Cost vs. Quality

[Youngun]

I'm currently consulting various doctors to perform an FUE procedure in 2 months time. The procedure will be ~2000 grafts to restore my hairline in and will be in regions 1, 2, and 3. Now that I've got prices for various clinics, how much of a difference in quality vs. the price is between these clinics? For example, a well known doctor in has provided an estimate of $5000, while a very successful doctor in Canada has estimated upwards of $18,000.

 

The hairline is the most important area for a procedure and I would obviously like to get the best transplant possible, within reason. So any recommendations on how to go about choosing a surgeon to conduct my procedure?

[Dr Blake Bloxham]

Youngun,

 

Definitely a significant price difference. When this occurs, I usually recommend that patients simply ask "why?" Is one clinic utilizing technician FUE while the other is handled by a surgeon? Does one clinic do 3-4 procedures a day to balance out the lower charge per graft? If so, does this mean extraction is rushed -- which you don't want with already weakened FUE grafts.

 

So what do you think? Any reason why you think one is much cheaper than the other?

 

If not, and everything feels okay to you, just make sure you know EXACTLY who is doing what during the surgery before you ever get to the chair.

 

Good luck!

[Youngun]

From the sounds of it, both surgeons do approximately 2 procedures a day and do all the incisions/planting themselves while not doing the extraction. I understand that the doctor in Canada (Rahal) is known for his hairline, but am wondering if the massive increase in cost actually translates to a that much more aesthetic transplant. If not Rahal, is a European FUE doctor (like Bisanga) worth the ~$11,000 relative to the $5000 I was quoted? As I said earlier, I would like the higher quality work done (if possible) but am just asking for more experienced opinions on whether the increased cost is truly worth it.

[darlinglocks]

Hello Youngun,

 

As you are checking out different doctors, I would certainly recommend DR. Tejinder Bhatti who performs great FUE HT.

Don't hesitate to ask for an online consultation or advice.

 

Check his website, pictures and cost: darlingbudsindia.com

 

I had a 1524 grafts FUE HT with Dr. Tejinder Bhatti and I am very happy with my choice.

Feel free to ask any questions.

[lileli]

Sometimes it is just cost of living. I got my FUE in Mexico and it costs me $3800 for 1959 grafts. I was my doctor's only patient and he was involved with every aspect of the surgery. I Rahal charges so much because of cost of living and because he can. He is very well known and you pay for that. There are many great surgeons around the world that charge a lot less.

[aWidowsPeek]

If anyone pays $18,000 for 2000 FUE grafts they are crazy...and have too much money lol. I had 2000 grafts to my hairline for $4000 in Mexico and my results look as good as any other result on this forum.

[Beestig22]

My parents tought me:

 

Never go with the cheapest option

 

Don't go for the most expensive option

 

This is the reason I headed for Prohairclinic, along with their longterm experience and consistent FUE results.

[Sean]

There are great fue surgeons that charge $2-$5 vs some others that may charge upwards to $10 etc. there is no difference in quality. It all comes down to a surgeons surgical protocol. The $2 doc can give you an equal result of a$10 doc.

 

It is is mostly based on your preference where and who you want to go with.

[Sean]

I know some docs that charge prime rates and also do more than 1 procedure + patient a day. Also, docs that yse techs in North America, yet they charge prime rates. Some of tgese docs are well known.

 

I also know docs that charge prime rates and do over 2500 grafts in just one day. Even if it takes them more than 10 hours.

[darlinglocks]

Why is the price different?

 

Location! Renting or leasing a place in High end New York and LA is more expensive than in India or Turkey.

Salaries and hiring staff are again different in every countries and for sure cheaper in India than the States.

Check out the doctor's credentials, testimonies and compare.

 

Chosing a doctor at a fraction's of a cost doesn't mean you'll get a fraction's of a cost procedure.

 

People will take the most expensive doctor when money doesn't matter but it doesn't mean they get the best HT.

All the movies stars in Hollywood who pay for the best plastic surgeons don't always come out with the best procedures.

 

So Yes you can have the best HT surgeon in India without having to pay the max.

[WHTC-7706631290]

Younggun,

 

Go a bit deeper and find out each specific surgeons transection rates and compare actual results of similar patients. You don't want to pay the lowest rate, but you don't want to pay the absolute highest either.

