When researching your hair transplant options, you’re going to find a lot of confusing and even contradictory information online, making your efforts to find a hair transplant surgeon you can trust quite difficult. Today, we’re going to discuss three warning signs to look out for when performing your hair transplant research.
Where is the doctor?
The normal and expected method of performing hair transplant surgery research involves finding a qualified physician that is experienced with hair transplantation. With the explosion of hair transplant clinics worldwide that are operating as conveyor belt “mill” clinics, the focus is on profits and not the well-being of the patient. In the past several years many of these clinics that are using unlicensed medical personnel will have a doctor listed on their website in name only and will not have much information about the doctor’s involvement or the doctor’s experience.
The focus will be on the quality of the clinic, the excellence of the staff, and maybe some of the results. Legitimate clinics will have a good deal of information regarding the physician that will be performing your hair transplant surgery. In fact, this is usually a point of pride with clinics that are good at what they do and care about the patient’s short term as well as long term well-being. Remember, if you can’t find out much information about the doctor at a clinic you are considering, the doctor most likely has little to do with your procedure overall. You’ll be at the mercy of unlicensed technicians that are completely anonymous, and ultimately not responsible for your final result.
Are they professional?
Almost everyone has a smartphone and most people today are using any one of the mobile communications apps that are on the market today. Those include Facebook Messenger, WeChat, and WhatsApp among many others. But should these apps be the sole mode of communication when you’re trying to schedule a hair transplant consultation, or even surgery? When you think about the logistics of how a clinic operates, using a texting app to send photos for evaluation and to schedule a surgery is far too casual given the nature of the procedure.
Legitimate clinics have established systems and protocols to insure that checks and balances are in place for appropriate patient care. One of these checks and balances is, if the patient cannot come into the clinic personally, then they are required to fill out a proper medical consultation form in anticipation of a long-distance online consultation.
Physicians perform better with more information and so filling out a consultation form will give the physician the required amount of information to make medical recommendations. In addition, high resolution and well-focused photographs are required and looking at such photos through a phone make it next to impossible to make a legitimate surgical assessment. Responsible hair restoration physicians will ask you to meet them online in a face to face discussion to add to the photos you will be asked to send.
Unsolicited discounts.
Unscrupulous clinics are eager to have you come to them for your hair transplant. They also know that you’re most likely price shopping, which is unfortunately the wrong way to research hair transplantation. Regardless, they’re counting on your financial sensitivity being a big part of your research. They will often discuss giving additional discounts without you even asking for one, or at the very least they may offer additional incentives for your patronage. They may add free PRP, additional grafts at no charge, all if you decide to schedule “now”.
Responsible physicians do not need to create financial inducements for you to have surgery and the practice of influencing surgical decisions through financial manipulation is seriously frowned upon by most medical associations. If you’re getting unsolicited offers if you decide to choose a particular clinic, you have to ask yourself if they have your best interests in mind.
This short list of warning signs are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to understanding the warning signs to be on the lookout for but they are among the most important warning signs to be aware of. Recognizing these hair transplant warning signs can help to set you on the right path to finding the solutions you need. Surgical hair restoration can be a fantastic, rewarding and life changing procedure but you have to be very careful when trying to find the right hair restoration physician for you .You can start by looking to the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery to find a qualified hair restoration physician near you.
If you are choosing a physician, you should expect him or her to do the surgery. İSHRS Physicians have signed an oath “to do no harm” and to perform the surgery themselves. This is the level of service that you should expect when booking a surgery; that the physician does the surgery. Verify your doctors’ credentials at İSHRS.org in the find a doctor section.