Cheap plastic surgery: A cost-benefit analysis
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Thinking of traveling to an exotic low-cost destination or perhaps even the local low-price leader for some serious cosmetic surgery?
While most patients who undergo plastic surgery are happy with their decisions and feel the results were well worth it, the true real and potential costs of having cosmetic care are seldom understood.
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The fee paid to the surgeon is just one small part of your possible total costs, a surprise you may not consider until your surgical journey is finally over and the bills come rolling in.
Performing a cost-benefit analysis ahead of time may thus be enlightening.
Of course, most of the benefits from cosmetic surgery are subjectively intangible and so hard to judge by dollar value. However, this is eminently doable if you give the matter careful thought.
After all, while a patient may feel, as the American Express commercial suggests, that the value of a successful operation is "priceless," he or she would probably run out the door if asked by a plastic surgeon to sign over every last dollar of financial worth. Cosmetic benefits do have a comparative and finite value, but this will vary with each patient's own economic, social, and psychological situation.
To perform a meaningful cost-benefit analysis requires that you do your best to assign reasonable values to every category, not just the ones that are easy to fill in or the ones that assume everything goes well.
For most people, this time-consuming exercise will seem to take too much effort with too much estimation (and granted, some of the numbers are almost impossible to know except in retrospect).
If that's how you feel, at least skim over the outline listing potential costs and benefits you should know about before undergoing an elective operation. Remember, your medical insurance is not going to help you out with any of this.
Flying across the ocean to undergo surgery by an unfamiliar surgeon working within an unfamiliar medical system guided by unfamiliar standards of quality to save a fraction of the surgeon's fee may at first seem a clever strategy, but you will soon see that any discount off the standard domestic fee is small compared to your potential financial risks.
The point is, people contemplating cheap plastic surgery seldom consider their true monetary and non-monetary exposure. Unless you love to gamble, using the best doctor you can find will seldom be a mistake, even if his or her services, at first glance, may "seem" to be expensive.
With any luck, you will never know what you missed.
. . .
ECONOMIC COSTS
cash out-of-pocket
1. PREOPERATIVE
• research and consultations (doctor fees, tests, travel costs, lost earnings)
2. SURGERY
• surgeon
• other doctors
• hospital
• laboratory (before and after)
• medications
• travel (transportation, lodging, meals, incidentals)
• lost earnings
3. ROUTINE FOLLOW-UP
• special supplies
• special medications
• travel (transportation, lodging, meals, incidentals)
• lost earnings
4. COMPLICATIONS NOT REQUIRING MORE SURGERY
• research and consultations (doctor fees, tests, travel costs, lost earnings)
• treatment
• medications
• supplies
5. COMPLICATIONS REQUIRING ADDITIONAL SURGERY
repeat items 1-4 above for each revision operation
!!! Not including all such items in the calculation will result in a cost-benefit analysis that is skewed to look unrealistically favorable because it assumes that all results are satisfactory, which is not the case. For example, if one in twenty-five patients undergoing calf reduction by selective neurectomy suffers gait complications at an average economic cost of $75,000, then you must enter in 1/25 of $75,000, or $3,000, in the appropriate spot on the cost analysis, and so on. This represents your fair portion of the "odds" that something bad may actually occur with your operation, but it obviously does not reflect your true costs if you actually do experience such a complication.
6. PERMANENT COMPLICATIONS THAT ARE NOT REPAIRABLE
(see !!! above)
• lifelong loss of income
• lifelong medical expenses
• special appliances or aids
NON-ECONOMIC COSTS
non-cash expenditures
7. PAIN AND SUFFERING
8. INCONVENIENCE
9. EMOTIONAL STRESS
10. IMPAIRED QUALITY OF LIFE
Steps 7-10 must be considered for all possible outcomes:
(see !!! above)
• (2-3) uncomplicated surgery
• (4) complications without more surgery
• (5) complications with more surgery
• (6) non-reparable complications
ECONOMIC BENEFITS
11. INCOME
• increased income from employment gains related to appearance
NON-ECONOMIC BENEFITS
12. PSYCHOLOGICAL
Try to assign a reasonable dollar value. "Priceless" is not acceptable.
• feeling better about yourself
• increased self-confidence
• easier social interactions
• physical appeal
. . .
Tired? You're not done yet...
All of the calculations (categories 1-12) now need to be repeated for each close companion, friend, or family member who will be directly impacted by your operation and recovery.
Not including the costs/benefits for all parties involved will result in a cost-benefit analysis that is skewed to look unrealistically favorable. For example, if your spouse takes off two weeks to care for you after surgery, all related costs (travel, lost income, etc) must be included.
. . .
Once you've finished collecting data...
Add up all potential costs and then add up all potential benefits. Subtract total benefits from total costs. Only then should you consider having cheap plastic surgery.
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