 

Cost of living, experience with FUE, technology in instrumentation, and staffing expense are deciding factors. Quality is the results in the recipient and donor areas.

[splitting hairs]

Hi, my advice would be not to base your choice on the cost of the procedure. The most expensive is not always the best option either!

 

Rahal's FUE is not to the same level as his FUT work IMO. In fact technicians do virtually all of the work with regard to his FUE procedures.

 

Things you must consider:

 

Who does the procedure? Is it the Dr or is it the technicians? You want the Dr to be doing as much as possible.

 

Does the Dr offer FUE only? If he offers FUE and FUT, he may only do one FUE procedure a week and hence is not as experienced as Drs that do FUE exclusively.

 

What are the Drs results like? How do they compare to other surgeons?

 

Does the surgeon take long term planning into consideration. Hair loss is progressive and this must be borne in mind.

 

All Drs have patients with below par results, how does your chosen deal with them? Does he ignore them or does he go out of his way to ensure he puts it right?

 

Hope this helps

[Melvin- Admin]

You should never ever ever base your option on pricing, I mean can you get a good procedure for cheap sure, but is there a guarantee NO, I paid 14,000 for 2,120 grafts, basically $7 a graft which is on the high side. But in my opinion the doctor I went too, Dr. Diep has the best results for hairlines, like you said the hairline is the most important part of the hair restoration process, it not only takes surgical skill, but it requires quite a bit of artistic talent, its not just dumping grafts on your head, it requires a lot of detail, the surgeon must make sure that the hair changes direction naturally, that the hairline is customized to your face and ethnicity, the follicular units need to be placed in single rows of one hair follicles as to not be unnatural loooking or harsh, whatever you do dont be cheap on the hairline, trust me if hair is important to you then the money is well worth it. Dr. Rahal does good work from what i've seen, but I believe he uses a robotic machine for FUE, personally if that's true than I don't think he should be charging that high, because he's not actually doing the work, hes just monitoring the machine, check out Dr. Shapiro, or Dr. Cole, or even Dr. Diep.

[Sean]

You should never ever ever base your option on pricing, I mean can you get a good procedure for cheap sure, but is there a guarantee NO, I paid 14,000 for 2,120 grafts, basically $7 a graft which is on the high side. But in my opinion the doctor I went too, Dr. Diep has the best results for hairlines, like you said the hairline is the most important part of the hair restoration process, it not only takes surgical skill, but it requires quite a bit of artistic talent, its not just dumping grafts on your head, it requires a lot of detail, the surgeon must make sure that the hair changes direction naturally, that the hairline is customized to your face and ethnicity, the follicular units need to be placed in single rows of one hair follicles as to not be unnatural loooking or harsh, whatever you do dont be cheap on the hairline, trust me if hair is important to you then the money is well worth it. Dr. Rahal does good work from what i've seen, but I believe he uses a robotic machine for FUE, personally if that's true than I don't think he should be charging that high, because he's not actually doing the work, hes just monitoring the machine, check out Dr. Shapiro, or even Dr. Diep.

 

Dr Diep charges $7 a graft? I thought it was less? I believe it was announced over this forum via Dr. Rahal's clinic that he no longer uses the Artas robot for fue. So he is not using the robotic machine as previously stated and that assumption should be corrected because it does scare some prospective patients.

 

See most clinics, if they face a bad situation, regardless the cost, will try to repair a patient themselves (if an issue arises). This goes for both high cost and low cost clinics. A complete refund is unlikely unless a clinic totally destroys someones scalp or donor and etc and of they got good ethics, they will refund. No one wants to give money back in full if they ruined your scalp or made it harder for you to be repaired, there is rarely such recourse whether you go with high price clinic or low price clinic. The most pushed option is a few grafts offerred for repair by that same clinic that screwed up in first place. If there is a serious screw up then other options may be provided. However, if you go with a cheaper clinic and they just so happen to give you a subpar result, at least you can cut your losses and say no thank you to repair and go with someone else without a very deep hole in your pocket or be bound to the same doc that has made thousands more off you, because realistically, that doc will not have a refund policy. Most clinics try to push that replace grafts that did not grow policy which is so subjective that you cant really tell how many were lost to the T.

