You speak with me — the surgeon who would perform your procedure — you get examined, and you leave with a specific plan and a straight answer about cost. If you live too far to come in first, you can do a phone consultation with photos submitted in advance and still talk to me directly before you book any travel. Nothing is decided in the room; you are not asked to commit that day.
People hesitate to book because they do not know what they are walking into. Some expect a sales presentation. Some assume they will meet a coordinator and never see the doctor. Here is the actual sequence, so you can decide whether to spend an hour on it.
Before the appointment
When you request a consultation, a patient coordinator reaches out — usually within minutes during office hours, otherwise the next business day. That call has one job: to work out which kind of consultation you need. They are not different only in name, and being booked correctly is what keeps your appointment from being a waste of your time.
- Surgical consult — liposuction, Lipo 360, BBL and fat transfer, labiaplasty, upper eyelid surgery
- Male enhancement consult — girth enhancement, erectile function, male hormones, scheduled discreetly
- Weight loss & peptide consult — GLP-1 programs, metabolic labs, peptide protocols
- Hormone consult — hormone therapy for women and men, with a full panel review
- Spa & injectable consult — neurotoxin, filler, laser and skin plans
- Phone consult — for out-of-town patients, with photos submitted beforehand
Consultation fees depend on the type and are confirmed when you book, so you will never be surprised at the desk. For surgical consultations the fee is typically credited toward your procedure.
What to bring
The consultations that produce good plans are the ones where the patient came prepared. Four things help more than anything else:
- Your goals, described plainly. “I want my waist back” is more useful than a procedure name. Photographs of results you like are genuinely helpful — they tell me what you find attractive, which is not always what I would have assumed.
- Your medications, supplements and medical history. Including the things that feel irrelevant. Blood thinners, clotting history, diabetes control and cardiac history all change what is safe.
- Your recent weight history, and whether it is stable. If you are mid-GLP-1 or still actively losing, that is not a disqualifier but it does change the sequence — I have written about how to sequence weight loss and contouring.
- Your timeline and any fixed dates. A wedding, a trip, a work deadline. Bring the date, not the month; it sometimes changes the recommendation.
The appointment itself
1. What you want changed, in your words
We start with what bothers you rather than with what I sell. Patients frequently arrive asking for one procedure and leave having chosen a different one, because the thing they are describing is not what that procedure treats.
2. The examination
This is the part a website cannot do and the reason an evaluation exists. Contour is fat plus skin, and I need to assess both: where the fat actually sits, how much of it is under the muscle rather than above it, what your skin will do when the volume beneath it is reduced, and how your frame and posture read. For liposuction and Lipo 360 that determines the areas, the volume and whether skin tightening belongs in the plan. For fat transfer or a BBL it also determines whether you have a donor site worth harvesting — and if you do not, whether donor fat is the better route.
3. The honest answer
Sometimes the honest answer is that you are not a candidate for what you asked about, or not yet. Sometimes it is that a smaller procedure will get you most of the way. Sometimes it is that the plan needs two stages and one recovery will not do it. I would rather have that conversation at the consultation than manage a disappointed patient afterward, and a surgeon who agrees with everything you propose is not evaluating you.
4. The plan and the number
You leave knowing the specific procedure or combination recommended, whether it is done awake or asleep, what recovery looks like week by week, and what it costs — a real figure for your plan, not a brochure range. Financing options get covered here too. Then you go home and think about it. Scheduling and surgical dates are handled with the coordinator, who will tell you what is available at each office.
How the phone consult works
A large share of my patients travel in — I have seen patients from across the country, and the reason phone consultations exist is that flying somewhere to find out whether you are a candidate is a bad use of a plane ticket.
To be clear about what it is: a phone consultation is a real conversation with me, with photographs reviewed in advance. It is not a video call with a coordinator, and it is not a substitute for an examination — an in-person evaluation still happens before surgery. What it does is settle candidacy, the likely plan and the cost before you commit money to travel.
The photographs
Photo quality determines how useful the call is. What helps:
- Front, both sides and back of the area, taken from the same distance
- Plain lighting, no filters, no flexing, no posing — stand relaxed and normally
- Fitted clothing or underwear so the actual contour is visible
- A side profile for chin, neck and abdominal cases, since that is the view that carries the information
Send them through the channel the coordinator gives you rather than by text, so they land in your chart properly. Do not put detailed medical information in a web form — that belongs in the conversation.
If you are traveling in for surgery
- Plan to stay locally three to five nights after a body contouring procedure
- A post-op check happens before you fly home, with remote follow-up afterward
- Hotel recommendations within minutes of each office are available from the coordinator
- Book travel after the surgical date is confirmed, never before — and see the timing article if an event is involved
Surgical days rotate between the Texas and Minnesota offices, which is why the date you want may not fall in the week you want it. Details for both offices, including hours and directions, are on the locations page.
Questions worth asking me
Patients often tell me afterward they wish they had asked something. Use these:
- Who performs the procedure, and who assists?
- Awake or asleep, and why that choice for me specifically?
- What result should I realistically expect, and what will it not fix?
- Does my skin need tightening as well as fat removal?
- How many stages does my plan need?
- What does the follow-up schedule look like, and what happens if something concerns me at week three?
- What is included in the quoted price, and what is not?
If you want the longer version of how to evaluate the surgeon rather than the procedure, that is its own article.
Next step
The consultation is where guessing stops. You will know whether you are a candidate, what the plan is, what it costs and how long recovery takes — and you decide afterward, not in the room. I see patients in San Antonio, TX and Burnsville, MN, and out-of-town patients can start with a phone consultation and photo review.
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Individual results vary. This article is general education, not medical advice, and does not replace an in-person evaluation.