Recently released stats on cosmetic surgery in the US show various trends – nose jobs are down, Brazilian butt lifts are up! One bit of data that is often overlooked or incomplete is that of cosmetic surgery prices. Maybe back when we had no cost info available to us (price transparency has only recently become a buzzword), having a national average was fine. But now, consumers expect more.
While BuildMyBod released the 2015 Pricing report that includes all costs associated with cosmetic surgery, the ASPS procedural statistics that were recently released includes the MD fees only. Anyone that has ever had a cosmetic procedure, particularly an operation, knows there’s additional cost than just the surgeon’s fees. For example, if you look up arm lift cost on the ASPS website, the average cost from 2013 is $3,729.
Now, to the prospective cosmetic surgery patient, they might think this is the total cosmetic surgery cost. But if you read the fine print, you’ll see that, “The average fee referenced above does not include anesthesia, operating room facilities or other related expenses!” [exclamation point added for emphasis]
So how much does the “anesthesia, operating room facilities or other related expenses” add up to? Let’s do the math. An arm lift in my in-office operating room takes me 2 hours to do. That’s $900 in OR fees. The anesthesiologist will typically be there for 30 minutes longer than me so 2.5 hours for the anesthesiologist is about $1000. Then you have medication fees (during surgery and postop medications) which is $130. We purchase 2 postoperative garments for our patients and in the case of an arm lift, that costs $150. And lastly, we purchase a cosmetic insurance policy for every patient in case they have a complication and that costs $300. So what’s the grand total?
The additional fees that aren’t included in the ASPS numbers add up to $2,480. That’s 40% of the total cost! In contrast, the BuildMyBod Pricing report highlights physician-provided cosmetic surgery prices that are complete and include all costs. For example, in the United States, the average cost of an arm lift is $5,926, according to BuildMyBod’s 2015 Plastic Surgery Pricing Report. In the Midwest US, the average price for an arm lift is $5,703. In the Northwest US, the average price for an arm lift is $6,346. In the Western US, the average price for an arm lift is $5,953. In the Southern US, the average price for an arm lift is $5,737.
Averages are fine but if you want more complete cosmetic surgery prices from Dr. Kaplan, click here.
Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Jonathan Kaplan for BuildMyBod.
