Pricing structures for Hair Transplants

[blahblah]

Hey Guys,

Can someone give how HT surgeons prices their operations? I want to know so I can start
a savings plan just for a hair transplant. It will be like a college fund for head. I'll plan on saving for the next 5 years so I got time.

[thinning85]

I think there's a a lot of factors that go into it -- probably too many to name (e.g. staff, overhead, reputation, skill, market, etc.).

I know with ARTAS, the company receives $1 for every graft, so that's something that is consistently built into surgeons' pricing models. I found that most reputable surgeons charge $6-7 per graft on average for an ARTAS procedure. Strip was more in the $4-5 range based off the surgeons I spoke with.

[blahblah]

I think there's a a lot of factors that go into it -- probably too many to name (e.g. staff, overhead, reputation, skill, market, etc.).

I know with ARTAS, the company receives $1 for every graft, so that's something that is consistently built into surgeons' pricing models. I found that most reputable surgeons charge $6-7 per graft on average for an ARTAS procedure. Strip was more in the $4-5 range based off the surgeons I spoke with.

I hear that ARTAS procedure is absolute bull. I'd prefer the skilled, cared hands of a seasoned HT surgeon then a robot. Wouldn't anyone? Or am I missing something?

[thinning85]

I've heard that, however I've also heard people as reputable as the founder of this site say they believe ARTAS is the future of hair transplant surgery, and I've heard everything in between those extremes.

I had an ARTAS procedure and if I'm being honest, I wouldn't do it again. That said, it's all relative. I have no doubt there are people who were butchered at the hands of various surgeons who would kill for the modest results I've seen 8 months after the ARTAS procedure.

[Tron]

I hear that ARTAS procedure is absolute bull. I'd prefer the skilled, cared hands of a seasoned HT surgeon then a robot. Wouldn't anyone? Or am I missing something?

Don't you mean the skilled hands of the junior college tech? Ive not been to a surgeon where he does all the extracting and placement himself. Its far too labour intensive and time consuming for one person. That is why the robot is the best option going forward in my opinion. All advertising touts the doc, but in my experience the doc does very little of the actual grunt work.

[JoeTillman]

Doctors charge what they can get away with charging. If any of you don't think every doctor out there would love to charge 15 bucks a graft, you're naive. These are the factors that have a direct influence on how doctors charge.

1. What they can get away with.
2. What patients will pay.
3. What they can get away with.
4. What patients will pay.

After that, they do have to take into account how many staff members they have (including not surgical staff), their office lease/mortgage, equipment costs (if they lease anything such as beds, lights, robots, etc.) and the list goes on, just like in any business. There is also the general cost of living where the clinic is located. That's why countries like India, Turkey and Mexico can charge so much less than the average clinic in Canada, the US or Western Europe.

There are surgeons out there however that do perform most, or even all, of a procedure themselves but the market conditions generally don't allow them to charge more than their competitors. For instance, Dr. Lupanzula in Brussels, one of the doctors I work with, does all of the FUE work himself, both scoring and extracting, yet he's no more expensive, and even cheaper in some cases, than his local competition in Brussels. As far as I know, Dr. Lupanzula is the only doctor in his area that does each and every graft scoring and extraction for each and every case. Under absolutely NO conditions will he let a technician perform this part of the procedure. He won't even let his technicians give injections to help during the procedure. They process the grafts under microscopes and they place grafts. Period. In fact, I don't know of any doctor in Belgium as a whole, that does the amount of work on each case that Dr. Lupanzula does and yet he is almost the cheapest doctor in the entire country. On top of this, he rarely does more than one procedure a day while his competition routinely takes on two, three or more procedures in one day, and this is where the "Turkish model" comes into play where volume, rather than quality control, becomes the focus. Being able to focus on both, consistently, is extremely difficult.

Financial logic would dictate that Dr. Lupanzula should be more expensive than any other clinic in the area, yet he's not. Why? Because the market has established what the pricing should be in the area.

To address the OP, pricing will vary based on the type of procedure you want, FUSS or FUE, how many grafts, and the location of the clinic. For this discussion I'm not including Turkey/India/Mexico for reference. For FUSS, expect a total average of 3.50 to 5.00 per graft. For FUE expect an average of 4.00 to 7.00 per graft. Many clinics have a sliding scale where the first 1000 to 2000 grafts are a higher cost, then each graft past a specific # is reduced in cost. This means that the more grafts you get in one procedure the more money you save compared to breaking it down into two procedures. For instance...

4000 grafts based on a sliding scale of 5.00 for the first 2000 then 3.00 for the next 2000 is 16,000.00 (average of 4.00 per graft).

2000 grafts x 2 surgeries, each at 5.00 per graft is 20,000.00 total (average of 5.00) per graft.

I hope this helps you to get an idea of the overall fee structures but to get an idea of what you'll need to save up for you should have consultations with various clinics so you can better understand your own hair loss and how these clinics will address your case. You'll also get specific cost estimates which will allow you to better plan your future.