Luxury plastic surgeries reach another level and exceed R$ 1 million

The New York Times

As the famous F. Scott Fitzgerald quote goes, the rich are different from you and me — and the same goes for their facelifts, apparently.

Ask Hilda Back, 63, who traveled from her home in The Woodlands, Texas, to New York and shelled out $230,000 for facial cosmetic surgery performed by Andrew Jacono, a plastic surgeon perhaps older. known for the recent facelift of stylist Marc Jacobs.

Back said the cost of his intervention, which included corrections to the forehead, lower and upper eyes, facial adjustment, lip correction, neck correction, earlobe reconstruction and rhinoplasty, “was a little higher than I expected.” “but she is happy with the results.

“I have a Rolls-Royce, I have three houses, I have everything I could ever want, but I still felt depressed,” said Back. “My way of interpreting the situation is this: this is my face, and it will go with me wherever I go.”

So why not a $200,000 facelift? The cost of cosmetic surgery performed by one of the elite plastic surgeons — whose work is shrewdly publicized and who often specialize in facial work and have months-long waiting times, despite their fees — has skyrocketed in recent years, as with the prices of real estate, art, cars and other luxury collectibles.

“It’s a bit like the brand on a garment or the idea that the higher the price of wine, the better it is,” said Jonathan Sykes, a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills and former president of the American Academy of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Facial. “Is a facial surgery worth the high price being charged? Only the consumer can decide on that”. (Sykes’ facial surgeries cost between $40,000 and $50,000—$200,000 to $250,000—he said.)

While inflationary pressures, which include the cost of medical supplies and salaries for support staff, and rising demand — something the industry has dubbed “the Zoom boom — have led many surgeons to raise their prices, the cost The average cost of facial surgery in the United States grew only marginally to $9,127 in 2021, up 3% from 2020, according to the Aesthetic Society, which brings together certified plastic surgeons.

Physicians who promote “designer pattern” facial surgery insist that their advanced techniques, keen aesthetic sensitivity and extensive experience entitle them to charge these prices. Lara Devgan, a plastic surgeon in New York, compared what she does to “commissioning an artist to do a really beautiful picture.” Devgan, whose Instagram account has 690,000 followers, charges up to $200,000 for a facelift.

“At first glance, the sum may seem high, but I think of what I do as a matter of value rather than cost,” said Devgan. “A person’s face is their job, their love life, their identity.”

Julius Few, a plastic surgeon in Chicago and Los Angeles, charges $50,000 for “basic facial surgery,” he said, “and I go up to six figures” for more extensive procedures. He spoke of his love of painting and photography, and his 22 years of focusing on facial work.

“For the affluent patients I treat, the experience is more like acquiring a work of art than ordering a technical procedure,” said Jacono, who is one of the pioneers of a technique known as “extended deep plane” facial surgery. , which he taught to other surgeons around the world.

The key difference between deep plane facial surgery and SMAS surgery (short for “superficial musculoaponeurotic system”, which refers to the layer of tissues and fascia between the skin and muscles of the face) is that deep plane surgery allows to maintain the adhesion between the skin and the SMAS, preserving the capillaries and the blood flow to the skin, while the SMAS technique separates them. Deep plane surgery works by repositioning facial ligaments that stretch with age and the effect of gravity, allowing movement of the face so it doesn’t look stretched, as it used to do with facelifts in the past.

Many surgeons perform deep-plane facial surgery and do not ask their patients to pay nearly a quarter of a million dollars for the procedure. “I understand this type of work as a luxury item, and it has great value, but it shouldn’t be restricted to the 1%,” said Dr. Matthew White, a plastic surgeon in New York who does complex deep-plane facial surgery.

White said the procedure certainly deserves a higher price, because it is very technical, but that, morally and ethically, a wider range of patients should have access to this type of work.

For well-heeled people —despite the sentiments expressed by the surgeon—the idea of ​​spending enough money to pay for four years of college education in order to have elective surgery is hardly surprising.

Steven Levine, a plastic surgeon from New York, recalls a follow-up visit to a patient who was about to try on a dress she would wear to the Met Gala, and for which she said she paid $425,000. mi). “I thought to myself that her surgery was a bargain,” said Levine, who charges $50,000 to $110,000 for surgery on the face, forehead and neck, with corrections in the upper and lower eyelids.

So, assuming an amount like this is within your budget, what exactly does a patient buy for $200,000?

Surgery prices are determined based on a number of factors, including the degree of complication and the number of areas of the face that need treatment. Facial surgery can include forehead, upper and lower eyelid work, rhinoplasty, lip correction, mid-face correction, neck correction, and many other additional items – grafts, removal of fat pockets, laser skin treatment – , and each of these things raises the final price by a few thousand dollars.

Consideration must also be given to the cost of post-operative care, which may include permanent access to the surgeon and home nursing services. Chia Chi Kao, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon known for her non-scarring facial endoscopies — the so-called “ponytail face-lift,” which means the incisions are made under the hairline — maintains an aftercare center. -operative, with suites where patients can recover with the help of a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.

“It feels like a luxury hotel,” said Lily Bell, 48, a beauty executive in Beverly Hills, who spent five days and four nights at Kao’s treatment center and spent $212,000 on her facial and neck surgery and postoperative recovery.

Diane Pizzoli, 68, a fashion stylist in Roseland, New Jersey, has had several consultations about facial surgery with doctors, and some of them have offered her cost estimates in the near six-figure range; she chose White to have her surgery, which took place earlier this year.

“Some of the other doctors spent all their time promoting themselves and bragging about the celebrities they had operated on,” said Pizzoli, who ended up spending $50,000 on her surgery — a procedure that involved work on her face, neck and neck. and eyelids—and recovery.

“I still look like myself, only much younger,” the patient said. “A higher cost doesn’t always mean a more successful outcome.”