Liposuction has become the most common cosmetic treatment – or rather, surgery – in the USA, with upwards of 400,000 individuals seeking liposuction treatments alone in 2006, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. This is nearly double the amount of treatments reported by the same institution a decade earlier. Surely, the number of people seeking liposuction will continue to increase as the prices go down and doctors compete for patients.

And how the numbers have come down! Looking online, it is possible to find advertisements for liposuction starting at $137! This is quite misleading. For starters, it surely does not include the total amount of fees that will make their way on to the patients bill. For instance, hidden fees might include hospital room / operating room fees, fees from an anesthesiologist, both of which can be significant.

There is an even more damaging cost to cheap liposuction though, far worse than an extra fee tacked into your bill: a messed up looking body.

While liposuction, as mentioned, has become an incredibly common procedure, and one which is usually performed successfully, like any medical procedure – this is surgery, after all! – there are real risks. And common sense will reveal that when doctors charge less and less, there is often an increased risk for all the bad things you do not want to have happen to a patient.

One particularly reprehensible act that’s been reported is for a doctor to simply take the patients money, cut them open, seal them back, and… never perform the removal of fat. Or at best, perform a very small bit of removal, and then leave it at that. it’s something that it’s very  hard to catch and would be very hard and very expensive to prove legally.

More realistically though, going for the bottom of the barrel in prices without weighing in all the other important factors – such as the doctors experience, his or her reputation, and his or her willingness to answer all your questions and work with you in your liposuction treatment, looking at just the cost of the procedure can end up with a world of trouble.

Would you really want to risk…

Strange folds in the skin? Weird dimples and bumps? Self-described skin deformation? Visible scars on the buttocks, thighs, abs, arms and legs? What about scars on the face? Perhaps even worse, what about skin deformation on your face?

The point is that finding the lowest price is not the goal of getting liposuction: getting a great looking body is the goal, and just as you wouldn’t go out and buy the cheapest car and expect it to run great, don’t seek out the cheapest liposuction and expect much more than cheap results. It’s not worth it!

By Ben Quick

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