Breast Reduction vs Mastopexies

Many women ask about getting breast reductions. How can you know if insurance will pay for the breast reduction? The first question to ask is, why are you getting breast reduction? If the answer is that your breasts are droopy and don’t look the way you think they should look, then that would be a cosmetic breast reduction. If you have neck pain, back pain, breast pain, rashes under your breasts, headaches, shoulder pain, grooving in your shoulders and you also have large breasts, then you should look into what is required of your insurance company to deem a breast reduction medically necessary for your surgery. These requirements are often on the insurance website. 

Generally speaking, insurance based breast reductions require a lot of breast weight to be removed in order to qualify (not all insurances). Often you have to show that you have tried exercise, loosing weight, physical therapy, and other non-surgery treatment to alleviate your symptoms before considering insurance-based breast reduction. If you do qualify for breast reduction, the final size of your breasts might be much smaller than you are expecting. The surgeon has to remove enough weight to satisfy the insurance requirements, otherwise insurance might not pay for the surgery. 

Cosmetic breast reductions allow the surgeon to take off enough weight to achieve your goals and lift the breast at the same time. There is no set requirement to remove a specific weight. When the breast is lifted to a more youthful position with minimal weight removed, this is called a mastopexy.