About a year after China Business Daily (reporter Ma Jia) completed the injection project, Lucy (pseudonym) still has not recovered her red and swollen face due to allergies, she told China Business Daily: "I thought about publicly complaining in front of their (Baihui Medical) door and telling others not to be deceived again." ”
The reporter learned from the investigation that Parkway Medical has cultivated a large number of "channels" for its "solicitation", including beauty salons, nail salons, weight loss centers, etc., and these "channels" may become a hidden danger of medical beauty consumption.
BESTWAY Medical Stores. (Picture from the company's official website)
Chaos 1: "Solicitation" mainly relies on "channels" Relevant qualifications are to be reviewed
"I made an appointment with his family (Parkway Medical) through a nail salon, and the nail salon said that his family specializes in making celebrities' faces. Later, I handed over the money to the nail salon, and the nail salon said that it would transfer the money to BESTWAY Medical. Then, BESTWAY rented a local clinic for me to do the project. After I was injected with Restylane No. 2 filler, my face was allergic. Lucy said that after her face was allergic, neither the nail salon nor Parway Medical was responsible for the matter.
According to the company's investigation, the full name of BESTWAY Medical is Shanghai BESTWAY Medical Technology Group Co., Ltd., which is a purely private high-end club integrating micro-plastic surgery and high-quality plastic surgery. According to people familiar with the matter, Parkway Medical has opened medical aesthetic clinics across the country, such as "Parkway Extraordinary" and "Parkway Plastic Surgery", which are the names used by the company's clinics. The reporter found that Parkway Medical is essentially a "channel medical beauty" institution.
Some people in the industry explained that "channel medical cosmetology" institutions are medical cosmetology institutions that obtain customers through the outside world. In order to obtain customers, these institutions will give a generous "commission" to the "channels" that provide customers outside, such as beauty salons, KTVs, restaurants, banks, and even individuals may be channels of medical beauty institutions.
According to Lucy's guidance, the reporter contacted a weight loss center called "Good Shape and Slimming". The content posted by the beauty consultant of the weight loss center on WeChat Moments is related to Parkway Medical. The beauty consultant told reporters that this weight loss center is the "channel" of Parkway Medical, and only through the "channel" can the reporter make an appointment for Parkway Medical's project.
The above-mentioned beauty consultant told reporters that her boss will do medical beauty projects in Parkway Medical every year, and the annual consumption amount has reached tens of thousands of yuan. This is just the threshold to become a "channel" for BESTWAY Medical. If the reporter recommends a friend after completing the project, he can also draw a certain commission, and there is a chance to become a "channel".
In May 2023, the "Guiding Opinions on Further Strengthening the Supervision of the Medical Beauty Industry" jointly issued by 11 departments including the State Administration for Market Regulation pointed out that it is strictly forbidden to make promises or statements that do not meet the requirements of laws, regulations and diagnosis and treatment norms in diagnosis and treatment consultation and medical guidance activities, increase the disposal of "medical trust" and "medicine trust" in accordance with the law, investigate and deal with commercial bribery, and severely crack down on illegal diagnosis and treatment consultation and medical guidance.
Chaos 2: Lack of basis for charging and pricing, channels or the existence of "invisible profits"
In the interview, the reporter learned that Parkway Medical may also be trying to maximize the benefits of the "channel" as much as possible. The reporter consulted with the WeChat customer service of Baihui Medical as a consumer, and said that if you want to be admitted to the hospital for consultation, you need to pay a face-to-face consultation fee of 299 yuan first.
When the reporter asked about the basis for the collection of the consultation fee and the services included, the above-mentioned customer service said that "this is just a consultation fee". The reporter asked BESTWAY Medical about this issue, but as of press time, no reply has been received.
