Is Buying Cheap Hair Transplants Really in Your Best Interests?

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “You get what you pay for.” With offerings in the dollar store, are you getting real value? Those who purchased cheap toothpaste at bargain stores a few years back obviously didn’t know that it was toxic with lead or antifreeze, or those that bought imported pet food filled with chemicals to make plastics had no idea they could potentially be killing their pet… but fortunately the FDA came to our rescue. For those that buy cheap hair transplants, there is no FDA, medical board, or attorney general to tell you if you are getting what you are going to pay for. Even if the doctors had a better than 90% failure of the transplants, what is your recourse? You can ask for your money back, but it’s doubtful you’ll get it. I just read a recent post on a hair forum from one poor fellow that had an almost complete failure of the transplants and was refused any money back.

Recently I met with two men. One had 2000 grafts done about 8 months ago by a Los Angeles doctor with a survival rate of the grafts at about 20% (my estimate). That means that his $2/graft pricing really was $10/graft based upon survival of the grafts. Not only did the grafts that survived cost more, but there was significant damage to the donor area with 1600 graft with at least 3000 hair equivalents lost from his donor bank. What was the negative value of that loss? Incalculable in my humble opinion, as these hairs are gone forever.

The second man was an old hair transplant patient of mine from about 13 years ago. He had terrific results and loved his transplanted hair, which lasted to the present time. A friend of his wanted a procedure done and found a doctor willing to do it for $2.50/graft. My patient referred his friend to me, but wanted to know if I would match this price point. It just so happened that the doctor offering this cheap rate was the same doctor that had the 20% survival on the other patient! [note – It’s our policy to not speak unfavorably about doctors by name on this site, so please do not ask me to reveal his name (do your research and you can probably figure it out though)]

I told him to look over our Selecting a Hair Transplant Doctor guide, and invited him to our next open house event. We had 6 of our former patients come to that event to show off quality results. That other doctor never showed off the quality of work he does. Does that mean that he has no patients worth showing? The only way you can really get an idea of what is going to happen to you is to see results first-hand. We wrote the how-to guide on selecting a doctor, because we want you to become smarter shoppers. This is surgery on your scalp! I fail to understand why someone would risk having this procedure look completely fake or risk the loss of valuable donor hair. Ask yourself, do you really want a discount store hair transplant?