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VIDEO: When breast reconstruction perfection becomes a cost issue
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LOS ANGELES — Looking for ways to balance costs against achieving the perfect outcome in breast reconstruction was part of a panel discussed by David H. Song, MD, MBA, at Plastic Surgery The Meeting.
“We are struggling with the fact of when is perfection the enemy of good,” Song, president of the American Society for Plastic Surgeons, told Healio.com/Aesthetics.
Patients are seeking “that perfect outcome” for reconstruction after a mastectomy or lumpectomy, he said.
Sometimes the reconstructions are enhanced, aesthetic outcomes, that “are better than the original breast,” but “who pays for that, and what’s the true cost of that” Song asked.
Breast reconstruction became mandatory coverage signed into law 1998, Song said.