If you are one of the millions of Americans who suffer from alopecia, or hair loss, you may at times feel almost backed into a corner by the condition. About 95% of men who have alopecia can place the blame on androgenetic alopecia—or male pattern baldness (MPB). This by no means leaves out females. In fact, 40% of people afflicted with alopecia are women. Treatment options vary, but for those who are serious about effective hair regrowth solutions, hair transplant surgery is often the best choice. This is a near painless, outpatient procedure that involves transferring healthy hair follicles from a donor area into the balding area of the scalp. Clinics for the procedure have been popping up all over the United States, with each location charging different fees for different patients, methods, and nuances of the condition itself.
Why do these fees seem to vary from place to place? What exactly determines what is a hair transplant cost? Some of the factors can be fairly obvious, such as:
- The progression, or level, of the patient’s hair loss
- The methodology employed
- The type of hair loss being treated
Other methods of hair transplant
Other variables that can affect the price include the board certification of the doctor in question, his/her staff, and the modernity of the clinic’s medical equipment. Two of the most common methods of hair transplant are called Follicular Unit Transplantation and Follicular Unit Extraction. Both involve the separation, preparation, and insertion of hair grafts. Depending on the procedure, up to 2,000 grafts can be created from a single section of hair donor area. Commonly, the amount of money a clinic will charge is determined “per graft”.
So how much does a hair transplant cost in the state of California? The average price is about $6 to $9 per graft. So, a patient in need of 1,000 grafts can expect to pay between $6000 and $9000. This is speaking very generally in the practice of FUE and FUT, as not every clinic performs hair transplant surgery in exactly the same way.
How Does A Specialized Hair Transplant Technique Affect Its Cost?
The industry has developed many of its own modern, revolutionary tactics that have produced more strong, healthy hair regrowth than ever before. For example, two methods of our FUE surgery patients can find nowhere else are:
- Serial Extraction and Placement
- Simultaneous FUE Extraction and Placement
Both are techniques developed by us to implant FUE grafts as soon as they are removed. Nor are they the only ones that are unique to us. Our Celebrity Hair Transplant also falls under the FUE category. During this process the patient’s head is not shaven. Using specialized devices for multiple-phase extraction, donor grafts are provided with an added layer of protection during the transfer. And because CHT requires little to no cutting at all, patients leave the clinic looking exactly as they did when they walked in. A typical Celebrity Hair Transplant procedure costs about $14 per graft. This is higher than our traditional FUE process, as it is more labor intensive, and affords us fewer grafts per day.
Another FUE technique that is known to doctors is the Power Hair Line. In this case, a patient’s thinning, or “weak”, hairline is restored using a small number of grafts. Along with the traditional FUE method, the Celebrity Hair Transplant can be used for the Power Hair Line. However, since this procedure requires us to extract fewer grafts overall, the cost tends to be lower than with other, more labor and time-consuming operations.
What About Additional Fees?
Some clinics charge additional fees after a hair transplant procedure. These fees may be added for things like medication, post-operation kits, and follow-up visits. At Parsa Mohebi there are no additional fees. Our one-time bill covers all of the above, right up until the patient’s full recovery (anywhere from 8-14 months). Even the cost of our initial consultation will go into the one-time fee.
Will Insurance Companies Cover the Cost of A Los Angeles Hair Transplant?
Unfortunately, most insurance companies do not cover the cost of a hair transplant, as they tend to consider it as elective, or non-essential surgery. The ones that do cover it will normally be influenced by the cause of the patient’s hair loss—i.e. an accident, or side-effect of another, more serious health issue.
If you’re considering hair transplant surgery to reverse the effects of pattern baldness, almost everything will be determined during an initial consultation by the clinic you choose. On most occasions this would include the price of treatment. With the above, we hope to have given you a more clear picture of why these prices can vary from hair transplant clinic to clinic, patient to patient, and treatment to treatment.
Article Submitted By Community Writer
