How a Small Surgery Practice Competes in Manhattan
Stephanie Romeo, practice manager at 740 Park Plastic Surgery in Manhattan, on 18 years with one surgeon, following up with surgery patients without pressure, and what a small team that stays together does for the patient experience.
Stephanie Romeo
“Nobody wants somebody looking over their shoulder at work and then all of a sudden it's like, 'Oh, you wanted to have a facelift done?'”— Stephanie Romeo
Show notes
Stephanie Romeo is the practice manager of 740 Park Plastic Surgery, the Manhattan practice of plastic surgeon Dr Stafford Broumand. She joined at 21 on the front desk, moved into patient coordinating and now runs the office, and in December she completes her 18th year. This episode is hosted by Sally from Coherent rather than Jared.
Stephanie describes a five-person team: a receptionist with the warm voice patients hear first, a patient care coordinator who prepares people for surgery and watches for post-operative red flags, a full-time aesthetic nurse, a medical assistant who also works as surgical tech, and herself.
Most of them have been there between six and eleven years, so the roles overlap and little gets lost. The practice has its own surgical suite and follows Quad A accreditation guidelines, so pathology work orders, yearly guideline updates and sign-offs are all logged, and she says patients should expect the same standard they would get at a hospital ambulatory centre.
The practice has changed with the market. When she joined, much of the work was reconstructive, from breast reconstruction to hernia repairs and chest closures for cardiac patients, with referrals from breast, general and cardiac surgeons.
As insurance changed, the mix moved to about 90% cosmetic and 10% insurance-based, and the team added an aesthetic nurse for lasers and other non-surgical treatments because patients wanted to stay with people they already trusted.
Referrals from patients, their families and other doctors are still how she likes patients to arrive, while Instagram and TikTok have become a place where people research surgeons, which she calls a double-edged sword.
On follow-up, Stephanie rejects the car-dealership model. Patients can take months or, for a facelift, even two years to commit, so she holds dates without pressure, checks in with a couple of lines by email, relies on a small number of automated emails after website enquiries and tells people plainly that the surgeon is not going anywhere.
Because there is one surgeon and one operating room, she also explains that a held date can be lost, and promises to call first. She checks the setting before a quote lands, because nobody wants a colleague glancing at a facelift price on the screen at work. Sally adds that fully automated messages about something this personal have to be discreet.
She runs the numbers monthly. A spreadsheet she has kept back to 2006 tracks surgical and injectable figures by category, is fed from NextGen, and goes to Dr Broumand each month with one question: why did this rise or fall?
She finds the answer in the economy, in filler fatigue that is moving patients towards bio-stimulators and skincare, and in the calendar, from IPL pausing over summer to facelifts timed before the school year.
The conversation closes on growth: patients have asked for a Florida office, a Manhattan satellite for the aesthetic nurse is under discussion, and the med spas on every block are a different business, so the practice stays known for small, warm, compassionate care.
Key takeaways
- Let people take their time. A facelift patient may come back two years after a first conversation, so Stephanie holds a date, checks in lightly and never pushes. She thinks that is why people return to book.
- Say what the real constraint is. With one surgeon and one operating room, a held date can go to someone else. She tells patients so and promises to call them first, which gives the follow-up a reason without a sales push.
- Check the setting before you send the quote. She reconfirms that the PDF carries the patient's full name, the procedure and the cost, and asks where they will open it, because nobody wants a colleague looking over their shoulder at a facelift price.
- Keep nudges to two lines. Website enquiries get one automated email and a second a few weeks later, and the human follow-up is a short note asking whether there are any questions. New York patients, she says, do not want to be inundated.
- Answer the downtime question honestly. How much time off is the first thing patients ask. She and Dr Broumand give the longest realistic timeframe, and she defines downtime as when the bruising and swelling have settled enough to face people, not when a patient can first leave the house.
- Read the numbers monthly, then ask why. Surgical and injectable figures sit in separate categories, go to the surgeon each month, and every jump or dip gets a cause: the market, a special, a new treatment or the season. IPL pauses over summer, and September is when she brings those patients back.
- Let a stable team cover for each other. Most of the team has been there six to eleven years, holidays are simply covered, and someone can always explain what a colleague would. Stephanie says loyalty matters tremendously in a medical office because things do not get lost.
- Add a service when patients need it and the practice can do it safely. New treatments start with a patient need, then the questions of safety, monitoring and daily volume. GLP-1 prescribing, which needs bloodwork first, is her example, and she now sees patients going elsewhere for it because it is so widely offered.
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