Surgery Fees and Financing

Consultation Fees

In order to accommodate the needs of all our patients Dr. Plant offers several types of consultations. All consultations are with Dr. Plant, not a sales consultant. Because of the limited time available there is a consultation fee of $200 + HST that is due at the time of booking.

• In-person consultations: The majority of consultations are in-person and take approximately 30 minutes. The consultation will start with one of our highly trained staff spending 5-10 minutes taking proper photographs of the area(s) you will be discussing with Dr. Plant. Once this is finished you will spend approximately 20-25 minutes speaking directly with Dr. Plant about your surgical goals.
• Virtual consultations: We are currently offering virtual consultations for out of town and select GTA patients. These consultations will take approximately 20-30 minutes. Because we obviously cannot take photographs ourselves, as part of the booking process you will be asked to submit photos of the area(s) Dr. Plant will need to examine as part of your virtual consultation. All patients seen virtually for their consultation will be seen in person for their pre-op to ensure they have met Dr. Plant personally before their surgical procedure. Not all procedures are amenable to a virtual consultation and if what you are asking for is not then we’ll let you know when you contact the office.
• Second opinions: Dr. Plant is always happy to provide a second opinion to patients who have recently had surgery elsewhere even. Given the complicated nature of this type of consultation these are only available in person.
• Executive consultations: Because the wait for one of our standard consultations can be lengthy, for those who are looking for surgery in the very near future we offer 2 executive consultations per week. These take place before or after Dr. Plant’s regular day. Because this is a VIP service and Dr. Plant is changing his schedule to accommodate these consultations; the cost associated with an executive consultation is $300 + HST. Executive consultations can take place in person or virtually depending on patient preferences (as long as the nature of the consultation is amenable to a virtual consultation).

Consultation fees are non-refundable however will be applied to the surgical fees if a deposit is placed within 30 days of your consultation. You may cancel or modify your appointment without charge anytime up to 48 hours preceding the start time of your appointment. If you do not cancel your appointment and do not show up for your scheduled appointment you will be considered a “No Show” and a new consultation fee will be required to rebook your appointment. Canceling with less than 48 hours’ notice is considered a “Late Cancellation” and will result in a cancellation fee equivalent to the cost of your consultation fee. Rescheduling an appointment with less than 48 hours may be subject to a rebooking fee of $50.

Appointments that are booked within the 48-hour period are still subject to the cancellation policy.

Surgical Fees

The cost of plastic surgery in Toronto can vary based on the time needed to perform the procedure, the difficulty and extent of the work and any medical devices used (implants, garments, special instruments). While many offices choose to break down their costs into individual components, we believe in all-in pricing so that you know exactly what your costs will be up front and will never have to pay any surprise fees at a later date. The only cost that is not covered with your quote is the dispensing fee your pharmacist charges for your prescriptions, which is generally less than $100 for patients who do not have prescription drug coverage. Following your consultation with Dr. Plant, you will be given a quote for the procedure that includes all surgical fees, facility fees, anaesthesia fees, pre-op and post-operative follow-ups. In most cases your quote will also include the cost of post-operative recovery garments. Surgical quotes are valid for 6 months from the date of consultation.

When comparing fees between different clinics it is important to know that the offering from each clinic will be slightly different and so prices should not be compared directly. There are many ways that practices can cut costs with surgery in order to provide a lower price, but Dr. Plant firmly believes that when it comes to surgery, the only thing that matters is quality. Throughout this page we will try to highlight the specific areas where Dr. Plant’s care stands out from the crowd so you can understand why it may cost a little more with him than other facilities and also understand why it’s worthwhile to pay the premium.

Included in your all-in quote are the following:

Facility Fees

The facility fee covers the physical costs of the operation including:

Operating Room Costs/Accreditation: An accredited private operating room in Ontario requires regular inspection from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario in order to ensure that it will have the same safety as a hospital. Maintaining an operating room to these high standards is very expensive and includes significant expenses for safety equipment. Time in the operating room is the largest expense associated with providing quality surgical care, and while most practices will try to set a time limit on the length of a given procedure (and may rush the work or cut corners in order to make that time limit) Dr. Plant books an approximate time for surgery, but ultimately takes as long as he needs to get the results you want.

Staff: In order to provide the best quality care, Dr. Plant does not cut corners with staffing. Many facilities may use less qualified or less experienced staff that can be paid less on an hourly basis. These costs can be passed on to the patient, but so is the lowered quality of care that comes from having underqualified or inexperienced staff. Typically, Dr. Plant will have 5 staff members that are directly involved in your case in addition to all the support staff required to operate a surgical facility.

