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1 minute ago, TrixGlendevon said:

 

Exactly. I am fine with them charging for continued recommendation status. No problem at all as it means the site stays up and it is one of the reasons I was able to make such an informed decision when I came to do my procedure. However, one also has to maintain the standards implemented by the very recipient of the revenue itself.

Absolutely, couldn’t agree more and it is questionable if these standards are being consistently implemented. The concern is new visitors to the forum are looking at recommended surgeons that haven’t posted in a very long time when perhaps they no longer satisfy the criteria to be recommended. 

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Guys,

I understand there are concerns. I will personally reach out to Dr. Keene, but I’m surprised that many of you are questioning our integrity. If you guys saw how many doctors ask to be recommended and are rejected you’d be astounded. 

While yes, it is no secret the site needs revenue to exist,  we pride ourselves on being transparent. Many of you are acting as if we simply collect a check and give  doctors a lifetime recommendation, which is not true. The hair transplant network reserves the right to terminate a surgeons recommendation at any time. In fact, several surgeons have been removed and some have even sued because of it. As far as we are aware, recommended surgeons post regularly. However, if there are specific surgeon(s) that you guys want us to look in to please let us know. As a community, we look to our members to help us as well. This is how our community flourishes, we’re not perfect, there may be times something is missed. This isn’t intentional we may have simply missed it. So please if you guys have concerns how about you provide us the names of the surgeons so we can investigate further. 

At the end of the day, Me, Bill and Pat are all hair transplant patients that take pride in having a transparent and open platform where patients can exchange ideas, information and results without being silenced. But we count on the community to let us know where something has been missed. If you guys don’t feel comfortable saying it publicly send us a private message. Until then I hope you will take this response to heart and withhold further accusations until you provide us with more information. 

Best wishes

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I’m a paid admin for Hair Transplant Network. I do not receive any compensation from any clinic. My comments are not medical advice.

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Melvin- Managing Publisher and Forum Moderator for the Hair Transplant Network, the Coalition Hair Loss Learning Center, and the Hair Loss Q&A Blog.

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Everyone,

I appreciate your comments and questions however, I’m a little confused as to why it seems that some of you are questioning the integrity of this website. Obviously, no pre-screening and recommendation process is perfect however, we do our best to learn as much about a clinic and a physician as possible prior to presenting them for potential recommendation. Once approved, results presented by the physician and patients are used as an ongoing assessment tool.  

I’m not sure how many of you are aware, but we have removed surgeons from recommendation when we’ve learned that they no longer meet our high standards.   In fact, recommendation is not a one time thing and no surgeon receives tenure. 

It is no secret that physicians who are recommended by this community pay a sponsorship fee to support this patient-based community. This is listed on our physician standards page.

In fact, we operate a lot like an Ivy League university.  Just as students  must possess a certain high GPA, SAT score and involve themselves in a certain number of extracurricular activities, so must surgeons meet our demanding standards for recommendation to be approved. However, students who choose to enroll in the university must pay tuition to keep the university running. Similarly, physicians who we approve for recommendation must pay a flat, monthly sponsorship fee to support our patient based community. 

The process may not be perfect and while the surgeons recommended by our community may not be an exclusive list of all the best surgeons in the world, the ones we do recommend have proven to meet our demanding standards and are doing top notch work. So the ones we do recommend are top surgeons although, we acknowledge there are likely others that have not been prescreened or recommended.  

Obviously, we are open to feedback and constructive criticism assuming that’s what people are doing. We are a community after all, and the recommendation process is a community effort.   

Regarding patients posting their results, we always encourage doctors to ask their patients to share their experiences and results on our forum. But we don’t have any direct control over this. Thus, we can only work with the information we can acquire which is why we ask surgeons to regularly present examples of the results on this community. Most of them do on a regular basis. Obviously, there may be a question as to  One or two and how often they post, which is something we will investigate. I do appreciate those who have brought this to my attention.

That said, I’m not exactly sure why a few newer members appear to be questioning the integrity of our community… especially  given their lack of history and understanding of how things work here. 

As I said, I’m totally fine with questions and constructive feedback however, I’m starting to sense that newer members are beginning to criticize when I have no real idea or understanding of how things work here or how hard we work on a regular basis to keep things running and growing.   

As I said, feel free to offer any feedback on our pre-screening or recommendation process and if possible, we will do our best to implement it. 

Best wishes,

Bill

  

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Thanks both for replying. I do not think anybody has any problem with doctors paying. At least I do not and it is me who started the thread and I hope it isn't seen as a complaint but genuinely constructive feedback. I have even said above that the site helped me make an informed decision about my procedure and I recognize that for that to continue, the site needs to generate money. That is fine.

