Hair Restoration Blog

Today, I was following the trend that people usually search online for “hair transplant”.  I noticed hair transplant cost, hair transplant costs, cost of hair transplant are among the most popular phrasess that are used in online search by people who are trying to educate themselves on hair restoration and what is involved including the cost of hair transplatn or hair restoration cost or costs in a hair restoration procedure.  There are many people who try to get the best value their mony can buy and some people are cheap shopping.  I don’t mind finding the chipest product when I am shopping for the same brand that I usually buy at a dicounted rate.  However, when it comes to the cost of hair restoration, I don’t recommend finding a hair transplant surgeon merely based on the price of hair restorations.

Affordable hair transplant surgeries or other promotional phrases such as discounted hair transplants, $1 per hair, low cost hair transplants could be found everywhere, however when it comes to hair transplant, it should be more of a value shopping rather than price shopping.  Remember that you are buying something that is going to stay with you for the rest of your life.

I perform quite a few hair transplant repair procedures every months.  Some of the patients who go through reapire srugery are the ones who had their hair transplantation years ago, before the era of follicular unit transplants, but unforturantely a large nubmer of these patients had their hair restoration surgeries in the last few years.  They either never received the number of grafts that they were promised and end up with less than optimal coverage due to technical problems or got problem with the artistic design of the hairline or issues with distribution of the hair on the balding area.

Among hair transplatn surgeons some charge more due the name, brand and the location.  You have probably seen the signs that says Beverly Hills Hair Trasnplatn Surgeon.  Some of the older hair transplatn doctors could not keep up with the new techniques, they do not participate in scientific meetings for hair restoration surgery and are simply not aware of what is the gold standard in hair transplantation.  Having said that, I do now some of the the pioneers in hair restoration that are always ahead of their time and are involved in hair transpalnt research and development.  One good example is Dr. William Rassman whom I had previlage of working with closely.  He is capable of providing quality hair restorations utilizing the new techniques while using his years of experience in the field of hair restoration.

In conclusion, it all comes to the patients who need to realize what he is getting is a procedure that produces permanent changes and they better off doing it right the first time and don’t risk getting a less than optimal hair restoration with lesss than best cosmetic appearance.  The procedures that will need repair hair transplant in the future.  Whether you are in Los angeles or elsewhere, you need to do your homework to find the best hair transplant surgeon and even after that know what kind of questions to ask from your hair transplant doctor.

Hair transpalnt cost is importatnt and is a determinig factor for some people, but you should not make your decision based on the cost and affordability in your hair transplant surgeon search.  That is why I deliberately avoided explaining about hair transplant cost in Southern California hair transplant centers of US Hair Restoration in this article, which is titled “hair transplant cost in Los Angeles”.

Hello, Dr. Mohebi.

I used the Propecia prescription you gave me.  It cost me over 80$ to get 30 1mg pills, since it’s not covered under my insurance.  I looked online to see if I could find it cheaper and found a number of sites selling it for much less.

Do you think it’s not a good idea to buy Propecia online?  The site I found doesn’t require a prescription or anything and I can actually get 270 pills for almost the same price I just got the 30 pill refill for at the pharmacy.

Could you check out this link out and tell me if it’s not a good idea to buy it? It seems to me that the pharmacies can charge whatever they want for it, but 80 dollars for 30 pills just seems outrageous to me…  I wonder if $90 for 270 1mg pills is for generic finasteride, and not actual propecia.

I just want to know what your opinion on buying propecia online is.  Sincere thanks.
See you soon.

A:
I have heard bizarre stories about online medications that are sold to patients. There are many stories about affordable hair loss treatments as there are for affordable hair transplants.  I generally don’t approve buying Propecia or any other medications online.

Think about it, the current medical system closely supervises all stages of production, distribution and sales of the medications. Everything is highly regulated and controlled to minimize the chance of mistakes.

Online medications for hair loss or any other conditions, do not have this regulations and if something goes wrong or you get a product that does not contain the medication at all, you have no control on it and no one will be responsive. The fact that prescription medication is sold online without the doctor’s script is risky too.
You can shop around to find the best price for Propecia or finasteride, but I cannot support online shopping for medication from non-supervised resources.

Hair transplant cost is one of the questions that we have answered many times in this blog and we still receive it from our patients. The quality of hair transplant surgery have been improving within the last few decades with the use of stereotactic microscopes and advanced methods of handling and maintaining the hair grafts. However, not every hair transplant clinic could have kept up and adopted the new technology.

Cost of hair transplant surgery varies from clinic to clinic and from surgeon to surgeon. You may find a wide variety in hair transplant costs. Many clinics that offer cheap hair transplants are not committed to the quality of service. They hire inexperienced hair transplant staff. Some of the hair restoration surgery clinics do not use microscope and are not scientifically in line with the advanced techniques that are available today. Some clinics are run by technicians and doctor is only involved in a small portion of the procedure.

Hair transplant costs are generally calculated as per hair graft basis. Hair transplantation with exclusive follicular unit transplant could cost $3 to $10 per each graft (average for exclusive follicular unit transplantation). That is the cost of hair transplants with strip techniques of FUT or follicular unit transplant and the price of the FUE (follicular unit extraction) hair transplant is higher. Affordable hair transplant could be found in high-quality hair restoration clinics too. They may not be able to lower the cost of surgeries to $2 per graft (as you may see in some hair transplant offices) because of the fact that having an experienced surgical team and skillful surgeon cost more than that.

As I said, you can find low cost hair transplant centers that still offer quality hair restoration surgeries. Some of them are very skillful and offer individual services unlike the big chain hair transplant centers. The big chain hair transplant centers have a variation in their services due to different surgeons and staff. I have seen a diversity of results from some of those clinics. The variation is generally seen due to difficulty keeping the same standard in different offices. Most patients with a previous surgery in the chain clinics who have a repeat surgery at Los Angeles Hair Transplant center of US Hair Restoration are critical of the lack of personal attention and individual care in those clinics.

In conclusion, although the cost of hair transplant surgery is an important factor, it should not be the sole factor in choosing a hair transplant clinic. I always encourage my patients to educate themselves on the most advanced techniques of hair restoration surgery. Internet is a great source of information. We have a useful collection of hair loss and hair restoration articles in our web site. I also answer the patient’s hair restoration questions in hair restoration blog on a daily basis.

My recommendation is to shop around for the best value hair restoration surgery and not for the cheapest one. Think about it as a lifetime investment. Good or bad you will see your hair every day for the rest of your life.