Current Advancements in The ARTAS Hair Transplant System - Dr. Craig Ziering

[Delphi]

It's far more profitable for a Doc to talk a patient into any other procedure besides ARTAS. That's because ARTAS gets $1 for every punch. Not to mention the fact that these machines cost doctors 1/4 million dollars. I'd bet the company is not as cash strapped (at least their financials don't indicate so) as you think.

I had multiple docs try and steer me away from the ARTAS, completely based on cost/ profit. It's a buisness man, docs gotta make their Tesla payment.

Lastly, I'm not aware of any industry where robots do a lesser job than humans and professionals continue to buy them. Robots are doing actual life saving surgeries currently too.

From what is being presented I would say that at this point the ARTAS does a good job extracting on patients who are candidates for larger punch sizes. Even with the smallest punches the robot uses the scaring is a bit larger than other instruments. (I’m assuming this based on the size of the holes left behind) I was a fan and I’m really into the technology, but the results seem to fall short except by the doctors who know what they are doing, which seem to be only a few. I disagree about it being more profitable for doctors to talk you out of the ARTAS. Since they can charge more it’s really a wash, unless the robot limits their ability to transplant more grafts in a single session, which might be the case, so if that is then it’s better for both the doctor and the patients to get more grafts in one session as long as it is a reasonable amount. They either talk the person out of it because they know the results will fall short for that particular patient or because it might be easier to perform a strip or FUE using other methods and offer the patient a “discount”.
I would love to see their financials, can you point me to where I can find them?

As far a robots performing life saving surgery today, from all the research I have done, if I was going to have urological surgery or some other life saving surgery, I’d far prefer to go to a true expert in laparoscopic surgery than a place that uses a robot. After 15 years in use, outcomes still seem to be better doing surgery by hand. and far less of a burden on the healthcare system.

An example is the da Vinci robot.
“This is a technology that is costing the healthcare system hundreds of millions of dollars and has been marketed as a miracle — and it’s not,” said Dr. John Santa, medical director at Consumer Reports Health. “It’s a fancier way of doing what we’ve always been able to do.”

Da Vinci was originally designed to do cardiovascular surgery, but it’s fallen out of favor for heart surgeries. Next it was picked up for gynecological surgeries. In 2013, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) said it wasn’t the best, or even the second-best option, for noncancerous gynecological surgeries.

Here’s the whole article. I’ve read some very scary things about it.

http://www.healthline.com/health-new...ipoff-021215#1