The cost of recovery: the line no quote shows
Enter the days off your surgeon expects and your pay: the calculator prices the weeks after the operation, which belong to the bill as much as the room.
Cost of the recovery, outside the bill
$2,502
10 unpaid working days at $250.
| Pay forgone | $2,502 |
| Garments, medicines, other items | $0 |
| Rides and help at home | $0 |
Default daily pay: median usual weekly earnings of full-time workers, 2026, quarter 2, $1,251 a week, divided by five.
Compiled by Radif Partners · Where each line comes from · CMS 2026 rate files · not a quote
A cosmetic operation is followed by days or weeks away from work, and when no paid leave is left, those days are unpaid: federal job-protected leave does not treat plastic surgery as a serious health condition unless complications develop or a hospital stay is needed. At the US median of $1,251 a week for full-time workers in the 2026, quarter 2 release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a working day is worth about $250, so ten unpaid days cost $2,502 and three weeks $3,753. Add the items most practices ask patients to buy, such as compression garments and prescriptions, and help at home for the first days. For a tummy tuck, fifteen unpaid days and $300 of garments and medicines raise the room and anesthesia benchmark from $3,115 to $7,168, before the surgeon's fee. The time off depends on the operation and on you, and the surgeon is the person who sets it.
Days off, at your pay
The site does not say how long recovery takes: that varies with the procedure, the extent of the work, the person and the job, and only the surgeon can say it. What the site can do is price the days. The default daily pay is the BLS median usual weekly earnings divided by five, $250; type your own figure for a better one. The table shows four durations at the median, at 60 % of it and at 150 % of it.
| Unpaid time off | At the median | At 60 % of it | At 150 % of it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 working days | $1,251 | $751 | $1,877 |
| 10 working days | $2,502 | $1,501 | $3,753 |
| 15 working days | $3,753 | $2,252 | $5,630 |
| 20 working days | $5,004 | $3,002 | $7,506 |
Leave and pay
Paid time off, if you have it, turns the loss into days of leave used. Short-term disability insurance and state disability programs have their own rules on elective cosmetic surgery, written in the policy or the program. Job-protected leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act requires a serious health condition, and 29 CFR 825.113(d) states that conditions treated by plastic surgery are not serious health conditions unless inpatient care is required or complications develop. Checking those rules before booking a date is part of pricing the operation.
Your recovery, priced
Cost of the recovery, outside the bill
$2,752
| Pay forgone | $2,502 |
| Garments, medicines, other items | $250 |
| Rides and help at home | $0 |
Follow-up visits and the unexpected
A surgeon's fee may include a number of follow-up visits; the quote should say how many and for how long. Visits beyond that, a treatment for a complication or a revision are separate bills, and a health plan may refuse to pay for complications of a cosmetic operation under its exclusions. Those costs cannot be priced in advance, but asking the practice what its fee covers if something goes wrong, and keeping some savings aside, is part of budgeting the operation. Time off can also stretch if healing is slower than expected, which the calculator lets you test by raising the number of days.
The items after surgery
Compression garments after body procedures, prescriptions, dressings, a ride home and someone to help for the first days are common costs that a quote may or may not include. MedlinePlus describes, for instance, a firm elastic dressing over the abdomen after a tummy tuck and splints after a rhinoplasty. Asking the practice for the list of what you will need, and what is included, gives the figure to type in the calculator's field. The full calculator on the tummy tuck page and the other procedure pages adds these days and items as a fourth line of the bill.