- Video
- Why Does One Doctor Cost More Than Another?
{{ showTranscript ? 'HIDE' : 'SHOW' }} TRANSCRIPT
Plastic surgeons are like any other business. They sort of charge what they can charge. If your surgery schedule is full and you’re booking months out in advance, then you're going to raise your price. And if your surgery schedule isn't full, you'll lower your price to do more surgery.[silence]
So, part of the price of surgery is just related to how busy the surgeon is and what fees that surgeon can command. Some of it depends upon the affluence of their community. I mean, a plastic surgeon in the upper east side of Manhattan, if he had somebody equally as good that was in Queens, the guy in the upper east side is going to charge more. There are more affluent people. But, it's also true that rent is higher on 72nd and Madison than it is just about anywhere or probably anywhere in Queens. He may be paying his nurses more. Everything may cost a lot more money. So, there are some issues with the fixed cost, as well. As people start being a lot less expensive than other people, you're going to start seeing things like nurse anesthetists, instead of anesthesiologists, and this isn't necessarily true. So, don't anybody take this as a, as a blanket statement. But, you know, you may not be having the same quality registered nurses.
For instance, I always overstaff my O.R. I want to always have someone, an R.N. in recovery, an R.N. in the operating room, a scrub tech in the operating room, that's required. But then, I always have another R.N., just to make sure. The anesthesia drugs I give cost more than what some places give. There are things like that that can be cinched on, and you want to be sure you're not getting cinched. I get the feeling that some of the very highest fees I've seen for breast augmentation, it differs with other procedures, or with plastic surgeons who could have carved this niche out for themselves of being very, very high priced. And, they get people, a lot of patients, from Europe and the Middle East, who are used to paying these very high prices. Some of them are excellent. Some of them, in my opinion, aren't excellent. I don't think that that is a guarantee that you’re going to be getting the best surgeon. I mean, no price is a guarantee. The plastic surgeons whom I most respect, on a personal level, for breast augmentation, I would say, are sort of like in the upper area of average. They're not these crazy high-out liars that maybe do one breast augmentation a month on some European Royalty. They're certainly not the people scraping the bottom, but they're sort of like, upper normal.
Why Does One Doctor Cost More Than Another?
Doctor Steven Teitelbaum covers what affects the differences in pricing between doctors.