Hair Restoration Costs
Cost per graft of cost per procedure
Hair transplant restorations are not cheap whichever way you look at it, but this is a permanent procedure. When you consider how much money that can be spent on drug treatments for baldness, calculating costs for a hair transplant compared to costs for drug treatment over several years, a hair transplant may turn out cheaper! If you use drugs to combat hair loss, then a cost comparison with a hair transplant may be a useful exercise to do.
The costs of a hair transplant can vary enormously from clinic to clinic. Someone with androgenetic alopecia might expect to see a minimum cost of $2,000 US dollars for a hair transplant. The average price for a hair transplant in North America is probably around $5,000. But a hair transplant may cost $10,000, $20,000 and even more!
There are two basic approaches used by hair transplant clinics to determine the total cost of a hair transplant; cost per follicular unit implanted, and cost per procedure. The cost per unit can range from anywhere between $3 to $12 US dollars in North America although the average is probably around $6. But what is a follicular unit? In follicular unit hair transplantation, a donor strip of skin is dissected into units of one to 4 hair follicles. The one and two hair follicle units are used to build the hair line, the larger units are used to fill in behind. But of course different people have different needs in terms of the number of follicular units required. It is not possible to exactly how many follicular units will be transplanted in advance of the procedure. Only when the donor strip of skin has been dissected into follicular units will the surgeon know exactly how many units are available for implantation. Because of this, determining the exact cost of a hair transplant going by the number of units implanted is difficult. To make costs clearer to the patient, many clinics go with the simpler approach of cost per surgical procedure with a ball park figure for the number of hair follicles to be transplanted in the procedure. Which costing approach is best is open to debate ¨C though most of the surgeons I have met calculate cost per surgical hair restoration procedure.
The primary advantage of costing a hair transplant per unit is probably in advertising. $6 per unit sounds a lot more digestable than $5,000! I¡¯m waiting to see advertisements for $5.99 a unit or buy 5 get one free. You just know it¡¯s going to happen one day ¡.
Evaluating hair transplant quality by price
Some people equate price to quality. Certainly if a hair transplant cost is unusually low you should be suspicious, but a $5,000 hair transplant may be just as good as a $10,000 transplant. The cost difference may come about because: 1) The surgeon has a well known name in hair transplantation and demand for his / her skills is high so he / she can charge a higher price. 2) Heavy advertising budgets. If the clinic is paying a lot in advertising to get you in the door, they will be incorporating that cost into your bill. 3) Sumptuous surroundings. A large attractive clinic costs a more to maintain than a plain office. 4) A high number of assistants, receptionists and other employees in a clinic will also increase the costs. 5) The local market. An affluent local market for hair transplants will usually result in higher charges from the local hair transplant clinics. It costs more to get a hair transplant in Los Angeles, California than it does in St Paul, Minnesota. 6) Demand versus supply in the local market. If there are a lot of hair restoration clinics looking for business and only a limited number of patients then hair transplant prices usually come down. Over the last 10 years prices have dropped (in real terms after considering inflation) as more hair restoration clinics have been launched. 7) Finally, charges may increase if you need a procedure that is not standard. A hair transplant for androgenetic alopecia is standard, but a transplant for a burns injury or for transplanting the eyebrows may be relatively expensive because there are fewer clinics capable of doing these kinds of transplantation techniques and because the expertise required to ensure a good hair transplant is higher than normal.
Overall then, the cost of a hair transplant is not a good indicator of quality. If price is a consideration for you, think about reducing costs by travelling to a clinic outside your own region. Some people even go overseas to Europe to get a cheaper hair transplant.
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