Americans Spent Over $9 Billion On Aesthetic Plastic Surgery In 2020!

Talk about the “Zoom Boom” in plastic surgery demand during the pandemic! According to these numbers, we should be calling it the “Zoom KA-Boom!”

Dramatic Increased Demand for Plastic Surgery in 2020: New Report

As lockdown restrictions eased for non-essential services during the past 12 months, many plastic surgeons saw an impressive influx of patients seeking aesthetic plastic surgery. In 2020, official data collection show revenue of more than $9 billion were spent on aesthetic plastic surgery. The Aesthetic Society released its annual Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Statistics for 2020 compiled using the Aesthetic Neural Network (ANN) data.

“2020 was a unique year to say the least,” explains Dr. Herluf G. Lund Jr., President of the Aesthetic Society. “We believe there were several factors that came together to drive aesthetic surgery, even during the pandemic, notably the boom in video calls and more opportunity for discreet downtime.”

Utilizing ANN data helps us better represent the specialty of aesthetic plastic surgery, especially in a year wrought with uncertainty. ANN allows us to leverage real-time data coming directly from practices,” he explains.

Demand Sky High for Surgical and Non-Surgical Procedures

Surgical procedures topping the list for 2020 included liposuction, breast augmentation, and abdominoplasty. Neurotoxins, dermal fillers, and skin treatments like chemical peels, made up the top procedures in the non-surgical category.

The data also identifies the top 5 surgical and non-surgical procedures performed by board certified U.S. plastic surgeons in the gender identity and age categories as follows:

Top Surgical Procedures (Women)
Liposuction: 197,984
Breast Augmentation: 185,957
Abdominoplasty (Tummy Tuck): 116,991
Removal/Replacement – Breast Implants: 86,255
Mastopexy (Breast Lift): 80,033

Top Surgical Procedures (Men)
Liposuction: 11,588
Gynecomastia: 8,853
Blepharoplasty: 7,893
Rhinoplasty: 7,475
Abdominoplasty (Tummy Tuck): 3,591

Top Surgical – By Age
17-35: Breast Augmentation, 127,431
36-50: Liposuction, 140,105
51-70:Liposuction, 65,041
70+: Facelift, 8,101

Surgeons Agree With National Report

“Nine billion dollars – that’s a big number!” says William P. Adams Jr., MD, a board certified plastic surgeon based in Dallas and the president-elect of The Aesthetic Society. “Certainly Zoom and these online meetings probably have had something to do with contributing to that, but it’s probably other things as well. Number one, people aren’t going on vacation so they have more disposable income. They’re thinking they have time to recover. All those things add up to plastic and aesthetic surgery really zooming during this past year.”

Early Fears of Massive Patient Drop-off Quickly Turned Around

Dr. Adams also tells The Plastic Surgery Channel that the fears many of his colleagues may have had as the pandemic set in, forcing the closure of most, if not all, medical practices, quickly disappeared when the closure orders were lifted.

“Obviously any time you shut down businesses and peoples’ practices, which never has happened since we opened our practices, can be frightening and always a cause for concern,” Dr. Adams says. “But what we found was that patients were really eager to get done what they wanted, whether it was surgical or non-surgical. They were keen on getting these different things done.”

Botox Still King During Pandemic

“As always, Botox is number one for all non-surgical procedures, followed by fillers. Those are literally millions and millions of dollars a year,” Dr. Adams continues. “The surgical procedures follow the breakdown we usually see this time of year. Liposuction or breast augmentation usually lead the list.”

Full Speed Ahead for Plastic Surgery Demand

“At this point, it looks like it’s full speed ahead for patient demand,” Dr. Adams says. “I can tell you from my own practice that we are exceedingly business for this time of year. Much more busy than we’ve been for a long time, if ever. And my colleagues and friends are telling me the same thing. The boom in plastic surgery is certainly going to continue to boom for the foreseeable future.”

About The Aesthetic Surgery National Databank

The 2020 Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Statistics were compiled using the Aesthetic Neural Network (ANN) data. The Aesthetic Society has partnered with Ronan Solutions (Phoenix, AZ) to develop ANN. ANN connects directly to participating Aesthetic Society member plastic surgeons’ practice management systems to retrieve real-time, de-identified billing data. The data is reviewed and mapped by subject matter experts to generate a dynamic, comprehensive, longitudinal, valid, and reliable repository of procedural and billing data. ANN’s automated, real-time data access also eliminates other drawbacks associated with surveys such as low response rates, cross-sectional data, inaccurate recall, need for manual data entry and limited number and scope of questions that can be included.

For the 2020 Statistics, aggregate data from all 288 participating plastic surgery practices across the U.S. were analyzed. The procedure counts were extrapolated to estimate nationwide statistics. These statistics have a standard error of +/- 5.66% at a 95% level of confidence. ANN is a complimentary and exclusive benefit available only to Active Aesthetic Society Members. Participating members have access to detailed information of their own practices, and they can see aggregate data of other participants, allowing members the benefit of comparing their data with their peers, but protecting their privacy. ANN can retrieve and analyze up to 20 years of data from compatible systems thus offering unparalleled insights in practice management. For more information, please visit https://ann.surgery.org/ or email ann@surgery.org.