We have been carefully controlling overhead expenses for 33 years. But the cost of supplies continues to climb. Thirty years ago a pair of gel breast implants cost us $300. Now the same implants are $2000!  There are over two dozen disposable items required for each surgery. To eliminate the possibility of cross contamination (passing disease germs from one patient to another, like MRSA flesh eating bacteria) the Joint Commission for Ambulatory Health Care, that inspects our operating room regularily, requires everything that touches a patient to be disposed of after the surgery except surgical instruments. We have never had a cross contamination infection or MRSA of any sort in the 40 years we have been running an outpatient surgery center. The fixed costs for running the operating room are $1400 per hour and for the whole office are $5000 per day. Although we are on the waterfront of Lake Tahoe  our facility is very utilitarian and not in any way ostentatious. We don't have to serve champagne in the waiting room, our results speak for the quality of care. Forty years with a perfect safety record is no small achievement also.  Most senior plastic surgeons with a comparable level of experience have most all had an unexpected death or two. Most always it's an anesthetic complication of general anesthesia. It turns out that the IV sedation we use is three times safer than general anesthesia.  We consider safety to be job number one.

We have a full time staff of six nurses, medical assitants and patient consultants. To keep this highly experienced staff, we pay for their health insurance, retirement, and Workman's Comp. insurance regardless of patient load. Nobody gets laid off in a recession. We actually have one more employee than the bare necessity to allow for uncompromised coverage when one is sick or unable to come to work for some important reason.

So you see our overhead is pretty much the same as the other plastic surgery clinics. Where we make the savings that are passed on to the patients is in our efficiency (borne of years of working together) , our JCAHO certified operating room and anesthesiolgist costs. We can do most common surgeries in less than half the time of the competition. Breast implants take 25 minutes, tummy tucks an hour and a face,neck & forehead lift a little over an hour and a half. This relates to safety as well. Most all serious complications don't occur in the first two hours of surgery. We can do two or three operations in the time it takes our competition to do one. Time is money and we pass those savings on to the patients.

Most competing plastic surgeons have to pay $1000 to $1500 per case to use a surgicenter or hospital operating room. Because we have our own JHACO inspected and certified operating room, we can pass those savings on to the patients also.

Dr. Foster has been doing his own anesthesia safely for 40 years. They don't teach young plastic surgerons full anesthesia techniques any more. Dr. Foster had six months on the anesthesia service in training, learning all the skills of an anesthesiologist. The competing plastic surgeons have to pay an anesthesiologist $1000 to $1500 per case. We pass those savings on to our patients.

We don't accept insurance of any kind, because the medical insurance companies have been allowed to fraudulantly deny covered procedures to their policy holders without recourse from our emasculated government. Doctors that try to bill insurance companies for covered procedures get denied more often than not and when actually paid it is 20% of what they bill so they have to bill more than us to make up for the shortfall.

We make a fair return for our effort and live modestly in our happy little community. The hugs we get daily more than make up for missing out on an extravagant life style. Mountain people don't want anything to do with the Beverly Hills scene. No 90210, no Ferraris, no Malibu beach house. Just fresh clean air, the scent of pine trees and a lake full of the cleanest bluest water this side of heaven. We live for the water sports. Skiing is a water sport....frozen water. Water skiing is a snow sport......melted mogules. We do both as often as possible and stay healthy because of it.

Mark Twain said (150 yrs ago): You must go to Tahoe to breath the air the angels breathe. And that was way before smog.  He also said: "Two weeks of camp life at Tahoe would transform an Egyptian mummy back into his pristine self!" We do that everyday.

Call Sheila at 1 800 SHAPE UP (742-7387) with your questions.                                  Dr. Foster