money

[plasticbuddy]

hey
why are plastic surgeons not reported to make as much as other specialties such as neurosurgery etc?

http://www.allied-physicians.com/sa...an-salaries.htm

it seems funny to me that a brow lift avgs about $4000 and you probably take about 30% of that home after malpractice/OR cost/anesthesia etc. that pulls down about $1200 for a 1 hr procedure and a few postops. That is at least $700-900 per hr in final. if you just multiply 55hrs/wk * 46wks/yr * 700-900 $/hr you can easily see that the average reported salary ($415k) is no where near this.... is this b/c the majority of plastic surgeons are reconstructive ... or is there oversaturation in the market and not enough work? i am confused... could someone please comment without including insinuating comments like... "do plastics b/c you love it ... etc etc"... "money doesn't matter, i am so altruistic...oooh you are bad"

thanx for the comments in advance
- plasticbuddy

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[plasticbuddy]

hey
why are plastic surgeons not reported to make as much as other specialties such as neurosurgery etc?

http://www.allied-physicians.com/sa...an-salaries.htm

it seems funny to me that a brow lift avgs about $4000 and you probably take about 30% of that home after malpractice/OR cost/anesthesia etc. that pulls down about $1200 for a 1 hr procedure and a few postops. That is at least $700-900 per hr in final. if you just multiply 55hrs/wk * 46wks/yr * 700-900 $/hr you can easily see that the average reported salary ($415k) is no where near this.... is this b/c the majority of plastic surgeons are reconstructive ... or is there oversaturation in the market and not enough work? i am confused... could someone please comment without including insinuating comments like... "do plastics b/c you love it ... etc etc"... "money doesn't matter, i am so altruistic...oooh you are bad"

thanx for the comments in advance
- plasticbuddy

oh and btw, browlift is not the only procedure in this pay/hr range... it includes bleph, breast aug, malar aug, rhinoplasty, lipo etc

 

[doc05]

there aren't many plastic surgeons in private practice who operate 55 hours/week. If that were the case, they'd be doing 80-90 hours/week total, and noone goes into private practice to work that hard. It's probably closer to 20 hrs/week operating.

then of course there are probably a significant # of cases considered "reconstructive" and hence covered by insurance, which of course pays less. plus many markets are oversaturated with aesthetic plastic surgeons. even so, 400k is still a pretty good deal for a relatively chill surgical field with generally healthy patients and few complications.

and p.s. many salary surveys tend to underreport salaries for various reasons.

 

[droliver]

even so, 400k is still a pretty good deal for a relatively chill surgical field with generally healthy patients and few complications.

I think there are some misconceptions about the field going on. In point of fact, the majority of Plastic Surgeons frequently operate on patients with signifigant commorbidities, especially for reconstructive surgery. Complication rates from many of the procedures, both aesthetic and reconstructive, run very high (albeit usually less morbid) then most other fields.

Again, I wouldn't take your cues from "Dr. 90210" & "Miami Slice" on TV for what the majority of people's practices and lifestyle are like. It's really just a handful of people in the scheme of things who work 40 hours a week, operate on starlets, and do zero reconstructive plastic surgery. Plastic Surgery practices are VERY high-overhead operations by comparison to most specialties, with exclusive cosmetic practices being the highest overhead of all. As most Plastic surgeons practice solo, hours can be considerably longer and leisure time more infrequent then peers in many surgical specialties.

$400K as a mean salary number is by far and away the highest I've ever seen for Plastic Surgery & I think that number is 15-20% above some of the numbers given by the ASPS in previous surverys. The average Plastic Surgeon (as true in all of medicine) makes considerably less in real $ then 15 years ago while working longer hours & seeing more patients