Transcatheter aortic valve replacement passed open-heart surgery in Medicare in 2017 — an estimated 98,000 versus 13,000 procedures in 2024
Nationally the new way is now 89% of the pair, and it leads in 45 of the 45 state markets — every state market has crossed over.
The order reversed over the decade. In 2015, open surgery still led by a wide margin — an estimated 51,000 open procedures — and the transcatheter approach did not pull ahead until 2017.
Both series moved steadily, in opposite directions. Transcatheter volume climbed from an estimated 21,000 in 2015 to its current lead, while open surgery drifted down across the same window.
The crossing is specific to the Medicare population. The transcatheter approach was first approved for the oldest, highest-risk patients, so it pulled ahead here earlier than in the all-payer national picture.
The raw fee-for-service record runs closer than the scaled estimate. In 2024 it showed about 49,000 transcatheter procedures to 6,000 surgical.
A volume record, not a verdict on which approach is better or safer — indications, patient risk, and guidelines differ, and this page makes no clinical comparison.
Estimated total-Medicare aortic-valve-replacement procedures by approach — transcatheter and open surgical — 2015 to 2024.
Not billed claim lines, not device unit sales, and not all-payer (the crossing year here is specific to Medicare).