When Ballard was unable to contact her mother, she called the hospital and learned that Smith had not shown up for her night shift for two days. Hospital officials called police and asked to conduct a welfare check at the extended-stay hotel in Glendale, California, where Smith was staying.
According to the coroner's report included in the court filing, the officer found her body on the bed “surrounded by towels and sheets stained with brown and green liquid.” According to the report, the countertop in the room was “littered with medical documents detailing post-op instructions from the liposuction clinic.” Ballard said she learned of her mother's death when she called Smith on his cell phone; the police officer responded with devastating news.
“Oh, my God, I fell on the floor,” Ballard told KFF Health News and NBC News. Ballard said she is still reeling from the shock and grief. “It bothers me because how can someone who dedicated her life to saving other people's lives die in a hotel like her life doesn't matter?” she asked.
Ballard said her mother trusted Regenasse based on her words. web man. She believes her mother, a registered nurse, would not have gone to the surgeon if she had known someone had died after the procedure Regenass performed at Pacific Liposculpture's San Diego office. Terri Bishop, 55, a truck driving instructor who lived in Temecula, California, died December 24, 2022, approximately three weeks after undergoing liposuction and fat grafting at Pacific Liposculpture, which owns history of skirmishes with government regulators.
Pacific Liposculpture did not respond to requests for comment. In court papers, the company denied that the surgeries played a role in the patient's death and moved to dismiss the cases. The company also argued that Ballard waited too long to file the lawsuit.
Bishop, who had a history of smoking, diabetes and high blood pressure, died of “atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease aggravated by viral pneumonia (2009 H1 influenza A),” according to the Riverside County medical examiner's report included in court records. The family disagrees and says Bishop died from a blood clot, a known complication of surgery. The trial is scheduled for June 2026.
In Smith's case, the Los Angeles County medical examiner ruled that the nurse died of “renal failure of unknown cause.” The autopsy report noted, “This is a natural death as the injury caused directly by the operation cannot be identified.”
Ballard is calling for further investigation to get to the bottom of what happened to her mother.
“I don’t think they were transparent about the risks and complications that could arise,” Ballard said. “I think they promise people things they can’t deliver.”
Ballard filed a complaint against the Regenass surgeon with the California Medical Board, which is being investigated by the board, according to documents she provided to KFF Health News and NBC News. She believes regulators should be more transparent about the backgrounds of surgeons offering services to the public. She also hopes the investigation will reveal more details about what happened to her mother.
“I just don't understand how she came back to me in a body bag,” she said.
What the law allows
Concerns about cosmetic surgery promotions date back decades.
Witnesses testifying to Congressional hearings in June 1989 A subcommittee of the House Small Business Committee in Washington heard a number of horror stories about patients mutilated by surgeons with questionable training and credentials. Subcommittee Chairman Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said patients were victims of deceptive and false advertising that promised “a quick, easy and painless way to change your life – all through the miracle of cosmetic surgery.”
Calling for reform, Wyden added: “So cosmetic surgery consumers are largely left to fend for themselves. This is again a buyer-beware market, and it smacks more of used car sales than medicine.” Wyden now represents Oregon in the US Senate.
All these years later, the police have much more territory to cover: an onslaught of online advertising such as flashy before-and-after photos, online posts and podcasts from social media influencers and others being courted by surgery companies in a costly attempt to attract business. Elite Body Sculpture, for example, spent $43.9 million on “business expenses” in 2024. That amounted to $3,130 in “customer acquisition,” according to the company's SEC filings.
Under Federal Trade Commission recommendationsAccording to Janice Kopec of the Consumer Protection Bureau, medical advertising must be “truthful, not misleading, and supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence.”
Any statements that are “suggested or reasonably implied” by the advertisement must also be accurate. According to the FTC, this includes “pure impression” conveyed by text as well as any charts, graphs or other images. The agency declined to provide details.
