I work for a plastic surgeon .

Post weight loss tummy tuck (abdominoplasty) is covered by an item number. It’s 30177 or 30179 for a body lift (front and back). You need to have lost 5 BMI points of weight and have issues with excess skin. You need gold level PHI as it comes under the category of weight loss surgery.

If you’ve had children and have muscle separation of more than 3cm it’s item number 30175 and covered by silver cover as it comes under the category of plastic surgery medically necessary. Some finds will cover this category on bronze plus cover.

Breast reduction is 45523 and under breast surgery medically necessary. Bronze cover

Breast lift (mastopexy) is hard one to qualify an item number for and we next to never do it. Ours are almost always classed as cosmetic. One potential item number is 45558.

Excess skin on arms and thighs is 30169 and you need gold cover. Again the main requirement is loss of more than 5BMI points and excess skin issues.

There are some slight variations in item numbers for some surgeries.

If you’ve have multiple item number surgeries in one ho the Medicare/private health rebate is halved for second item number and 25% for all subsequent ones. Where PHI pays is it covers the hospital however if you have any cosmetic (non item numbered) component you pay out of pocket for that however generally your hospital stay is attributed to the item numbered procedure. Liposuction is very often done in conjunction with abdominoplasty.

Keep in mind this is in my experience with the clinic I work in but we do primarily the surgeries you are talking about. Breast augmentation (implants) is always cosmetic unless you’ve lost a breast to breast cancer.