12 Plastic Surgery Procedures You Didn’t Know Insurance Would Cover

 Nose job

If you were to ask certain celebrities, including Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz, they’d likely say their nose jobs were medically necessary. The truth is a bit more complicated. Rhinoplasty, sometimes referred to as a “nose job,” can be performed to correct impaired breathing caused by structural defects of the nose (such as a deviated septum), but it also—and often—includes aesthetic tweaks to enhance facial harmony and the proportions of the nose. Insurance covers the portion of the surgery that can be shown to be medically necessary. That’s good news when you consider that the average surgeon charges $5,046 for a rhinoplasty. What’s not so good news is that Dr. Johnson says that typically, “once we’ve finished the structural work, we mark the time on the operative record,” and after that, it’s on the patient’s tab. There may be savings by combining the structural with the aesthetic, as compared with doing two separate surgeries, however. For example, by combining the surgeries, the patient may be able to do only one set of pre-operative evaluations (such as blood work).