Are we being over charged for this service ?

[wylie]

Well if you Google it.... 209,000 results come up. :confused: It is not how many anyways.

 

So a Google search yielded zero results? Yes, that's what I got too. So I guess you are partially correct when you say "It's not how many anyways", because the number is zero (excluding the few truly unlucky outliers that no one knows about).

 

If insurance providers based their malpractice rates on the number of successful lawsuits against industry butchers then insurance rates should be lower than what people pay for car insurance.

[Spanker]

Price will never be more than the market will allow. That's the bottom line. Say you have 20 docs in the US that do good fue (not saying there's that many, I don't know, but let's just use that number.) So, twenty docs in the US do really good fue. Then say they do 250 ops a year when you consider vacations, weekend, and seminars. 20 times 250= 5000 transplants by the top 20 guys per year. There are 35 million men in the US balding. That basically means it would take 7,000 years for the top twenty docs to transplant all balding men. If only 5 percent of men were interested, it would take 350 years, assuming they were all one pass procedures.

 

Point is, there is a high demand for really skilled ht docs and very low supply, so, I'm not sure surprised how expensive hair restoration is.

[wazaam]

I know you suggested the number of good FUE surgeons based your "theory" on but I don't think we have anywhere near 20 solid options in the US? I don't know if we have 3-5 elite FUE surgeons in the US? Do we have any??

 

Please provide some examples of 4000-5000 Grafts FUE by a US surgeon that has been a success and I could be persuaded otherwise.

 

We may be simply dealing with a supply vs demand issue as FUE is the future of HT's and is in high demand at the moment.

[KO]

It cannot be a simple supply and demand issue IMO. For example Bisanga charges EU 5/3, Lorenzo has 6/4.5/2.5, but Jae Pak, Wolf, Konior, Rahal, and Shapiro all charge $7-8 for FUE. All these are great clinics, but the former two are more known specifically for FUE.

 

I think the only explanation is that a FUT clinic has to consider the opportunity cost of giving up FUT revenue when they do a more time consuming FUE, which will make FUE much more expensive. Compare that to FUE surgeon Vories who charges $4/graft.

[wazaam]

I think that several of the clinics that you mentioned are performing multiple procedures per day. Rahal & Shapiro have multiple procedures going on the same day.

 

I would think this along with the heavy involvement of techs would help offset the need to charge $7-$8 per graft?

 

As these clinics become effective and efficient with their FUE work hopefully the price is more reflective of what the top European clinics offer.

 

We could use more quality & economical FUE options in the US. I think we can all agree on that.

[1966kph]

Some very interesting thought provoking comments are any of you gonna throw in a answer to some of the other questions?

The one question I was really hoping some might answer was how much would you be prepared to pay and I should of posed it better but I meant in total to achieve the desired results not price per graft?

?10.000-?30.000-?100.000 anything?

Have a good day

 

Are we being over charged for hair transplantts?

How much have you spent thus far in the quest for more hair?

How much are you prepared to pay?

What do you think you should be paying?

Where would you be prepared to travel to in order to save money?

What do you think should happen within the industry to lower cost for the consumer?

Do you think drs are uncaring in demanding the price they do?

Do you think drs should drop prices if they indeed do have our best interest at heart?

Have a good day and I look forward to the forth coming responses to these questions

[1978matt]

Being financially restrictive is probably not a bad thing, I mean, it is a defense mechanism against some guys getting work done at too young an age.

 

In terms of high FUE costs this would seem to boil down to a few things.

 

In a composite US clinic the doctor is generally the only one who can do the extractions (unless he has an assistant who is also an MD). At the same time he needs to keep his techs on the payroll for FUT work.

 

If he is working on FUE he may need more resting time, therefore losing out on potential other work. He also has less time to answer calls, emails and meet patients in the office. There is not the luxury of having technicians / nurses sharing the workload.

 

Obviously things are a little different in Europe.

 

I have no idea the size of Dr Vories team but I imagine it is half the size of a FUT clinic hence the ability to charge $4 versus 7 or 8.

[1966kph]

I think the US is somewhat handicapped because of the restrictions in regard to fue extractions.

If you take a look at a photo asmed just posted up in a presentation he must have at least 20 members of staff to keep going.

I asked the question on that thread how many patients they can deal with in a day but as yet its not been answered.

Erdoğans rates have climbed as has the number of patients and staff yet he only does the incisions and spends very little time with each individual patient.

Its a conveyer belt for patients and a clinic that fits the definition of a hair mill to a t but the standard of results is still very high.

Its a cost effective well oiled machine and a big business success story.

Have a good day

[GraveD11gger]

Doctors are running a business and their goal is to maximize profits.

 

Maybe there are some expectional doctors (although very rare) who give priority to treat their patients and just wants to give the best possible treatment at any costs.

 

HT is just another operation from a surgical specialty, a treatment, Unfortunately this operation was captured by the others (investors, businmesmann, non-surgeon doctors) to maximize profits.

 

This is just an ethical and moral breakdown which needs cure. Somebody will provide this. The only constant is changing and just wait and see.

[GraveD11gger]

-- I know that Maral's rep denies that the clinic's low pricing for FUE reflects the delegation of these procedures to technicians, but I find that hard to believe.

 

Clinic representative said (moderators do not allow them to post in this forum you know), even rinoplasty operation are priced about 2000-2500 euros there, and any HT with much lower costs should be honestly priced lower. Higher pricing is simple robbery. When Maral was doing incisions (and strip removal) at the years of FUT, it was the same. (I work in the hospital he does operations and my uncle ,hairdresser, regularly refer patients to the clinic)

 

Believe it or not this is the fact. But I wonder if Maral say "earth is round and spinning around the sun" then you will still hardly believe them.

 

Anyway, of course we can not compare the pricing and costs and income levels in different countries. Anyway this is the major problem of this forum that everybody be judged by the law and rules of very different country.

 

So will we never see Maral Clinic as a recommended clinic here (just because chief tech. also does incisions) and showing hundreds of results from FUE operations? I think people here are only interested in to pay for big amounts for HT operations, is this their priority to provide profit for doctors?? (see my previos post)