Mia Aesthetics Lawsuit: Negligence, EEOC, and BBB Complaints

Mia Aesthetics, the Miami-based cosmetic surgery chain founded by Dr. Sergio Alvarez in 2017, has been the subject of at least 30 medical negligence lawsuits filed between November 2020 and March 2026, a federal disability discrimination suit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2024, and 192 consumer complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau over the past three years. Across those cases, the company has denied wrongdoing and frequently invoked mandatory arbitration clauses in patient contracts to move disputes out of court.¹

The Scope of Medical Negligence Claims

A joint investigation by NBC News and KFF Health News identified at least 30 medical negligence cases filed against Mia Aesthetics and its affiliated entities between November 2020 and March 2026. A dozen of those suits targeted the company’s surgery center in the Kendall area of Miami.²

The concentration is not evenly distributed across the company’s roster of roughly 23 surgeons. A separate NBC News report found that four doctors on Mia’s staff had each faced three or more malpractice actions since 2020. The reporting did not publicly identify those four physicians.³

The company operates over 13 clinics in cities including Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, New York City, Phoenix, and Tampa, and focuses on high-volume procedures such as liposuction, Brazilian butt lifts, tummy tucks, and breast surgeries.⁴

The Texas Cases Against Dr. Rambod Charepoo

The most closely documented cluster of malpractice claims involves Dr. Rambod Charepoo, a surgeon employed by Mia Aesthetics in Austin. Between mid-July and the end of November 2025, five Texas women filed malpractice lawsuits against Charepoo and the company. Four of the five alleged that Charepoo and Mia Aesthetics failed to adequately treat postoperative infections. The fifth alleged other complications.⁵

One of the plaintiffs, Anna Palko, a 33-year-old mother of four, filed suit in November 2025 after requiring emergency care at St. David’s Medical Center in Austin. According to her complaint, a hospital physician wrote in her medical records that Charepoo was “well-known to our emergency department for similar post-op complications associated with cosmetic surgery through MIA Aesthetics.”⁶

Mia Aesthetics has been dismissed from one of the five Texas cases and has denied the allegations in the remaining filings. Charepoo has also denied the claims.⁵

Separately, the Texas Medical Board investigated Charepoo and concluded in October 2024 that he had failed to meet standards of care for five out of six patients examined. The board ordered him to have a surgical proctor oversee 20 of his operations per quarter for two years, complete additional medical education and pass an exam, and pay a $4,000 fine. In January 2025, Charepoo sued the board in Travis County District Court, seeking to overturn what he called “excessive and unjustified” penalties. That challenge was still open as of mid-2026.⁶

Why So Few Cases Reach a Courtroom

A recurring feature of Mia Aesthetics litigation is the company’s use of mandatory arbitration clauses. Patients who sign up for procedures agree to resolve any disputes through private arbitration rather than in court, and Mia has repeatedly invoked those contracts to win dismissals of malpractice suits.¹

The tactic is common across the industry. In a case involving a different cosmetic surgery chain, a judge ruled in June 2024 that a wrongful death suit had to proceed in arbitration because the deceased patient had signed an agreement, effectively ending the family’s courtroom lawsuit. Consumer advocates have argued that arbitration favors surgery companies and limits patients’ ability to pursue accountability publicly.²

The EEOC Disability Discrimination Suit

On July 31, 2024, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Mia Aesthetics in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. The case is EEOC v. Mia Aesthetics Clinic ATL LLC and Mia Aesthetics Services, LLC, No. 1:24-cv-03407.⁷

The complaint centers on Kiera Webb, a surgical sales coordinator who was diagnosed with breast cancer and asked to work remotely for three months while undergoing chemotherapy. She supplied medical documentation. According to the EEOC, in-person attendance was not an essential function of her job, but Mia denied the accommodation and offered her a part-time front desk role instead. That switch would have cut her earnings and increased her physical exposure to others during treatment. The agency contends the refusal violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.⁸

