Patient’s Question:
Price ranges for hair transplants seem to vary dramatically. What should be an average price range per follicular unit or graft?
Doctor Friedman’s Answer:
Each doctor sets their own prices per graft or per region of scalp. A majority of the doctors choose to charge per graft, an actual monetary number per graft. A graft being 1, 2, 3 or 4 hairs.
Strip Grafts (FUT): Average in the United States for Follicular Unit Transplantation (FUT) is anywhere between $3.50 per graft all the way up to $8.00 per graft. The average, however, is more in the realm of $4 to $5 per graft.
FUE Grafts: For Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) is anywhere from $6.00 per graft to as high as $10.00 per graft. The ARTAS Robot being the state of the art FUE technique is going to cost more than the manual FUE procedure.
I think a patient needs to realize that somebody charging the most money, such as $8 per graft, does not mean you are going to get a better job than somebody charging $4 or $5 per graft.
The other way of looking at it is if somebody is charging only $1 to $2 per graft, then I would question the type of quality not only that the patient is going to receive in the form of expertise, but also in the fact that the staffing is going to either be much less staff present and at the same time probably much less experienced staff.
Hair transplantation is a procedure where the assistants, called hair technicians, actually perform a lot of the surgery. The hair technicians actually cut the strip into follicular units and also insert the grafts within the recipient sites after the surgeon has created the site in a particular direction and angle they want the grafts and hair to grow.
If somebody is only charging less than $3 a graft, my question is how much are they actually paying their staff and what is the vested interested in the staff to achieve a really good result.
I think it is not as important to look at price as much as looking at the experience of the surgeon, what type of results they have had in the past, and what kind of feeling you get as far as whether or not you are going to achieve your expectations. I think that is more important than price. Remember, this is one of these procedures that is going to last for the rest of your life. You do not want to go cheap and try to get the cheapest that is available just so that you can have the procedure because you are going to regret it in the future.
Thank you for your inquiry. Please call us at 480.500.7443 or send us an EMAIL if you have any further questions.
— Dr. Shelly Friedman, DO
Board Certified Hair Restoration Surgeon
Arizona’s Most Trusted Hair Loss Doctor
Named Phoenix Magazine’s Top Doc – Hair Transplant Surgeon
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