Questions to ask a surgeon

Identity and credentials

Ask the complete legal name, current CMCPER number, who performs critical parts, every assistant or second surgeon, and separate AMCPER membership. A directory result is a current credential check, not proof of candidacy, facility status, experience with a particular variant, or outcome. ^[4][5][7]

Audit question: Do official results match the person consulted, and what facility privileges or accountable role applies to this exact operation?

Procedure-specific experience and plan

Ask how the exact operation is defined, which technique and alternatives exist, which areas are included, and what causes staging, postponement, modification, or cancellation.

FTC guidance says objective advertising claims require substantiation. Ask for written support for any experience or outcome figure; this guide does not prescribe a universal audit formula. ^[32]

Audit question: What result cannot be promised, what alternatives include doing nothing, and which component changes consent and price?

Facility and anesthesia

Request legal facility name, operating address, applicable sanitary documentation, responsible person, anesthesia professional and credentials, recovery setting, equipment, transfer, and blood-service arrangements.

COFEPRIS's directive makes these concrete review topics but does not confirm a named facility from a supplied image or brand. ^[8][9]

Audit question: Can every document be matched to the site and can the competent authority clarify applicability before travel?

Risks and informed consent

Ask for common and serious risks of the exact plan, how combinations change them, alternatives, when understandable consent arrives, and who answers questions. Ask the surgeon to distinguish expected findings from signs requiring assessment without asking a website or coordinator to diagnose symptoms. ^[1][2]

Audit question: What factors would alter the plan, and is there time to review the written risk discussion before payment or arrival pressure?

Recovery and travel

Ask the local review schedule, who is responsible after discharge, companion requirements, findings that delay travel, remote-assessment method, and home-clinician coordination.

General source timelines cannot clear an individual. The route, carrier, operation, and current recovery all need case-specific attention. ^[1][2][3]

Audit question: Who supplies written mobility, positioning, wound, device, medicine, and carrier instructions, and who updates them if recovery changes?

Complications and revisions

Ask where urgent concerns are evaluated, who answers after hours, which transfer route applies, what the package pays, and how a revision is decided and scoped.

A promise to handle everything does not identify facility, anesthesia, travel, lodging, or complication costs. Request policy language.

Audit question: Who remains clinically responsible locally and after return, and what event activates emergency rather than routine contact?

Price, cancellation, and records

Request the itemized variant, payee, contract party, deposit, refund and postponement rules, changed-plan charges, extra care and stay costs, and record delivery language and date.

Seller-published offers and ASPS average surgeon fees are not equivalent total bills or quality evidence. ^[33][34]

Audit question: What changes if less or more surgery occurs, and when will the operative report, tests, medicines, and device records be delivered?

Request the complete legal name and CMCPER number and compare the official directory result; search AMCPER separately because membership and certification are different records. ^[4][5][7]

Request the facility legal identity and operating address before reviewing the establishment topics described by COFEPRIS. ^[8]

FTC advertising principles support asking for substantiation of objective safety, effectiveness, and price representations, but they do not validate a surgeon or reported outcome. ^[32]

For an experience or outcome figure, ask for its definition, period, denominator, treatment of revisions and readmissions, and independent-audit status. For the operation, ask what is planned, optional, or conditional; who performs each critical step; and what changes consent, price, staging, or travel. Record each promised document and due date. Keep direct clinical explanations distinct from coordinator logistics, and leave unresolved names, addresses, responsibilities, and contingency plans visibly unresolved rather than absorbing them into reassurance. Add the source checked, date checked, person responsible for follow-up, and the consequence of a missing answer. A checklist is complete only as a record of responses; it cannot turn an unsupported answer into evidence or determine candidacy. Keep a dated copy.