Truth-in-Advertising Laws: Are They Working? A Cross-Sectional Analysis of a "Plastic Surgeon" Patient Search Simulation.

BACKGROUND

Non-board-certified plastic surgeons performing cosmetic procedures and advertising as plastic surgeons may have an adverse effect on a patient's understanding of their practitioner's medical training and patient safety. The authors aim to assess (1) the impact of city size and locations and (2) the impact of health care transparency acts on the ratio of board-certified and non-American Board of Plastic Surgeons physicians.

METHODS

The authors performed a systematic Google search for the term "plastic surgeon [city name]" to simulate a patient search of online providers. Comparisons of board certification status between the top hits for each city were made. Data gathered included city population, regional location, practice setting, and states with the passage of truth-in-advertising laws.

RESULTS

One thousand six hundred seventy-seven unique practitioners were extracted. Of these, 1289 practitioners (76.9 percent) were American Board of Plastic Surgery-certified plastic surgeons. When comparing states with truth-in-advertising laws and states without such laws, the authors found no significant differences in board-certification rates among "plastic surgery" practitioners (88.9 percent versus 92.0 percent; p = 0.170). There was a significant difference between board-certified "plastic surgeons" versus out-of-scope practitioners on Google search between large, medium, and small cities (100 percent versus 92.9 percent versus 86.5; p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

Non-board-certified providers tend to localize to smaller cities. Truth-in-advertising laws have not yet had an impact on the way a number of non-American Board of Plastic Surgery-certified practitioners market themselves. There may be room to expand the scope of truth-in-advertising laws to the online world and to smaller cities.