Another company in the Hair market. ANYONE can do hair as a practice profit center!

[Dr. William Lindsey]

Here's the latest email I got yesterday. I'm guessing it went out to LOTS of medical practices looking to generate a little extra income.

 

Sites like this are KEY for potential patients to do research before committing to a slick sales pitch!

 

Dr. Lindsey McLean VA

 

 

The email is as follows and had a fancy high tech pic that won't cut and paste.

Hi Dr. Lindsey,

The hair transplant market is growing at an amazing rate.

The total market size for hair restoration surgery has increased 28% since 2012, that is a dollar (USD) amount of $1.9 billion in 2012 to $2.5 billion in 2014.

50 Million American Men are experiencing hair loss*

30 Million American Women are experiencing hair loss*

* AAD Website 2014

SmartGraft is designed for the high-volume FUE technique.

* Minimally invasive office procedure

* No scalpel, no sutures

* No unsightly linear scar

* Virtually no discomfort

* Significantly reduced treatment times

* Faster recovery time; “work next day”

* Natural looking permanent results

The average male hair transplant is 2000 grafts at a fee of $ 6 each = $ 12,000.00 gross.

Jeff

[voxman]

Businesses are expanding in this growing economy.

 

Went to the dry cleaners yesterday - got my suit pressed, a falafel combo, and a quick 500 Neograft job.

[thisguy1]

I have a feeling we are sort of going to go full circle to the bad old days once the age of "fly by FUE" at non HT specific clinics dawns upon us. There are going to be a lot more disgruntled patients who cast aspersions on the whole industry. It's like an army of mini Bosleys will be upon us.

 

FUE by nature gives less leeway to the person doing it due to less tissue around the bulb so its even more important to have a dedicated HT person performing it. Or the yield will suck.

 

Anecdotally on my local sports radio station I have heard 4 different HT ads in the past 12 months so naturally I go look them up after the fact. All 4 are FUE and only 1 is a place who specializes in hair.

 

I am in a top 15 market so I am sure the same is happening in other places.

[Dr. William Lindsey]

Yep.

 

I was out in Utah last week doing some consultations and skiing. I rode the chairlift with 3 different guys who had been lured in for appointments at "new start up hair clinics". Fortunately all of these guys had the common sense to do just a smidgen of research prior to committing. AND I saw 2 people who had not done the research and were waiting on growth as promised by those clinics....and although its too early to tell...they were now doing research and were appropriately concerned.

 

Forums like this do a great job educating the public. I've posted that I personally found a specialist for a non-medical issue, on a very similar forum. It served as a starting point for my research. Patients who simply google me...are way less prepared for their consultation than ones who dig just a little deeper prior to coming in.

 

Dr. Lindsey McLean VA

[Dr. Glenn Charles]

Well said Dr. Lindsey. That is why it is important that all states should have specific laws in place limiting the scoring of skin ( FUE! ) to only doctors or licensed PA's. There are currently many states that do not have these laws and have allowed companies that make automated FUE devices to sell their product to anyone who will buy it and also supply the technician who is essentially acting as the doctor. Of course when the bad results start coming out this will hurt the whole industry.

[Dr. William Lindsey]

Amen brother.

 

2 additional comments:

 

1. I was approached by several patients who allege that a clinic has performed FUE cases with no doctor on site. I've heard this at least 5 times and have advised the last fellow to simply ask the board of medicine to look into it. As the board called me to see if I was behind the rumor...I'm guessing they are looking into it. But I suspect this is going on somewhere between DC and Boca... The best prevention is patient EDUCATION BEFORE surgery, on forums like this.

 

2. I heard through the grapevine that a respected university ENT department was buying an automated system...and techs were flying in to do the surgery since "nobody has done hair" their before. Now that is here-say so I won't name names, but if true, goes along with the "profit center mentality" that many of these companies are promoting to doctors with diminishing income in their fields.... Its the patient falling for marketing without doing research who will pay that cost in lost grafts.

 

Again, education is the best preventative.

 

Dr. L

[Dr. Glenn Charles]

I have also heard from several patients having FUE procedures in both Tampa and Orlando that the surgery was performed from start to finish with never seeing the doctor. And also believe some doctors are now purchasing the ARTAS because they are concerned that new laws may come into play and the way they have relied on income in the past may be cut off if they don't make changes.

[esrec]

Is regulation discussed at any of the annual conferences you and the other top physicians attend?

 

I'd imagine if the top 20 doctors in the world came together to petition for stronger regulations something might be done.

[wylie]

Great thread, I totally agree with Dr. Charles about regulations regarding FUE be done only by MD's and PA's. Man, even in the best, most qualified hands these procedures can go wrong, but in someones hands who is not qualified, someones life can get ruined.

 

Even in the internet age, many men are simply too lazy or too clueless to do their diligent research and make an informed decision. I see it on forums all the time. I only wish the internet had sites like this one when I first got butchered (by an MD with impressive credentials and NO ability to create a natural head of hair)

[Harebrained]

Good thread. Having fallen prey to the late night infomercials and glossy brochures of the early 90's promising full heads of hair and eventually ending up a victim of an unscrupulous clinic in the early 90s, it's encouraging to know there exists forums and blogs such as this to educate those who are unaware of the pitfalls and perils of diving into a surgical procedure they may have little to no knowledge of. Secondary to making the life changing decision weather to have a hair transplant or not is without a doubt Doctor selection.

[Matt27]

We can blame for-profit clinics, but the responsibility lies with the patient IMO. There's no excuse with the internet and resources like this website.

 

A little off topic, but I read a comment a while back regarding for-profit law school "diploma mills." A user argued that it's impossible for these schools to produce good lawyers because being a good lawyer requires that one is good at performing research. And no one fitting that description would ever go to one of those schools.

 

If you go to one of those clinics and get botched, you can blame your own laziness/incompetence/impatience/etc.

 

If you go to a reputable clinic and get botched, then that's different.

[Steven Gabel, MD, FACS]

I want to echo the statements by Dr. Lindsey and Dr. Charles. This is becoming a very familiar story from patients in the Northwest as well: they went to a clinic that “only specializes in FUE” and had a procedure performed with almost no physician involvement. I had a consultation by a patient yesterday who said he had 1000 FUE grafts performed by a “specialized” technician (he had only 1 person do the entire case from start to finish in 4 hours) who traveled to their clinic to perform the case. The physician “approved” the design and was not seen until the end when he asked if everything went well. The patient’s result: No Growth after 18 months. He honestly can not decipher if he had a single graft that actually grew.

 

There are many reasons why this type of practice is highly unethical: as mentioned, many states do have laws which limit an “incision” to a physician. In my opinion, an incision can be either a linear incision or a punch incision – each is scoring the skin and the blade (straight or round) is going deep to the epidermis. Secondly, the results from many of these clinics are horrible: no growth, and the hairline design is poorly planned and unnatural. And last, the donor hair is a priceless area on the scalp – once the donor hair is exhausted, at this stage in technology, we don’t have any more sources of hair so each follicle needs to be utilized in the best way possible. These clinics are wasting the donor hair so future hair transplants are limited.