The case has been marked by contentious discovery. In May 2025, the court sided with the EEOC on several discovery disputes. By August 2025, a judge ordered Mia Aesthetics to pay for a third-party vendor to handle electronic data production after finding the company had effectively attempted to “rewrite” a prior court order.⁹

In April 2026, a federal magistrate judge recommended sanctions against Mia Aesthetics for failing to preserve electronic records from Salesforce, Slack, and Google Voice. The court rejected the company’s argument that its own document destruction policy justified the missing data, writing that “Defendants cannot simply rely on their own document preservation practices as a good reason for the data no longer existing.” The magistrate recommended that a jury be allowed to hear evidence about the lost data and its potential relevance.⁹ A separate report noted the judge recommended the company be punished for failing to preserve sales data and messages.¹⁰ Mia Aesthetics filed objections in late April 2026. As of mid-2026, the matter was awaiting a final ruling from the district judge, with no settlement or verdict on the underlying claim.¹¹

Consumer Complaints at the Better Business Bureau

Outside the courtroom, Mia Aesthetics has drawn 192 complaints on its Better Business Bureau profile over the past three years, with 48 closed in the most recent 12 months. Only 18 of the 192 are classified as “Resolved.” The remaining 174 are listed as “Answered,” meaning the company responded but the customer did not confirm satisfaction.¹²

Three patterns show up repeatedly in the complaints:

Refund disputes. Patients report being denied refunds on deposits ranging from $650 to over $3,400, even after the clinic canceled their surgery or the patient was medically disqualified.
Fees and pressure to accept credit. Complainants describe rescheduling fees, contract modification fees, and pressure to take credit toward future procedures rather than cash refunds.
Medical records access. Patients report difficulty obtaining their own records, even after submitting HIPAA authorization forms, with the clinic often stating that the forms were insufficient or contained the wrong language.

In its BBB responses, Mia Aesthetics has generally declined to address the substance of individual complaints, stating that HIPAA prevents it from discussing patient information without a signed authorization form that it considers adequate.¹²

The Regulatory Gap

Reporting by NBC News and WUSF found “little regulatory oversight” for cosmetic surgery chains in Florida. The FDA tracks complaints about drugs and medical devices, but no equivalent federal database exists for cosmetic surgery outcomes. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons investigates ethics complaints against its members but does not look into allegations of malpractice or incompetence.²

Florida passed House Bill 1471 in 2023, setting new standards for office-based gluteal fat grafting procedures, including mandatory ultrasound guidance, a ban on injecting fat into the muscle, and a one-to-one patient-to-physician ratio.¹³ Whether that law has changed Mia’s operations has not been publicly reported.

How the Company Has Responded

Alvarez, the company’s founder, has not responded to press inquiries about the lawsuits or the company’s practices. In court filings across multiple cases, Mia Aesthetics has denied allegations of negligence and continued to assert that disputes belong in arbitration rather than in court.¹

1
NBC News. Cosmetic Surgeries Patients Allege Disfiguring Injuries
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WUSF. Patients in Florida Allege Cosmetic Surgeries Led to Disfiguring Injuries
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NBC News. Cosmetic Surgery Chain Doctors Lawsuits Allege Injuries Pain
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Mia Aesthetics. Mia Aesthetics Homepage
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KFF Health News. Recovery Houses Outpatient Cosmetic Surgery Patient Risks
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Tampa Bay Times. Cosmetic Surgery Medical Malpractice Lawsuits Deaths Florida Texas
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EEOC. EEOC Sues Mia Aesthetics for Disability Discrimination
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Bloomberg Law. EEOC Sues Cosmetic Surgery Company for Disability Discrimination
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EDRM. EEOC v. Mia Aesthetics Clinic ATL LLC Round III
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Law360. Lost Data Should Get Co. Punished in EEOC Suit, Judge Says
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CourtListener. EEOC v. Mia Aesthetics Clinic ATL LLC Docket
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BBB. Mia Aesthetics Clinic LLC BBB Complaints
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American Med Spa Association. Deep Dive Into Florida’s New Plastic Surgery Law