Body Contouring
and Body Lift Costs
The cost of a lower or total body lift depends on many factors. These include:
1) How many procedures are requested or needed? Do you want a total body lift, a lower body lift, or a mommy makeover?
2) Who is doing your body lift? Why Dr. Agha’s extensive experience will save you money and give you superior results.
3) Where your surgery is being performed? Hospital versus ambulatory surgery centers.
4) Quality of Your Body Lift Surgery.
How Many Procedures Do You Want?
There are many factors that affect the final cost of a body lift including the degree of skin and tissue laxity, the orientation of tissue laxity, the amount of underlying fat, and the amount of sculpting, contouring, reshaping, and augmenting that is needed.
For some patients a body lift may need minor liposuction, whereas another person may need significant liposuction and sculpting. Some patients may need no upper body or back lift, while others may want both back lift and outer chest skin excision. Some patients may just need a breast lift and others may desire a breast lift with augmentation. So, each person is different and has his/her own set of problem areas and vision for enhancement.
Thus, Dr. Agha customizes each body lift surgery according to the needs of the individual patient and his/her desire. This customization results in an individualized body lift cost for that patient. Your body lift cost may be very different than the price another patient pays, just as your bodies and visions are different.
How Many Procedures Are Built Into Your Body Lift?
In addition to what we mentioned above, the price for a body lift will differ from one surgeon to another. This is because the amount of correction done or the number of procedures done during a body lift is different from one surgeon to another.
Many plastic surgeons use the terms circumferential abdominoplasty, belt lipectomy and lower body lift synonymously. However, in our practice, a lower body lift is a much more involved and comprehensive surgery than a belt lipectomy or a circumferential abdominoplasty. Thus, a high-definition body lift with its 12-14 procedures would be more expensive than a circumferential abdominoplasty that offers 5 procedures. Although the incisions are exactly the same, the amount of tightening is far more extensive with our high definition lower body lift. So it is important to understand each component of your lower body lift.
Dr. Agha’s lower body lift is the most comprehensive body lift since it includes every necessary procedure. It includes tummy tuck with abdominal muscle tightening, pubic lift, thigh front lift, outer thigh lift, waist skin excision, lower back skin excision, buttock lift, buttock augmentation with lower back fat pad (flaps), liposuction and liposculpting, and buttocks fat transfer. As you can appreciate, this is a complete correction and enhancement, rather than lesser involved surgeries such as a belt lipectomy or a circumferential abdominoplasty.
Another way to look at this is to consider the surgical time. Whereas a belt lipectomy or circumferential abdominoplasty can be performed in 4 to 4.5 hours by Dr. Agha, a high-definition lower body lift typically takes him 7.5-8 hours to complete.
Dr. Agha typically combines body sculpting via liposuction and body lift at the same time. Liposuction is often performed to remove excess fat during body lift surgery, which can raise the body lift cost. The latter is dependent on the number of areas that need liposuction for contouring, shaping, and creating curves. Dr. Agha typically performs liposuction of waist, love-handles, and saddlebags on most patients (when needed) during his high-definition body lift surgery.
Who Is Doing Your Body Lift? Why Dr. Agha’s Extensive Experience Will Ultimately Save You Money And Gives You Superior Results.
As you can see from our extensive before and after of some of our patients, Dr. Agha has substantial experience in body lifts and Plastic surgery after weight loss. He has innovated multiple procedures with other plastic surgeons, has written multiple plastic surgery book chapters and articles, and has taught his techniques in many plastic surgery meetings for years. While he performs about 30+ body lifts per year (see our Instagram at drsiamakagha), most plastic surgeons do 1-2 body lifts per year- according to data from the American Society of Aesthetic plastic Surgeons.
Thus, most plastic surgeons may end up doing 40-50 body lifts in their life time while Dr. Agha has already done over 500 body lifts. This is probably one of the highest body lift numbers performed by a single plastic surgeon world-wide.
Why does this matter? Well, a lesser experience plastic surgeon may not offer you a more comprehensive correction or not know all the novel plastic surgery techniques that have been developed for weight loss patients. Also, a lesser experienced plastic surgeon may become more expensive at the end since they may decide to do 1-2 procedures at each setting rather than multiple procedures that go together.
Each setting should be viewed in terms of cost of the operating room, anesthesia fees, cost of days away from work (sick days/vacation days/disability), recovery costs, home help needed, and the surgeon’s fees. Thus, you may now see why having your surgeries with a specialized surgeon like Dr. Agha who has been an innovator and pioneer in the field of plastic surgery may actually be less expensive than doing your surgery with a lesser-experienced plastic surgeon. Whereas Dr. Agha can accomplish a total body lift of 14-16 procedures in 2 stages of surgery, each about 7.5 hours and separated by 3-6 months, other lesser experienced surgeons may want to do this in 4 or more stages. So instead of 2 recoveries and 2 periods of off-work, the patient now has to take off many more days to complete his/her surgeries.
Furthermore, many surgeries and incisions go together and thus look better when done together. As an example, the abdominoplasty incision, outer thigh lift incision and the buttock lift incision are all continuation of one another. Thus, it is best to do them together to remove as much skin as possible, to end up with one nice scar, and to save patient time and money.
