The soured economy has some prospective patients putting off a plastic face and other cosmetic surgical procedures, while the wealthiest continue to seek those luxury makeovers and a growing number of newly unemployed professionals are putting on a more youthful face when reentering the job market, according to plastic surgeons in the metropolitan region.
“Aesthetic surgery is not just something that the super-rich do,” said Dr. Robert W. Bernard, one of five medical practitioners at Cosmetic Surgery Associates of Westchester in White Plains and a past president of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. “It”™s something that normal working people have been doing for many years now.” In a soft or recessionary economy, “There”™s no question that people have to reprioritize their goals. If it”™s a choice of getting a breast enhancement or a facelift, people might put that off because they decide they need a car now.”
Less invasive
A trend away from more invasive surgical procedures already was evident in 2007, when the 12 million cosmetic procedures performed nationwide represented a 7 percent increase from 2006 and a 59 percent jump from 2000, the year before the start of a national boom in demand for cosmetic procedures, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). The number of surgical procedures, however, stayed at 1.8 million in 2007 from 2006, while minimally invasive cosmetic procedures rose 9 percent, to nearly 10 million. Though a type of laser liposuction used by three of Bernard”™s Westchester colleagues to tighten skin has been in demand with patients since its introduction last year, liposuction procedures nationwide stayed flat last year at 302,000.
Of the minimally invasive rejuvenation treatments, injected soft-tissue fillers led the growth in demand with a 35 percent increase, while the Botox brand remained most popular with 4.6 million users, according to the ASPS report.
“The injectables have increased by leaps and bounds,” Bernard said. “I do a lot of injectables. Certainly in a down economy, it”™s a less expensive approach to dealing with some issues that some people might have.”
An injection of Restylane, for example, a soft-tissue filler, costs on average $750 to $800 and its effects typically last for six months to a year, while a mini-facelift, a surgical procedure for which demand has “increased dramatically” in recent years, costs about $10,000 and typically lasts eight to 12 years, Dr. Bernard said.
Looking to compete
Speaking with plastic surgeons around the nation, “There”™s no question that more recently, in the last 10 months, everybody is soft, everybody is down” ”“ even at Beverly Hills practices, Bernard said.  Â
At his Park Avenue practice on Manhattan”™s Upper East Side, Dr. Barry Weintraub is seeing another side of the sour economy: “a trickling” of patients seeking facial rejuvenation treatments who are “either suddenly unemployed or about to be unemployed. They”™re going to be back in the (job) interviewing situation. They understand that they”™re going to be competing with younger people.”
For those Weintraub patients, who include financial and real estate professionals from Westchester County changing jobs, “The non-invasives are rampant because it”™s less expensive and it”™s immediate,” he said.
In Westport, Conn., business at Dr. Joseph B. O”™Connell”™s “ultra-high-end” practice at Plastic Surgery of Southern Connecticut “is fine,” he said. “But there are seven other board-certified plastic surgeons in Westport and I think they would give you a very different answer.”
“My business is probably as good as 2007, and that was my best year ever,” O”™Connell said. “I think that”™s atypical. Across the country business will probably be down this year from ”™07 because plastic surgery is an economically sensitive specialty.”
At The Institute of Aesthetic Surgery and Medicine at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, Dr. Philip C. Bonanno, institute director, has contact with plastic surgeons in at least a dozen different practices. “I would say there seems to be a universally held feeling that the overall industry is feeling the effects of the economy,” he said. While the effects are not “catastrophic,” there has been a demonstrable decline in demand for cosmetic procedures, he said. “I think the longer it goes on, the more of an effect it will have.”
Once the exclusive resort of the wealthy, “Cosmetic surgery and all cosmetic procedures have been democratized with the passage of time,” Bonanno said. “They appeal to a whole spectrum of people than they did 25 years ago.”
That broad appeal might shrink in a shrinking economy. For the last 10 to 15 years, the institute director said, many patients have obtained financing for uninsured surgical procedures or have used their credit cards. “That approach of have-it-now, pay later is certainly beginning to be felt” and could worsen if the economy does not reverse and personal debt deepens.
In the cosmetic surgery industry, “That democratization will roll back a bit,” he predicted
