Breast augmentation is one of the most popular plastic surgery procedures overall and one of the most commonly performed plastic surgery procedures for women under the age of 35. Breast augmentation is a fairly ‘standard’ procedure in terms of how it is performed and the time it takes to perform it. In my hands, a primary breast augmentation procedure takes one hour to complete, from entering the operating room to being awake headed to the recovery room. Much of the cost of breast augmentation is, therefore, fixed including the cost of the breast implants themselves (silicone gel breast implants cost more to purchase than saline breast implants) and the use of the operating room and the anesthesiologist’s charges.
Because breast augmentation costs are predictable, many plastic surgeons freely publicize their fees to perform the procedure. When seeing a breast augmentation fee stated, make sure the fee you are seeing is all-inclusive. Often times, touted breast augmentation fees only list the surgeon’s fee and you have to read the fine print to see the additional costs of the breast implants, operating room, and anesthesia. If the fee has an asterik (*) by it, you automatically know that the listed fee is only a tease and misleading.
Because breast augmentation is a very predictable operation in terms of costs and execution, unlike most other plastic surgery procedures such as facelift, liposuction, etc., the listing of breast augmentation costs for any practice is not unreasonable. Also, one of the most common questions that patients have about breast augmentation surgery is the cost. It is often the first and only question they may have when making a phone call to your office or an e-mail inquiry to your website. For these reasons I, like many plastic surgery practices, prefer to publicize my fees for breast augmentation. In my practice, the all-inclusive costs for silicone gel breast augmentation is in the range of $5,999 and $6,999 depending upon whether saline or silicone breast implants are used.
Dr. Barry Eppley
Indianapolis, Indiana