With respect Melvin, it isn't us that should have to tell you which of the doctors isn't posting, that is your role (that sounds very snotty, especially written with no body language etc. but I can't think of another way to put it so I hope it isn't taken as such - sorry). Bill is right in saying that the site will investigate.

The issue I think is, if the site doesn't know which doctors are posting and which aren't on a regular basis, then how can it be enforcing standards? It isn't one or two either. Look at the first 10 pages which is 4 months of the clinics posting results. They are mostly the same clinics. I would like to reitierate that I am not singling out Dr Keene. She just happened to be the first in the list.

Edited by TrixGlendevon
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Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Just so you know, there is a lot more I do than moderating this site. In fact, this is a fraction.  I receive a minimum of three to four private messages a day. All of which require time to answer in great detail. I would personally appreciate if everyone participated and played their part. It is impossible for us to monitor every single doctor daily.

Unfortunately, we can not go to their clinics every day and watch what they do, so we rely on the communities feedback. Just as we rely on the communities feedback for their approval. This is how this network flourishes and thrives and why this forum is the most active and most popular. Everytime a surgeon has been removed, it has been because the community has spoken up and we listened.

With that said, we take constructive criticism to heart and I assure you we will investigate this further. We would highly appreciate it, if the community has concerns or questions to please assist us by sending us a private message. 

Onwards and upwards


I’m a paid admin for Hair Transplant Network. I do not receive any compensation from any clinic. My comments are not medical advice.

Check out my final hair transplant and topical dutasteride journey

View my thread

Topical dutasteride journey 

Melvin- Managing Publisher and Forum Moderator for the Hair Transplant Network, the Coalition Hair Loss Learning Center, and the Hair Loss Q&A Blog.

Follow our Social Media: Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, and YouTube.

 

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@TrixGlendevon,

I understand your concerns however, we don’t simply rely on whether or not a surgeon posts photos each and every month to continue their recommendation. We also look at patient posted reviews, photos and videos. 

Think of it this way, if a surgeon has been posting consistent examples of the results for years, what makes you think that if they stop posting for two or three months, that it’s because they stopped doing the state of the art work? It doesn’t even make sense. Obviously, if they have been  doing state of the art work for years  and has been able to prove it by presenting examples of the results every month for that time, what makes you or anyone think that they’ve stopped just because a month or two has gone by without presenting? 

Now, if years go by and we no longer see any examples of their results,  there might be enough concern for us to wonder why and while we still won’t assume it’s because they’ve stopped doing state of the art work, we would reach out to the clinic asking them what’s going on and to post new examples of their work and results so we can assure that they are still  meeting our high standards. 

That said, we don’t let years go by  and we do keep track of which surgeons are posting. You made a statement that we don’t know who is posting and that’s simply not true. While I personally may not know each and every month that every surgeon is posting, there are members of our team that don’t post on this forum, responsible for taking photos from the forum and presenting them on their recommendation profiles. I check with that individual every so often to see which surgeons are posting and which are not. If a particular surgeon stop posting, I will contact them.   That said, nobody is perfect and it is possible that the occasional surgeon will slip through the cracks.   If and when that happens, somebody usually brings it to our attention. That’s why our community is transparent and allows  Open discussion about these things. You have brought one surgeon to our attention and I know for a fact she has been posting regularly for sometime. Now, if she has stopped, then that is news to me and it’s something that I will be following up on.   

 Earlier in this post, I said that whether or not a surgeon posts each and every month is not the only criteria we use to determine whether or not they are continually  performing state of the art hair transplant surgery. In most cases, each time a surgeon has been removed from recommendation, it’s been because many patients  have privately or publicly reported many concerns about that particular surgeon and their results.    However, there actually We’re a couple times where we removed surgeons from recommendation because they refused to take the time to show new examples of the results to the community and a lot of time had passed since we had seen anything from them.   Because of this, we simply didn’t have  Faith to continue recommending them because we just didn’t know the kind of work and results they were producing anymore. 

Anyway, like I said, our process is not perfect but frankly, it’s the best out there and we are very transparent with what we do, how we do it and the surgeons we approve and remove from recommendation. 

Best wishes,

Bill

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45 minutes ago, Bill - Managing Publisher said:

@TrixGlendevon,

I understand your concerns however, we don’t simply rely on whether or not a surgeon posts photos each and every month to continue their recommendation. We also look at patient posted reviews, photos and videos. 

