, but lose money for the hospital, such as trauma and indigent care.

Still, St. Louis said, it's not a huge profit center. One reason BayCare is interested is because many of its employees want such services. At Carillon, they'll get a discount.

"I don't think we're going to get rich on a medical spa," she said. "It's to add another service line."

Waldrep said it was a patient's injury that prompted his interest in cosmetic procedures.

"I had a woman come see me with second-degree burns on her chin" from a bad laser job, Waldrep said. "I realized people are getting hurt out there."

Lisa Greene can be reached at greene@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3322.