• A scrub nurse is present to handle all of the instruments
• A registered “circulating” nurse is present to move around the room getting all necessary equipment and passing it to the scrub nurse using meticulous sterile technique. All of our circulating nurses have at least 10 years of experience.
• A registered nurse first-assist (RNFA) is a registered nurse who has undergone additional training specifically to assist in surgery. This nurse directly assists Dr. Plant
• A registered “recovery” nurse to provide one to one care to our patients from the moment they leave the operating room to the moment they leave the facility. Costs can be cut by not offering this one-to-one care and having one nurse cover 2 or more patients, but we feel it is best practice and what our discerning patients deserve.
• A Royal College certified anaesthesiologist is always present to provide your anaesthesia. Royal College certification in Anaesthesia requires a 5-year training program in the most advanced techniques in anaesthesia on the most difficult cases, however t is also possible in Ontario to become an anesthetist by taking a year of training in anaesthesia after completing a family medicine training program. Having anaesthesiologists with 5 times as much training comes at a premium, but Dr. Plant feels that safety is somewhere that compromises should never be made. The Royal College certified anaesthesiologist’s experience with cardiac surgery cases, neurosurgery cases and other very complex procedures makes them significantly overqualified for your routine elective cosmetic surgery, but it also makes them perfectly qualified should anything unexpected ever occur.

Equipment: Medications, drapes, gloves and the actual surgical equipment costs are also taken into consideration in this facility fee. Many practices will use old equipment to bring the cost of your procedure down. Some practices use analog anaesthesia machines that were purchased from the hospital (already used) in the 1990s!!! These machines can give anaesthetic, but leave the anaesthesiologist needing multiple other pieces of equipment to monitor your vital signs and requires paper charting to keep track of all of these things. The cost of a modern, digital anaesthesia machine can be upwards of $250,000 but the integrated safety monitoring systems and on-board recording of your vital signs leaves your anaesthesiologist 100% focussed on you while you are asleep. It also allows better control of the anaesthetic experience, allowing you to drift gently off to sleep and wake up peacefully and without nausea.

In addition to the anaesthesia machines, Dr. Plant uses the newest proven technology to provide the best experience possible. He uses premium sutures, including antibiotic embedded ones instead of the off-brand sutures that are typical at lower cost facilities. He also uses Stratafix barbed sutures, the Keller Funnel, the ONETRAC single-use lighted retractor and premium recovery garments.

As you can start to see, the cost of surgery can vary widely simply based on the way the procedure is set up and the equipment that is used and Dr. Plant simply will not compromise on quality.

Surgeon Fee

While Dr. Plant loves doing this so much that he would do it for free, the reality is that’s simply not possible. There is a component of the invoice that pays for his time, however it is important to understand that the time he spends on your procedure is much more than the time he actually spends operating on you. This fee covers not only the time in the operating room, but also the 13 years of post-secondary education needed to become a Plastic Surgeon, the years of practice gaining the experience to deliver reliably excellent results, the time for your consultation, the time reviewing and thinking through your procedure in advance of your actual OR as well as the time spent at followups. When Dr. Plant is your surgeon you will receive hands-on service that is incredibly rare in this industry – Dr. Plant personally does all consultations himself and is present for all of your scheduled follow ups. This is in stark contrast to the typical office where the majority of the consultation is done by a sales associate and most of the follow ups will be exclusively with a nurse. It is easy to cut costs by delegating these tasks because one can hire as many consultants as needed to handle an infinite number of consultations, but having the surgeon do them himself means the time is limited as there are only so many hours in the week. Where some offices will limit patients to a certain number of follow ups or limit them to a certain timeframe (1 year for example) before they charge you for further appointments, Dr. Plant will never charge for follow ups or deny previous surgical patients a followup appointment. If you have a concern, Dr. Plant will be happy to see you 10 years after your procedure with no additional charges!

Garments

Many aesthetic surgical procedures require special garments in order to ensure the best possible outcome and to improve your comfort while healing. While some offices charge an additional fee for these garments or make you purchase them on your own, Dr. Plant feels that whenever possible these should be included in your surgical fees and chosen by him at the end of your surgical procedure to ensure they fit your new body properly. In certain cases, such as brazilian butt lift surgery, a custom garment is required and while we will make the process of getting this garment very easy, the cost of this is not included in your surgical fees because it is being purchased directly from the garment manufacturer.