Healthcare businesses are free to decide what documentation, if any, to provide to the public. Most cosmetic surgery sites provide little to no such support for specific claims, such as recovery time or pain level, on their websites.
“There is no requirement that the substantiation be made available to consumers either on the website or upon request,” Engle, who is also a former Federal Trade Commission official, said in an email.
The law allows “bombasticity,” or boastful statements that no one is likely to accept at face value or that cannot be proven, such as, “You've tried everything else, now try the best,” Engle said.
Where to draw the line between acceptable boasting and unverified claims can be controversial.
Athenix, The private equity-backed cosmetic surgery chain, which has locations in six cities, called its use of terms like “safer” and “better results” bombastic in response to a false advertising lawsuit filed against the company by Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer in California in August 2022.
Spitzer alleged that Athenix advertised its “microbody contouring” technique as “safer” than traditional liposuction and offered “outstanding results with less pain and downtime” without backing it up, according to the lawsuit.
“There is no research or evidence to support these claims, and there is no scientific consensus on the use of these new methods,” Spitzer said.
The parties settled the case in July 2023, with Athenix agreeing to pay $25,000 without admitting wrongdoing, court records show. Before the settlement, Athenix argued that its use of terms such as “safer” and “better results” were “subjective” and “bombastic” and not false advertising.
While there are no signs that local or state authorities are stepping up scrutiny of cosmetic surgery advertising, federal authorities have signaled they are committed to cracking down on questionable advertising claims from drug makers.
IN letter sent to pharmaceutical companies In September, FDA Commissioner Marty Macari wrote that “false advertising is unfortunately the current norm” on social media platforms and that the agency will no longer tolerate these violations.
“Bad Advice”
To prove medical negligence, injured patients typically must prove that the care they received was not of the “normal standard.”a reasonably prudent” doctor with similar trainingwould provide. In their defense, surgeons may argue that complications are a risk of any surgery and that a poor outcome does not mean the doctor was negligent.
Some lawsuits filed by injured patients allege that surgical chain advertising misled them or that surgeons failed to fully explain possible injury risks – a claim known in medical circles as informed consent.
Caitlin Meehan had such a case. She underwent the $15,000 AirSculpt procedure at Elite Body Sculpture in Wayne, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. She said she agreed to the surgery in March 2023 because it was described on the company's website as “Lipo-lunch liposuction,” according to the lawsuit she filed in late August. The lawsuit alleges that the doctor with whom she discussed the procedure “asserted that there were no serious, life-threatening, long-term and/or permanent complications,” the lawsuit states.
However, during the procedure, gases entered under her skin, causing widespread swelling called subcutaneous emphysema, the lawsuit says. Meehan was shocked to see that her face, neck and upper body were severely swollen, causing her to become short of breath.
The friend who drove her to the appointment asked employees to call an ambulance, but employees said it was not necessary, the lawsuit says. After an hour-long drive home, Meehan said her skin felt like it was on fire and called 911. She spent four days in the hospital recovering and was left with scars, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit is pending and the company has not yet filed a response in court.
Scott Hollenbeck, former president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, said recovery from liposuction in one day “seems unrealistic,” given the possible bruising and swelling.
“The idea that you can return to work 24 hours after effective liposuction seems like extremely bad advice,” Hollenbeck said.
The advertising, which promised patients minimal discomfort, has also been attacked in patient lawsuits.
More than 20 other medical malpractice cases reviewed by KFF Health News made similar allegations of unexpected pain during surgeries at cosmetic surgery chains using lidocaine to relieve pain during “wake liposuction.”
One patient who sued Elite Body Sculpture in Cook County, Illinois, alleged that she “cried over [the] severe pain” during surgery in September 2023. She claimed that the doctor said he could not give her any more local anesthetic and insisted on the procedure. The defendants did not file a response in court. The practice did not respond to a request for comment.
Engle, a former Federal Trade Commission official, said that while discomfort claims are somewhat subjective, they still need to be “true and substantiated,” such as backed by “valid and reliable clinical research on patient experiences.”
