Free beer and Botox don't mix, according to the Arkansas State Medical Board.
The licensing agency on Thursday took to task a doctor and nurse practitioner from It's a Secret Med Spa for recent ads offering free beer with laser hair removal, free B-12 shots and $9 Botox injections as a Father's Day promotion.
The marketing effort was highly inappropriate for a clinic employing licensed controlled-substance providers, as well as "a consent problem, too," board Vice Chairman Dr. Robert Breving said.
Dr. Robert Tomlinson, who recently entered into what he called a "collaborative agreement" with the medical spa's Rogers and Fayetteville clinics, said he was "mortified" by the ad, which preceded his involvement with the company.
"There's been a lot of work done to revise how things are done there," he said.
Thursday evening, the ad was still visible on the It's a Secret Med Spa Twitter page, though an attorney for the company later told a reporter it should have been taken down.
Thursday marked the second time in three months that the Texas-based group, which offers cosmetic procedures such as injectable and laser treatments, has earned the ire of the Arkansas medical board.
In June, the licensing board rebuked the doctor then serving as the clinic's Arkansas medical director for overseeing procedures for which he said he had little training, such as injecting dermal fillers.
Dr. Donald Hill also told the board that he was visiting each clinic once every other month, to the dismay of board members, most of whom are physicians.
They pointed to the 300-400 procedures happening each month at the clinics with essentially no supervision.
"What do you think the outcome for you is if one of these goes bad?" board member Dr. Brian Hyatt asked Hill at that time.
Hill's employment with the medical spa ended that day, though there is a dispute over whether he was terminated or resigned, spa attorney Pam Wagner said.
Hill didn't immediately return a phone message Thursday evening.
Based on information learned during discussions of the beer ad, the board also voted to refer It's a Secret Med Spa to the attorney general's office to investigate whether its investment-group ownership structure violates the state's Medical Corporation Act.
That law requires medical practices in the state to be owned by Arkansas-licensed physicians, which Wagner said "is not what we were told the requirements were."
"The goal of this company is to be completely compliant," she said.
Asked how the clinics were able to open their doors, board attorney Kevin O'Dwyer said the medical board's primary jurisdiction is over the people it licenses.
Related corporations are required to register with the board, and O'Dwyer said the board staff has started working on rules to help better define the practice of medicine to encompass relevant businesses.
"There are a lot of these little spas all over the place," and their status as providers isn't really in question, he said.
Metro on 08/02/2019