Deposit

A $2000 non-refundable, non-transferable deposit is required at the time of booking to hold your surgical date and time. This payment can be made using Visa, Mastercard or e-transfer and is needed to secure the operating room, nursing staff, and anesthesia staff necessary for your procedure on the chosen date and to prevent other patients from booking into this time. It also covers all pre-op visits with Dr. Plant and his nurse as well as the administrative costs to organize the procedure in advance. This amount will be reduced from the overall final balance owing for the procedure and is not an additional cost.

The remaining balance will be due 3 weeks prior to your surgical date. For balance payments we accept certified cheque, bank draft, wire transfer, e-transfer, third-party financing and cash.

We are also pleased to accept Visa and MasterCard for your balance payment(s) however due to the significant fees charged by credit card companies, balance payments will be subject to a 2.75% processing fee. We cannot accept American Express or debit cards at this time however we do accept Interac e-transfers. If you choose to pay with e-transfers please be aware of the daily and weekly limits from your bank to ensure that you are able to pay your balance in time.

If you wish to finance your procedure we do offer financing through third parties. We work with Medicard, Credit Medical and Beautifi to allow you to price compare and get the best rate for yourself however if you wish to finance through another company or the bank we will likely be happy to work with them as well.

Cancellation/Rescheduling Policy

Because many people on our team have committed their time (and potentially declined work elsewhere) it is necessary for us to compensate them. As a result, we have developed the following cancellation and rescheduling policies to try and balance the interests of both staff and patients.

Our refund policies are as follows:

• Cancellation more than 3 weeks before day of surgery: Entire deposit forfeited.
• Cancellation less than 3 weeks before day of surgery but more than 48 hours before day of surgery: 50% of total surgical fees refunded
• Cancellation less than 48 hours before day of surgery: No refund of fees

Our rescheduling policies are as follows:

• In general, surgery may be rescheduled once without a penalty if we are notified at least 6 weeks in advance. Rescheduling a second time will be subject to a minimum $1000 rescheduling fee depending on how far in advance of the surgical date the request to reschedule is made. Surgery is considered rescheduled only when a new date (within 12 months of the original date) is chosen at the time of rescheduling, anything else will be considered a cancellation and be subject to the cancellation policy.
• Rescheduling a procedure less than 6 weeks (but more than 4 weeks) before day of surgery will be subject to a $1000 rescheduling fee.
• Rescheduling a procedure less than 4 weeks (but more than 2 weeks) before day of surgery will result in the loss of the $2000 deposit and a new deposit must be placed to secure a new date.
• Rescheduling a procedure less than 2 weeks before the day of surgery but more than 48 hours before day of surgery will result in the loss of the deposit and and additional administrative fee of at least $2500 depending on exactly how close to the surgical date the rescheduling happens. A new $2000 deposit must be placed to secure a new date.
• Rescheduling less than 48 hours before a procedure is not possible. This will be considered a cancellation and will result in the loss of all fees. A new $2000 deposit must be placed to secure a new date.

Any procedures rescheduled for valid medical reasons may be subject to exemptions from the above policies (appropriate documentation will be required).

In order to ensure a smooth and safe procedure, we require that all forms including consents, bloodwork (if required) and payments are completed no later than three weeks before the surgery. If we have not obtained all the required information and payment by this time, we will be forced to reschedule you for a later date and a rescheduling fee of $1000 will apply.

Similarly, we require that all patients have a responsible adult to escort them home from surgery and that patients not eat or drink after midnight the night before surgery. Surgery that is canceled and rescheduled on the day of the procedure because of non-compliance with these pre-op instructions will be treated as a cancellation, will result in the loss of all fees and require a new $2000 deposit be placed to secure a new date.

Because of the high costs associated with operating room time and the significant impact that it can have on patients scheduled for surgery later in the day, patients who arrive late for their surgery and cause delays in the operating room will be subject to a fee of $500 per half hour.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact our office at your earliest convenience.

Revision Policy

Surgery is not an exact science and there are aspects of the healing process that are beyond our control once the surgery is concluded. As a result, we can guarantee a significant improvement and a good result, but we cannot guarantee perfection. Although rare, sometimes there is a need for revisionary surgery. In cases where revision surgery is required, Dr. Plant may waive his surgical fee, however, facility fees, anesthesia fees, and implants or garments (where applicable) are typically the responsibility of the patient. Because it takes time for all swelling to resolve and scars to fade, revision surgery is typically performed at least six months after the initial procedure.