Certification & Methodology
What the badges mean
Board certification is not one thing. The badge on each profile tells you which board, if any, the public record supports — and the boards are never conflated.
The American Board of Plastic Surgery (ABPS)
ABPS is the board that certifies plastic surgeons in the United States. A surgeon with an ABPS-verified badge has a record in the ABPS directory. ABPS membership in the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) requires ABPS certification, which is why ASPS and ABMS-sourced records were used as supporting evidence — but the directory's own check is what settles a badge.
Facial boards are not ABPS
Surgeons certified by facial boards (ABFCS, ABFPS, ABFPRS) or in otolaryngology–head and neck surgery are tagged Facial board only — not ABPS. They may be excellent facial surgeons; they are not ABPS-certified plastic surgeons, and this site never presents them as such.
Other boards are not ABPS
Family practice, internal medicine, ophthalmology, oral & maxillofacial surgery, general surgery, osteopathic boards, and cosmetic-surgery boards are tagged Other board — not ABPS. A generic “board-certified” claim on a practice website is never read as ABPS unless a named source says ABPS.
Badge glossary
| Badge | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ABPS-verified | Directly verified in the ABPS directory, or verified via a named society/ABMS record where noted. |
| ABPS-verified (group) | Practice-group row: the surgeons in the group hold ABPS certification. The group itself was not individually checked. |
| Claimed | Only the practice's own site (or a group claim naming no individual) says board-certified. Not independently verified. |
| Other board | Certified in a specialty other than plastic surgery. Not ABPS. |
| Facial only | Facial boards / otolaryngology only. Not ABPS. |
| Unknown | No board certification record was found in the sources checked. Unknown means not found, not that no certification exists. |
| Pending clarification | The ABPS record found does not cleanly match the listing name. Not treated as verified until clarified. |
| ABPS not found | The direct ABPS directory check returned no record. Any prior society-sourced label has been withdrawn. |
Methodology — exactly what was checked
Oct 27, 2026 — direct ABPS directory check, 30 Scottsdale-area names (live lookup at abplasticsurgery.org): 28 verified, 1 not found (Dr. Alexander Golger), 1 pending clarification (Dr. Marc Malek — the only matching record is under “Marcel Maan” Malek).
Oct 28, 2026 — direct ABPS directory check, 58 statewide names (same directory): 54 verified, 4 not found (Dr. Brent Schultz, Dr. Rohit Jaiswal, Dr. Atanu Biswas, Dr. Spencer Michalke).
Of the 83 ABPS-verified rows on this site, 82 are individual surgeons verified directly (28 + 54) and 1 is the AAA practice-group row described above. Listings labeled Claimed, Other board, Facial only, or Unknown were not directly checked against the ABPS directory; their labels reflect the sources named on each profile.
Status wording: “Participating/Not Current” in the ABPS directory still means certified. “CERTIFIED See FSMB” means certified plus a state board action alert. An expired hand-surgery subspecialty does not affect a plastic surgery certificate that is valid indefinitely.
Verification is never monetized. No practice can pay for a badge, for verified status, or for a higher position in organic order. Paid products (Featured, Enhanced, leads) are labeled and described on the For Practices page and never touch verification or ranking.
Freshness: addresses, affiliations, and practice status were re-verified in a freshness sweep on Oct 28, 2026. Two listings were removed from the site for lack of a verifiable current practice (North Valley Plastic Surgery, Four Peaks Plastic Surgery of Tempe).
Distances on search results are approximate, measured from city or ZIP centroids — not from street addresses — and are disclosed as approximate wherever shown.