About This Episode
In this episode, host Don joins aesthetic medicine practitioner and educator Tracy Mancuso to tackle one of the industry's most expensive problems: buying technology because it looks innovative rather than because it belongs in your practice. Drawing on more than 30 years across clinical care and manufacturing, Tracy explains how owners can separate genuine advancement from expensive hype.
Tracy breaks down how to evaluate peer-reviewed evidence, validate patient demand before purchasing, test whether staff truly understand the science behind a device, and independently verify manufacturer claims. She also shares a practical patient-survey approach that can reveal demand while simultaneously creating a soft launch list for a new treatment.
Her framework is simple: start with the patient problem, not the machine, and never make a major technology decision in isolation. Build a trusted professional network, choose your own references, keep training beyond the manufacturer's basics, and make every investment earn its place inside the practice.
Read the full conversation
Introduction: Separating Innovation From Expensive Hype
Don introduces Tracy Mancuso, an aesthetic medicine practitioner and educator with more than 30 years of industry experience.
The episode explores how practice owners can distinguish genuine technological advancement from expensive hype before investing.
Tracy brings experience from both the clinical and manufacturing sides of aesthetic medicine.
The episode is brought to you by Ekwa Marketing.
[View Transcript]
A new device can look like the future of your practice, right up until you're making the payment and wondering why the schedule isn't full. Welcome back to the Business of Aesthetics Podcast. I'm your host for this session, Don. It's great to have you here. Today, I'm joined by Tracy Mancuso, an aesthetic medicine practitioner and educator with more than 30 years of experience in the industry.
We're going to talk about how practice owners can separate genuine advancement from expensive hype before they make the investment. This episode is brought to you by Ekwa Marketing. Tracy, welcome back to the show.
Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure, and I love dealing with the Business of Aesthetics and Ekwa.
Tracy, you've watched technologies come and go in this industry for more than 30 years, all promising to change the game. Can you take me back to a recent time when you were pitched something and decided, "No, this isn't for me"? What made you walk away? We want to get real practical experience right out of the gate.
Absolutely. One particular incident happened just recently because the practice I work in was looking at different technology. I was pitched, and I'm probably one of the more challenging people to pitch to because, not just because of my tenure in the industry, but I've also worked on the manufacturing side. I've seen that side of the business, so I'm very well acquainted with that end of it.
When somebody pitches me, they have to have all their ducks in a row. This particular piece of equipment didn't have any specific studies or anything peer-reviewed. It didn't have a lot of data. It was all based on predicate products and a lot of astonishing before-and-afters.
When I start seeing that, I start questioning it. This doesn't seem right. It doesn't seem like just a non-invasive treatment can perform like this. It doesn't make any sense.
Then they start pulling out their KOL, or key opinion leader, list, and it reads like the everyday list of the next device that gets put into the same hands over and over again. When I see that, it makes me doubt the device. I see it as over-promising things.
There's no research behind it. It's the same people talking about it. I'm just not really interested in it. It doesn't float my boat, even though it's in every magazine and they've paid for a ton of ads. It doesn't interest me.
What Qualifies as Credible Technology?
Tracy prioritizes peer-reviewed research over white papers, testimonials, and polished sales materials.
Credible technology should have appropriate controls, documentation, methodology, and statistical analysis.
Sales representatives should understand the underlying research rather than simply providing glossy summaries.
Scientific evidence is only the first filter; a good device can still be a poor business purchase.
[View Transcript]
When you're coming from the manufacturing side, what exactly are you looking at that qualifies as good technology?
When it comes with solid research, that's the big thing. I get a lot of research that comes across my desk, and I look at it. It's very interesting, but it's not peer-reviewed. That means it's what's called a white paper.
They've got together a couple of clinicians or physicians who've done some research on their own, come up with some good anecdotal evidence that this device works, and that's great. They put it into a white paper, but it hasn't been submitted to a journal that's part of our respected community and then peer-reviewed amongst all of the peers who say, "This is science."
It followed the rigors. It followed a particular approach to that research. It has controls. It has all the documentation and the right statistical analysis to make it valid.
That's what I look for first and foremost when somebody comes in and presents technology to me. I want to see that research, and I want to understand it.
If the rep can't tell me about this and they give me some glossy overview, and I ask them about these papers and say, "Can you explain this to me? That's what you're here to tell me about. I can read the paper, but you're here to actually tell me about it," and they can't tell me about it, again, it puts me off.