Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Statistics 2021- Key Findings

More and more men and women are now considering plastic surgery procedures in Manhattan, NYC to enhance their appearance and thus boost their confidence. The frontier of innovation in aesthetic plastic surgery, The Aesthetic Society’s Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Statistics 2021 data showcases a significant increase for face, breast and body procedures. With more than 2,200 board-certified plastic surgeons comprising its Active membership, The Aesthetic Society is at the forefront of research, education, and innovation.

Based on the aggregate data from all 294 participating plastic surgery practices across the U.S., the 2021 report highlights that-

• Overall, aesthetic body procedures such as abdominoplasty, buttock augmentation, and liposuction increased by 63% since 2020
• Breast procedures such as breast augmentation, augmentation/ breast lift and breast lift/reductions were up 48%
• Specialized face procedures such as brow lifts and face lifts increased 54% last year

Other key findings of 2021 Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Statistics are –

• Surgical procedures increased 54% and non-surgical procedures were up 44%
• Body procedures increased more than any other section (+ 63% vs. 2020), led by jumps in liposuction procedures (+66%) and abdominoplasties (+ 49%)
• The average plastic surgeon performed 320 surgical procedures in 2021, compared with 220 in 2020
• On average, the cost of a surgical procedure increased 6% in 2021, and the cost of a non-surgical procedure increased 1%
• Women accounted for approximately 94% of all procedures
• 365,000 breast augmentations were performed in 2021 (+44%)
  • In addition, 148,000 women had implants removed and replaced (+32% from 2020) and
  • 71,000 had their implants removed and not replaced (+47%)
• Surgical procedures accounted for 69% of all revenue, despite being just 21% of total procedures
• Due to the continued “Zoom Effect,” facial procedures increased 55% in 2021
• Americans spent over $14.6 billion dollars on aesthetic procedures in 2021 with surgical revenues increasing by 63%.

The 2021 Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Statistics were compiled using the Aesthetic Neural Network (ANN) data. The Aesthetic Society partnered with Ronan SolutionsTM (Phoenix, AZ) to develop ANN, which connects directly to participating Aesthetic Society member plastic surgeons’ practice management systems to retrieve real-time, de-identified, 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 the limited number and scope of questions that can be included.

According to William P. Adams, Jr., MD, President of The Aesthetic Society, “Our new, more accurate digitally extracted data demonstrates that all major procedure groups had significant increases in the last year. Many factors have facilitated this growth including very high patient satisfaction, the pandemic and patients wanting to do something for themselves— and even some effects from increased video conferencing. As more people continue to pursue these specialized aesthetic procedures, we urge them to also seek a plastic surgeon board-certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery to receive the highest standard of care and expertise.”

The data also identified the top 6 surgical and non-surgical procedures performed by board-certified U.S. plastic surgeons. The procedures are also categorized based on the gender identity and age. We’ll discuss this in our upcoming blog.