 

Folks just have to be extremely careful in this industry and it is IDEAL to review all actual surgical consent forms before an initial deposit is even paid. The final forms that you review before a surgery. Very few docs do this. Example: I think Dr Lupanzula gives you the actual surgical consents before deposit is paid. Maybe Dr Umar too, i think he does it during the consultation. Some folks may need to confirm it. But this provides for a greater transparency throughout the process, to see the actual consents before surgery so there are no surprises or changes to aa document the day of.

 

I cant stand doctors that disparately treat patients if there is a valid issue for the patient or to disclaim or falsify info publically when there is an actual issue. Especially to have their trolls wreak havoc on that patient online. What is sad is some forums may have mods that hammer the patient, lock em and the thread, ban and etc behest in favor of the doc. This is why some folks and officials may be looking into the marketing aspects of this industry big time.

[Sean]

Posted reply awaiting moderator review.

[Melvin- Admin]

Dr Diep charges $7 a graft? I thought it was less? I believe it was announced over this forum via Dr. Rahal's clinic that he no longer uses the Artas robot for fue. So he is not using the robotic machine as previously stated and that assumption should be corrected because it does scare some prospective patients.

 

See most clinics, if they face a bad situation, regardless the cost, will try to repair a patient themselves (if an issue arises). This goes for both high cost and low cost clinics. A complete refund is unlikely unless a clinic totally destroys someones scalp or donor and etc and of they got good ethics, they will refund. No one wants to give money back in full if they ruined your scalp or made it harder for you to be repaired, there is rarely such recourse whether you go with high price clinic or low price clinic. The most pushed option is a few grafts offerred for repair by that same clinic that screwed up in first place. If there is a serious screw up then other options may be provided. However, if you go with a cheaper clinic and they just so happen to give you a subpar result, at least you can cut your losses and say no thank you to repair and go with someone else without a very deep hole in your pocket or be bound to the same doc that has made thousands more off you, because realistically, that doc will not have a refund policy. Most clinics try to push that replace grafts that did not grow policy which is so subjective that you cant really tell how many were lost to the T.

 

Folks just have to be extremely careful in this industry and it is IDEAL to review all actual surgical consent forms before an initial deposit is even paid. The final forms that you review before a surgery. Very few docs do this. Example: I think Dr Lupanzula gives you the actual surgical consents before deposit is paid. Maybe Dr Umar too, i think he does it during the consultation. Some folks may need to confirm it. But this provides for a greater transparency throughout the process, to see the actual consents before surgery so there are no surprises or changes to aa document the day of.

 

I cant stand doctors that disparately treat patients if there is a valid issue for the patient or to disclaim or falsify info publically when there is an actual issue. Especially to have their trolls wreak havoc on that patient online. What is sad is some forums may have mods that hammer the patient, lock em and the thread, ban and etc behest in favor of the doc. This is why some folks and officials may be looking into the marketing aspects of this industry big time.

 

Yea I wasn't sure if he was still doing the robotic FUE or not, is he actually performing the FUE or is it technicians?

 

Originally, when I went to Dr. Diep I had asked for only 1,500 grafts so the cost per graft was more, the day of the surgery I signed a consent form saying that I would pay for any additional grafts if it was possible my donor supply isn't that great so I wasn't sure if it was going to be possible, he did give me 120 grafts for free and he gave me a $500 voucher, but the price per graft was still based on the original 1,500. The money doesn't really matter to me, I completely disagree with you on this:

"However, if you go with a cheaper clinic and they just so happen to give you a subpar result, at least you can cut your losses and say no thank you to repair and go with someone else without a very deep hole in your pocket or be bound to the same doc that has made thousands more off you"

 

If you go to a good surgeon and you have a plan for what you want, the physician knows what your expectations our and has advised if they are realistic, than there is no reason why you should be getting a bad result. If you go to a crappy cheap clinic and they botch you, not only did you spend money to get screwed, but you have to walk around looking horrible, which to me is 10x worse than spending money. If you get botched by a world renowned surgeon, there is usually a reputation that they have to live by, a set of standards to uphold, cheap clinics like commercial chains that have technicians doing the full procedure are not worth it at all, but in the event any surgeon botched me I wouldn't return even if they paid me and offered to do it for free period. When you're dealing with a finite supply of donor hair, you want to make sure you treat that supply like gold, as I said earlier, the extra money is worth it so long as you get the results.

