Is the HT Discount, Worth or a Trap ?

[Cartesian]

Folk:

 

A patient educator, from a transplant clinic indicates, that if I choose a particular date provided by him for the HT, I get a discount of $1000.

 

I understand that the doctor would perform multiple surgeries, if I choose that date (by getting into the tactic of the discount.) Would it be a better option not to fall prey for the discount ? Or, would the doctors work be the same irrespective of the number of heads he is working on that particular day ? Any experiences of similar kind or advices please ?

[Spanker]

I would stick to a doc that does one procedure only per day.

[Al - Moderator]

I would want to know more details of why they are doing more than 1 surgery that day. If yours is planned to be less than 2500 and the other surgery scheduled is just a touchup session of a few hundred grafts that may only take maybe 2 hours then I can see them wanting to schedule another small to mid size session the same day. The fact that he is giving you a discount only if you take a certain day may mean that they don't normally schedule more than 1 per day... unless it's just a sales technique to get you to go for the HT.

 

There's nothing wrong with getting a discount if the situation is OK. Of course it depends on who the Dr. is too, but you haven't said, so I can only comment based on the multiple surgeries in a single day.

[Jotronic]

The only scenario where a doctor should NOT be doing two surgeries him/herself is if they do the entire procedure without a proper support staff. Modern clinics that do state of the art procedures usually have a sizeable support staff that is very experienced at what they do. As long as the procedures are not giant megasessions then there is absolutely nothing wrong with two sessions in a day.

[HARIRI]

I agree with Jotronic. When I had my repair procedure with Dr. Rahal, there was another strip session in the other room of an Australian patient (3000-4000 grafts) I believe or maybe more. But I guess there were enough technicians although I do prefer a doctor performing one session a day but that definitely would bring less profit to the clinic, Money talks baby lol.

[Spanker]

The only scenario where a doctor should NOT be doing two surgeries him/herself is if they do the entire procedure without a proper support staff. Modern clinics that do state of the art procedures usually have a sizeable support staff that is very experienced at what they do. As long as the procedures are not giant megasessions then there is absolutely nothing wrong with two sessions in a day.

 

There are very state of the art clinics that only do one pt per day and are properly staffed. Properly staffed (for the type of preceedures the particlar dr does) is not the same thing as heavily staffed. Some doctors prefer to see only one per day and be involved in the entire procedure. While I do put H and W in my top 5 clinics, I would personally prefer to be the doctors only focus for the day. I actually did not know that about H and W, it obviously has not affected their results.

 

I honestly feel like there is not a one size fits all solution for choosing a clinic. If I needed 8k grafts, Dr. H would be my first pick. If I wanted a great and natural ht and wanted to be a little less aggressive, and needed 3k grafts, I would go with SMG, I ended up going with Dr. Konior because I feel like the size and location of what I want, plus the fact that there is so much existing hair, I felt most comfortable with him at this time.

 

Each person has different needs. If you do your research really well, you will figure out which doctor is best for you.

[mattj]

The other day I spoke with someone who visited a clinic in Pakistan. He said they were doing 5 surgeries per day.

 

Two is very manageable for a doctor who is surrounded by a good team. A good HT is always a team effort.

[lookingforht]

Ive heard that alot of the top clinics limit themselves to 30-40 ops a month so obviously its typically one mega session per day and some other days fitting in say two sessions of under 2000 grafts.

 

Ben, how about Dr. Feriduni? Does he do one op per day or 2? Was yours the only operation those 2 days when you had yours last October?