The "channel" of Parkway Medical told reporters: "Parkway Medical charges face-to-face consultation fees in order to prevent individual customers from making appointments. For consumers who do not have 'channels' and are not introduced by acquaintances, BESTWAY Medical will not accept them. With the 'channel', consumers can waive the cost of face-to-face consultations by purchasing items and packages. ”
The price of the product given by the "channel" is very attractive, but there may be an "invisible profit" behind it. The reporter came to the weight loss center, and the beauty consultant brought the reporter to the conversation area, saying that 9 items of Baihui Medical can be packaged and sold, which only costs 4,980 yuan, including facial design, Restylane No. 2 hyaluronic acid, tightening/clearing, facial wrinkle removal, female intimate function testing and expert interpretation, skin boosters and skin testing, etc.
On the price list of the Baihui medical project given by the beauty consultant, the reporter saw that the original price of a Restylane No. 2 hyaluronic acid was 8,800 yuan. Seeing that the reporter was a little hesitant, the beauty consultant said again that he could first apply for a 500 yuan experience card for the reporter, including a face-to-face consultation with Parkway Medical and a Restylane No. 2 hyaluronic acid. So far, here in the weight loss center, there have been three prices (original price, package price, and experience price) for the BESTWAY Medical Restylane No. 2 product.
When asked how to make money when the price of the project is so low, the beauty consultant said that the weight loss center and Baihui Medical will naturally have a corresponding share.
On the basis of product price pricing and channel sharing, the reporter sent an interview outline to Baihui Medical, but as of press time, no reply has been received.
The "channel" of a medical aesthetic institution has publicly stated: "For every person we pull, the medical aesthetic institution will return us a 30%-40% share. When a consumer has an operation of 20,000 yuan, at least 6,000 yuan goes into our pockets. A monthly income of 50,000 to 60,000 yuan is 'commonplace', and some 'channel' bosses quickly buy cars and houses. ”
Liu Feng, chairman of the Beijing Medical Cosmetology Dispute Research and Mediation Center, said in an interview with the media that the national regulatory authorities will set the highest standards for high rebates, and exceeding the relevant standards will be recognized as medical commercial bribery.
Chaos three: product after-sales has become a problem High-end or rely on "channels" to tout
"After I had allergy symptoms, they took me to Shanghai and got a device to test my skin, and they didn't give me any explanation. I went to a public hospital to see my face, and the doctor asked me, 'Why don't you go to a regular hospital for aesthetic treatment?'" said Lucy.
The high-end of BESTWAY Medical is all touted by "channels"?
Lucy said that she hadn't really known about Parkway Medical before, but according to the nail salon she frequented, this medical aesthetic institution is very high-end, and the price of each item is millions or even tens of millions of yuan, but once you get to the "channel", you can get discounts, and the price of the products is as low as a few hundred or thousands of yuan.
The reporter consulted the beauty consultant of the above-mentioned weight loss center about the high-end aspects of Parkway Medical, and the other party said that Parkway Medical is a listed group, and the doctors are also doctors who teach and teach medical technology internationally.
According to the reporter's inquiry, on October 10, 2017, Baihui Medical did hold a listing bell ringing ceremony in the National Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Share Transfer System Center. But in less than a year, Parkway Medical was delisted. BESTWAY did not elaborate too much on the reasons for the delisting. In addition, the reporter consulted with Baihui Medical about the recruitment requirements of doctors and assistants through a number of recruitment software, and the other party said that the recruiter's academic qualifications to the junior college are enough, and they can be retrained in the future.
In addition, the reporter inquired about a piece of news exposed by the media from the Market Supervision Bureau of Zhuji City, Zhejiang Province. In 2023, law enforcement officers from the Zhuji Municipal Market Supervision Bureau in Zhejiang Province investigated and dealt with a batch of illegally sold botulinum toxin and other medical aesthetic products without compliance qualifications, and conducted an investigation into the flow of products sold by medical aesthetic online merchants in Zhejiang.
For questions related to product quality and doctors' qualifications, the reporter also sent an interview outline to Baihui Medical, but as of press time, no reply has been received.
![On May 4, I earned 1,500 yuan a day, and I only relied on selling one product[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)