Some surgeons may elect to break the front and back of a lower body lift into 2 stages or days. That means, one day for the tummy tuck and a later day for the buttock lift. Although, this seems a good idea for the healing purposes, it produces a lesser optimal correction and result. Again, apart from 2 recoveries, a 2 stage lower body lift will require going through parts of the same incisions twice in order to remove as much waist skin and outer thigh skin as would be offered by a one-stage lower body lift. This is because the incisions are tapered at the end of a buttock lift or tummy tuck. This will ultimately result in an inferior outer thigh lift than a one-stage body lift.
Another set of surgeries that are best done together are the L-brachioplasty (arm lift and armpit lift) and J-upper body lift. Again, the incisions for these procedures are best done together since they are connected. Also, bra-line upper body lift, reverse tummy tuck, and breast lift incisions are connected together so it is best to do these procedures together.
Where Your Surgery Is Being Performed?
So, by now you can appreciate why a more experienced and specialized plastic surgeon will ultimately save your money and produce superior results. By doing these procedures on regular basis, Dr. Agha can do a high-definition body lift in 7 ½ to 8 hours while most plastic surgeons may need 11-12 hours to perform the same surgery. Here, his experience is saving you time under anesthesia and operating room costs.
To achieve this goal of performing multiple procedures in an expedited manner and shorter OR time, Dr. Agha instituted multiple measures in his practice that have ultimately resulted in him being one of the most popular and sought-after body lift and body contouring surgeons world-wide. These measure include:
- Performing the surgery in a surgery center under his directorship. This means that the surgery center is well equipped with supplies necessary for performing extreme transformations.
- Supplies are kept in the same location so that there is no wasting time in the middle of surgery looking for what is needed next.
- Supplies are pulled and opened at the beginning of the surgery so that there is no time wasted.
- Using the same surgical tech in every surgery means that the surgical tech is proficient and experienced in working with Dr. Agha and after more than 10 years has learned what is needed with each step of the surgery and being prepared for it in advance. This saves seconds with each move which will ultimately save hours.
- Dr. Agha hired and has trained a physician assistant to work with him since 2017. The job of the physician assistant is to help him to expedite the surgery and suturing of the tissues. Having closely groomed our physician assistant for several years now, she can now suture as well as many plastic surgeons. This expedites skin closures since 2 people are now working simultaneously.
- By using the same anesthesiologist(s) for the past 10 years, our main anesthesiologists now has immense experience in performing anesthesia on patients who need to be kept sleep for 7 hours and awakened soon after the end of the surgery. Also, body lift patients require padding and protection of their head and skin while on the operating room table on their tummy and then back. This is an integral part of the preparation where the anesthesiologist is involved in protecting the patient’s head, arms, etc.
- Having performed thousands of plastic surgery procedures, Dr. Agha comes to each patient with a well-planned surgery on the morning of surgery. This plan is then reflected and marked on the patient. Each line is checked over and over for symmetry with the other side and to make sure that the lines are straight or nicely curved. Dr. Agha believes that this is the most important part of his surgery. Plan over and over and then cut once. His immense experience comes to play into his planning and marking. Dr. Agha often says that the rest of the surgery is execution of a finely and precisely planned day. Again, this is when Dr. Agha’s immense experience saves you time in the operating room.
- Our surgical nurse is always the same person. Thus, she can also anticipate what each patient, each surgery, and each recovery needs. This again saves time in the operating room.
Now you may appreciate why Dr. Agha prefers to perform his surgeries in a well-controlled and self-directed surgery center. Early on in his practice, Dr. Agha noticed that his surgeries took on average 2 1/2 hours longer in the hospital and thus cost his patients a lot more. This is because each step of the surgery is delayed. Your hospital anesthesiologist, surgical techs, and surgical nurses do many different types of surgeries and procedures everyday and every week. One day they may be doing heart surgery, another day general surgery, or orthopedic surgery in a week. Most hospital staffs are not specialized in one discipline of surgery (e.g. plastic surgery) let along specific plastic surgery procedures. Your hospital anesthesiologist may not know how to pad a weight loss patient. Your hospital surgical tech may have not done much plastic surgery and may not know what equipments are needed, let alone the suture type. He or she may have not seen that many body lifts and will not be able to anticipate and stay ahead of the next step. While each of these waste seconds to minutes at each step, they end up being hours at the end of the surgery. This is why we use the same team with every surgery to manage time efficiently and to produce superior results.
Quality of Your Body Lift Surgery
A highly qualified, expert plastic surgeon is undoubtedly more expensive than a lesser experienced plastic surgeon. However, plastic surgery is an art and you are paying for Dr. Agha’s years of experience, his artistic ability as your surgeon, and ultimately for the quality of surgery that you receive.
Other Factors That May Affect The Cost Of Your Body Lift Surgery
1. Your Health History
Chronic conditions or diseases can add to your body lift cost. This is because the surgery then becomes more complicated in preparation, and needs to be performed in a hospital setting.
2. Pre-Surgical Tests and Exams
Prior to your surgery, Dr. Agha ensure you are healthy and can undergo body lift surgery. This cost is not usually included in surgical cost estimates, so be sure you ask about pre-surgical blood tests, diagnostics and exams.
3. Compression Garments and Accessories
Your compression garments may be provided by Dr. Agha’s office. These can cost up to a few hundred dollars, adding to your body lift cost. You will also likely need gauze, bandaging supplies and gentle soap for post-surgical self-care.
4. Medications needed.