Think of it this way, if a surgeon has been posting consistent examples of the results for years, what makes you think that if they stop posting for two or three months, that it’s because they stopped doing the state of the art work? It doesn’t even make sense. Obviously, if they have been  doing state of the art work for years  and has been able to prove it by presenting examples of the results every month for that time, what makes you or anyone think that they’ve stopped just because a month or two has gone by without presenting? 

Now, if years go by and we no longer see any examples of their results,  there might be enough concern for us to wonder why and while we still won’t assume it’s because they’ve stopped doing state of the art work, we would reach out to the clinic asking them what’s going on and to post new examples of their work and results so we can assure that they are still  meeting our high standards. 

That said, we don’t let years go by  and we do keep track of which surgeons are posting. You made a statement that we don’t know who is posting and that’s simply not true. While I personally may not know each and every month that every surgeon is posting, there are members of our team that don’t post on this forum, responsible for taking photos from the forum and presenting them on their recommendation profiles. I check with that individual every so often to see which surgeons are posting and which are not. If a particular surgeon stop posting, I will contact them.   That said, nobody is perfect and it is possible that the occasional surgeon will slip through the cracks.   If and when that happens, somebody usually brings it to our attention. That’s why our community is transparent and allows  Open discussion about these things. You have brought one surgeon to our attention and I know for a fact she has been posting regularly for sometime. Now, if she has stopped, then that is news to me and it’s something that I will be following up on.   

 Earlier in this post, I said that whether or not a surgeon posts each and every month is not the only criteria we use to determine whether or not they are continually  performing state of the art hair transplant surgery. In most cases, each time a surgeon has been removed from recommendation, it’s been because many patients  have privately or publicly reported many concerns about that particular surgeon and their results.    However, there actually We’re a couple times where we removed surgeons from recommendation because they refused to take the time to show new examples of the results to the community and a lot of time had passed since we had seen anything from them.   Because of this, we simply didn’t have  Faith to continue recommending them because we just didn’t know the kind of work and results they were producing anymore. 

Anyway, like I said, our process is not perfect but frankly, it’s the best out there and we are very transparent with what we do, how we do it and the surgeons we approve and remove from recommendation. 

Best wishes,

Bill

Hi Bill ,

             I don't think anyone has suggested that Clinics showing recent work is the only criteria for being a member on this site ,but it is one of the site's criteria  for a very good reason, how is a potential patient going to know if  clinic/Doc is performing to the same standards as when they were first recommended ?  I have to say there are Docs on the recommended  list who I never seen post on here any results in the 4 years I have been on this site .

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Perhaps the forum could integrate a system, which would allow each clinic to check a box every time a result is posted. That way, the forum staff could easily keep track of those surgeons who aren't posting results on a regular basis. That way reports could easily be generated without having to go through the hassle of investigating who hasn't posted in a long time.  

I find it surprising that more clinics are not taking advantage of their membership and posting results on a regular basis. It is a wonderful way of showcasing top-notch results to potential clients and allowing forum members to talk about your clinic. 

It would also be beneficial to implement certain presentation standards. We are in 2019 and some clinics showcase results that resemble what one might expect from a polaroid camera.... 

 

I am not a medical professional and my words should not be taken as medical advice. All opinions and views shared are my own.

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On 1/17/2019 at 6:58 PM, Mick50 said:

Hi Bill ,

             I don't think anyone has suggested that Clinics showing recent work is the only criteria for being a member on this site ,but it is one of the site's criteria  for a very good reason, how is a potential patient going to know if  clinic/Doc is performing to the same standards as when they were first recommended ?  I have to say there are Docs on the recommended  list who I never seen post on here any results in the 4 years I have been on this site .

Again this is down to the moderators with the authority to determine. How can this site recommend a surgeon/practice that hasn’t posted results for years? 

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23 hours ago, delancey said:

Perhaps the forum could integrate a system, which would allow each clinic to check a box every time a result is posted. That way, the forum staff could easily keep track of those surgeons who aren't posting results on a regular basis. That way reports could easily be generated without having to go through the hassle of investigating who hasn't posted in a long time.  

I find it surprising that more clinics are not taking advantage of their membership and posting results on a regular basis. It is a wonderful way of showcasing top-notch results to potential clients and allowing forum members to talk about your clinic. 

It would also be beneficial to implement certain presentation standards. We are in 2019 and some clinics showcase results that resemble what one might expect from a polaroid camera.... 

 

There are many before & after images from recommended surgeons that are misleading, that’s a difficult one to overcome. Perhaps the list starts with the surgeon posting the most or regular results at the top working on descending order, something like that. 

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