Even in a slow economy hair transplant surgery continues to be the most popular procedure for men to reverse the signs of aging. The hair transplant surgeons who own their practices have the ability to lower the cost of the hair restoration procedure to help the hair loss patients who have been effected by the economy. The large hair restoration companies have the abilty to lower their prices, but have not. When I meet with hair loss patients in Orlando who have gone for a consultation at the corporate owned hair restoration practices they are telling me that they are given quotes of 10 to 12 thousand dollars, the cost per graft may have been lowered, but the number of grafts needed have gone up. This is one of the main reasons I am against paying “per graft”. Why do some companies charge so much ? One reason is the amount they spend on cable and internet advertising. Another reason is that the 2 large companies are owned by corporations in other countries, they also have too many executives and mid-level managers that need to be paid. One of the companies uses an overseas call center, none of these things is keeping the money you spend in the U.S. I am a believer that the more money that is spent on local businesses will help our economy. When the Japanese company Aderans bought both Bosley and MHR they closed a lot of the MHR offices, laying off the hair transplant technicians and doctors. I have spoken to both doctors and technicians, they told me that they had no advance warning of the office closures. The hair transplant patients were not warned of the upcoming office closures, overnight they started receiving calls from Bosley telling them that they could continue their hair restoration treatment with Bosley, and new doctors and technicians, the former MHR patients that I spoke with did not want a new team working on them. I know from personal experience that I would always have the same team of hair transplant technicians work on my hair transplant procedures, the doctors were important, but the technicians perform most of the work. Hair transplant technicians do all of the dissection and placement of the grafts during the procedure, this is the standard within the hair restoration profession. Doctors have been using technicians for the dissection and placement of the grafts since hair transplant surgery began 50 years ago, in the begining the doctors would perform these tasks with 1 assistant, this changed when procedures grew larger with the introduction of mini and micrografts, the same amount of hair was being transplanted, instead of plugs which could contain 20 to 30 hairs the micro and mini grafts contained 1 to 8 hairs. When follicular units were introduced the number of hairs per graft dropped to 1-4 hairs, the cost per graft went down but the number of grafts went up. When the techniques changed for the better, the cost of the hair transplant procedure cost stayed about the same, in the early 90′s hair loss patients were paying about 3,500 dollars for an average procedure. Some hair transplant doctors took the idea of smaller grafts too far, dissecting the donor area into all 1 and 2 haired grafts, the results were not bad, but it resulted in a thin appearance, this also resulted in the cost of the procedure going up, the procedure took longer and required more technicians(technician cost is significantly lower than advertising cost to a hair restoration practice). Once the hair restoration profession saw the results of the 1-2 haired grafts, they went back to using follicular units, they saw the advantage of using FU’s, better growth and a more natural appearance, it made sence your hair naturally grows this way(groups of 1-4 hairs) so why not transplant the hair in this manner. Follicular Units are easier to dissect, and there is a lower risk of transection. Prior to the use of follicular units the grafts were dissected to match the size of the recipient sites, when using FU’s the opposite occurs, the recipient sites are created to match the size of the follicular unit grafts, there is much more teamwork involved between the surgeon and the technicians, since the “techs” place the grafts it is important that everyone is on the same page when it comes to the patients desires. This enhanced teamwork has benefitted the hair transplant patient with better results throughout the profession. In the early to mid 2000′s we saw some doctors go back and decrease the hairs/graft, this allowed them to perform procedures where the patient was receiving 3000 to 5000 grafts, patients were discussing this on internet forums and it became the measuring stick of a great surgeon, if you could not perform a 3000 graft hair transplant procedure you were not considered elite. This of course is not true, patients were led to believe that more grafts were better, but history taught us that using all 1 and 2 haired grafts did not give the patient a better result. The top hair restoration surgeons changed this short lived technique and got back to using follicular units, this kept costs lower and gave a better result, a few hair transplant doctors still use the 3000 plus graft technique, if you look at the photo galleries of the top surgeons you will see that the average size of a hair transplant today is about 1800 grafts, the results can be remarkable, this is because follicular units are being used.
If the hair transplant profession would adopt a per session fee instead of the current pay per graft, it would lower the cost to the patient as well as ensure that the technicians are dissecting pure follicular units instead of breaking down 3 and 4 haired FU grafts just to reach a certain number. We know that pure follicular units grow better if left intact, we also know that the results are better if you transplant hair the way it naturally grows. Some hair restoration doctors will actually charge you if they get an extra 200 grafts, so after you pay 10,000 dollars for a procedure, you are asked to pay for extra grafts, but they do give you a break, sometimes, instead of charging you 5.00/graft they only charge you 2.50/graft for the extra, if you don’t agree to pay for the additional grafts prior to surgery, they magically don’t get extra grafts. This can be changed by eliminating the price per graft. You have a choice, if the doctor you are considering will not give you a all inclusive procedure price, then go somewhere else, unlike 10 years ago there are many surgeons in each state that are capable of performing follicular unit hair transplant procedures. One of the most important facts when evaluating a particular hair restoration surgeon is the experience level of his team. The technicians perform at least 70% of today’s procedures, this the standard within hair transplantation.
Follicular Unit Extraction procedures has increased the amount of the procedure that the hair transplant technicians perform. The most talked about FUE procedure performed uses a machine called Neograft to assist the surgeon with the extraction process, Neograft has decreased the extraction process by almost 50%, this has allowed the surgeons who use Neograft to perform larger procedures, the size of a FUE procedure is dependent upon the area of safe donor available. It can still take 4-6 hours to extract the donor, but they do get more grafts. The average cost of FUE is about 3.5 times the cost of FU strip. Neograft was designed to lower the cost of FUE, but I havn’t seen this, if more hair transplant surgeons were performing FUE, the cost would come down due to natural competition. You also have the choice to not pay the 10.00/graft instead talk to the surgeon and come to an agreement for a set price to fill in the bald areas that bother you, as part of the agreement have the surgeon guarantee a set number of grafts per square cm, this is better than receiving a gurantee of a total number of grafts. Based on your donor hair characteristics the surgeon should be placing between 35 to 60 recipient sites per square centimeter, there is always a higher number the closure you get to the hair line. Unlike general medical procedures where there is no room for negotiations, cosmetic procedures are different because they are elective procedures. During your consultations ask the doctor how many grafts/square cm he thinks he can achieve, then find out his teams experience level(each tech should have 5 years minimum), when it comes down to talking about price, ask him to give you a set price for the area to be filled in, tell him you want the team focused on performing the best procedure and not on numbers of grafts, explain that density per square cm is more important to you than total number of grafts. Don’t be afraid to tell him that you have a budget for the procedure and see if his fees are within your budget, if your budget and his fees are not even close, then look elsewhere, if its close then negotiate. It is very common for negotiating to take place during cosmetic surgery consultations.
If you have questions or would like to schedule a hair loss consultation call 386-216-5429, you can also visit our website at Orlando Hair Replacement. We have a pricing guide so that you can see a pretty acurate estimate of hair transplant costs.