Operation in "Hospital" or "Specialist's Private Room" ?

[icywind]

Hi Guys,

I have recently seen a specialist in RNSH (Royal North Shore Hospital) for my Gynocomastia problem.

Some facts.
- He acknowledged I have Gyno.
- He offered a procedure in Hospital (Medicare covers all the cost since he consider it's more than cosmatic reason, yes Free of Charge *but 6 to 12 months wait time. Yes, I have signed up*)
- He advised operation in the hospital may not be performed by doctors by rather those "doctors-to-be"
- I stopped smoking since 2 weeks ago to get ready for this...

Other facts
- He is a registered Plastic Surgeon on www.plasticsurgery.org.au (hence has his own private room somewhere else)
- I have not asked the price but probably not less than $4500+
- Operation will be performed by him, a registered Plastic Surgeon. (does that mean much?)

Question...
I would love to save the $4500+, but I am worried if operation from hospital is bad?  Anyone did their operation in Hospital and what were the outcomes? If I spend $4500+ for the specialist and perform the procedure in his private room, does that normally mean I will more-likely to have a better outcome?

One more question, I am in Sydney/Australia, is it common that hospitals accept Gyno as a real problem rather than just cosmatic and gives us Free-of-charge operations?

Any advise will be greatly appreciated....

[tonysoprano]

you'd be insane to go with the public hospital option you described. insane

whats 4.5k really ?

[papillon]

It's not much .. if you're from the north shore  but it is a lot for us other folks ....

The thing with the 'free' surgery you have to keep in mind is this

1) the wait might be up to 24 months (it's normally 6 to 12 due to cancellations etc)

2) you will get a randomly assigned plastic surgeon - they each do 1 free surgery a month as required so it's luck of the draw. You might get sydney's top surgeron or the crappiest one .. no way of knowing.

3) since it's done in hospital for free, thet might decide that doing it halfassedly is good enough eg. instead of doing excision + lipo, they might just do a bit of excision and cut the surgery time (and costs) in half

If you're loaded and $5k means little to you, then go and do it privately .. but that doesn't guarantee it'll be a success either - just that you will know your surgeon.