Once upon time the cost of blepharoplasty and other cosmetic procedures designed to augment certain areas of the body would have been incredibly costly. It was these astronomic costs that meant these surgeries were only options for the very richest in society and generally speaking it was the celebs and the wealthiest individuals who this was exclusively for. Over the years however we have seen a sharp fall in the cost of such procedures, in some cases the average price has fallen by some 50%. So what exactly is behind the dramatic decrease in price for so many of these surgical procedures? Let’s take a look.
Wider Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery
There is little doubt that one of the main causalities of this lowering of costs is that as a society we are far more accepting than ever before with regards to plastic surgery. Because of this change in opinion we now see more and more people going in for these types of procedures, and that has thus reduced costs based on the simple business model of supply and demand. The more desire there is and the more interest the market has, the ore plastic surgeons turned to this route instead of the medical one, and this enabled lower pricing to take place.
Bringing in Advanced Tech and New Methods
In the world of cosmetic surgery much of the price involved with it is based on labor costs, or the number of hours which the surgeon requires to perform the surgery. What we have seen in the case of many surgeries such as breast augmentation is that this is now a faster surgery than ever before. A speedier surgery means less surgeon hours, less OR hours and all of this has helped to contribute towards lower overall fees for such surgeries.
Acceleration Through Accessibility
Initially when the accessibility grew, it didn’t lower prices, what we saw was more clinics and surgeries, running at similar if not slightly lower prices. Eventually however the growth in accessibility added to competition amongst clinics, and that is what helped to drive the price down. We have seen this happen in major cities all over the world and it is clear that the competition amongst clinics helped with this.
Reaction To Surgery Tourism
When prices were too high we saw a number of patients looking to travel abroad to have surgery done. In places like Colombia and Mexico there is a much more liberal attitude towards this and that is why so many went there for cheaper surgeries. Surgeons in the US did not want their customers going elsewhere of course and so they had to react to this by lowering prices for their customers.
These are certainly the main factors in the overall cost of cosmetic procedures being low, and it certainly looks at the moment that they will be staying that way. What do you make of the current cost of various cosmetic procedures?