[aWidowsPeek]

Affordable FUE doesn't always mean subpar results. We see subpar fue result from doctors who charge a TON of money. The only thing you should base choosing a FUE surgeon on is the results you've seen. I paid the lowest you can pay for 2000 grafts to my hairline and every single graft has grown in nicely here at the 6 month mark. I'm glad i didn't spend thousands more. Honestly i couldn't afford some of the ridiculous prices surgeons in the states charge. $8 - $10 per graft? LOL What a joke.

[lileli]

Affordable FUE doesn't always mean subpar results. We see subpar fue result from doctors who charge a TON of money. The only thing you should base choosing a FUE surgeon on is the results you've seen. I paid the lowest you can pay for 2000 grafts to my hairline and every single graft has grown in nicely here at the 6 month mark. I'm glad i didn't spend thousands more. Honestly i couldn't afford some of the ridculous prices surgeons in the states charge. $8 - $10 per graft? LOL What a joke.

 

I completely agree. Even if I was earning top dollar, I could not justify paying 10 dollars per graft.

[darlinglocks]

I completely agree with both of you aWidowsPeek and lildli.

 

I wouldn't be able to afford that range of price per graft but for those who can I do understand they prefer staying at home and just let the dollars roll.

 

However, paying top dollars doesn't always mean you get the best surgery.

You can have the best HT at a more affordable cost because hiring staff, leasing a place and cost are much cheaper for example in India as compared to countries like USA, Europe, Australia.

 

I had my FUE HT 1524 grafts done by Dr. Tejinder Bhatti and I can only higly recommend him.

Edited August 1, 2015 by David - Moderator

[Dr. Rahal]

Dr. Rahal does good work from what i've seen, but I believe he uses a robotic machine for FUE

 

We tested ARTAS and refuse to offer it to our patients – despite still have the machine and paying over $250,000.

 

In our opinion, the ARTAS technology is not ready does not benefit patients at all. We suggest anyone considering ARTAS to research the machine very carefully.

 

Bottom-line, our FUE method is far superior.

 

That’s our opinion, and we feel strongly about it.

[darlinglocks]

We tested ARTAS and refuse to offer it to our patients – despite still have the machine and paying over $250,000.

 

In our opinion, the ARTAS technology is not ready does not benefit patients at all. We suggest anyone considering ARTAS to research the machine very carefully.

 

Bottom-line, our FUE method is far superior.

 

Thank you for sharing your honest opinion with us Dr. Rahal

[Broncos22]

I'm curious if anyone here knows who the best surgeon/clinic is and for a reasonable price at the same time here in Los Angeles. I set up some consults and have been to one already but I was told to always get a second and third opinion so if anyone can point me out to some Drs or clinics here it would help me a lot. Thank you.

[darlinglocks]

Hello Broncos22

 

There are several great surgeons in the world depending on what you can afford.

Choosing the most expensive doctor doesn't always mean you get the best HT or surgery; look at the hollywood stars!

 

I Had a great HT FUE 1524 graft procedure in Chandigarh India by DR. Tejinder Bhatti at darlingbudsindia and so have several others on this forum.

 

I have been overly criticized for helping people like you, just by mentioning their website.

If you need any information, feel free to ask me any questions even a message.

 

Hair Restoration Social Network ? Community for and by Hair Loss Patients - Dr Tejinder Bhatti's Profile

 

Darlinglocks

[smithy01]

I've been reading the whole thread on cost vs quality. I live in the UK so I may have to travel as I want a good quality doctor but at a fair price.

 

The prices that I read on here are very vast in difference for the same number of grafts! It's so hard to work out what is the best thing to do!! Do I travel? I really don't want to as it just adds to the stress of the whole procedure! There does not seem to be any proper answers to my questions haha.

[Broncos22]

Thanks u for your messages.

 

I'm not interested in flying out for my procedure as it would be a discomfort and hassle for me. Also in LA there are many clinics and surgeons already but I just can't figure out who to go to.

 

I'm also getting the sense that many clinics charge different prices for the same work but I'm assuming they have more experience or they just do that because they built a reputation for themselves and they can at this point. Either way I have a budget and I need to stay within that range. That being said I have done some research and found some clinics nearby and I'm willing to post here what happens with them so people can benefit from my experience as well. Just my way of helping out the community I guess. also I have decided to not get the fuss and rather the Fue if I can afford it. I don't want the scar and it seems very harsh to me. I read about a few Drs and clinics and visited their sites and spoke to them and scheduled appointments. Wish me luck.