Andy100 wrote:hi hope84 i'm following your recovery here on the forum i hope everything goes well and thanks for the updates. it would be nice to have a new valid surgeon in europe how much did you pay for the surgery?
Hi Andy, thanks for your kind message! I believe Dr Beley qualifies as a valid and very sound choice of surgeon for those living in Europe or willing to travel there. He is also much cheaper than his US counterparts: the total cost was around 9.5k€, this includes the implant, the hospitalization fees in a private clinic (I spent two nights there, one before the surgery one after), and the surgeon’s and anesthetist’s fees. I personally didn’t pay anything, my private insurance covered everything.
One reason why I believe the price is so low is that the French government subsidizes private clinics. This applies whether you’re a French resident or not I think. Additionally, as in many EU countries, France manages to get very competitive prices for implants as it negotiates as a single entity through Social Security with health care companies (in this case Boston Scientific). This extends beyond penile implant and applies to any medical devices, supplies, drugs, or treatments. Costs are controlled by strict and uniform price control as well as nonprofit insurance plans in France. This explains why an IV bag (i.e., saline, which is literally salt water) often costs over 100$ in a US hospital compared to 3/4$ in France, though production costs are less than a dollar (again, it is just salt water).
I am not here to tout the merits of the French (or generally, European) healthcare system, but my point is that there is not a one-to-one relationship between price and quality when it comes to healthcare, such that paying comparatively less for the same procedure in France does not entail a lower quality service.
Europe has undeniably fewer high-volume implant surgeons than the US (in part because penile implants are less known and accepted in the old continent), but we have a number of highly competent urologists who perform those surgeries together with great medical staff. Aftercare (at least in my case) is great too. I am under the impression that penile implants are typically done as an outpatient surgery in the US, while in France they would typically hospitalize you two days to make sure you are okay, do some blood tests to look for early infection signs post-surgery, bring you good food and tea, and give you all the painkillers you need before going back home. Having done this journey by myself, I cannot imagine how I possibly could have got back home by myself right after surgery.
If you are interested in the French healthcare system, I put down a link to an interesting article below.
https://www.breastcenter.com/2021/11/07 ... re-system/30 years old French with ED caused by priapism episodes at the age of 15. Implanted with 21cm + 3cm RTEs AMS 700 CX MS pump on 05/12/2024 by Dr Sébastien Beley. Pills had lost most of their potency, injections worked but were painful and inconvenient.
