Hair transplant: how to read a clinic's numbers

Hair transplant marketing runs on two numbers: grafts and price. Both are easy to quote and neither tells you what you are buying. The result depends on who places the grafts, how carefully the hairline is designed, and what happens in the year afterwards, none of which appears in an advertisement.

Here is how to read what a clinic tells you, and what to ask for instead.

The graft count is a plan, not a promise

A graft is a unit of hair taken from the donor area, containing one to four hairs. Two clinics quoting the same number of grafts may be planning to move quite different amounts of hair, because the composition differs. And the number that matters at the end is the number actually placed, not the number quoted.

• Who counts the grafts during the procedure
• Whether the final count is recorded and given to you afterwards
• Whether the price is per graft or a package, and what happens if fewer are placed

None of these questions is adversarial. They are the normal paperwork of a surgical procedure, and a clinic that records its own work will answer all three without pausing.

Ask who places the grafts, and how many patients that day

This is the single biggest difference between clinics, and the one least likely to be volunteered. In some operating rooms the surgeon designs the case and performs the whole procedure. In others the surgeon designs it and trained technicians do the extraction and placement, with the surgeon supervising across more than one room.

Technician-assisted work is widespread and not inherently worse. What you are entitled to know is which model you are buying, and how many cases are running at once. Ask both. A clear answer is a good sign regardless of which model it describes.

The hairline is a design decision you should be part of

A hairline that suits a thirty year old can look wrong at fifty, because hair loss continues behind whatever is transplanted. The design has to account for a face that will keep changing, and for a donor area that is finite.

So it should be drawn on your face, in front of a mirror, and agreed before anything begins. Not described. Drawn. If a clinic treats this as a formality to be done on the morning while you are already gowned, that is worth noticing.

Judge the follow-up schedule, not the before and after

Transplanted hair goes through a shedding phase before it grows. The result cannot be fairly assessed for months, and twelve is the point at which most of it is in. A clinic that schedules a six month and a twelve month review is a clinic that expects to be looked at when the result is real.

Ask whether the six and twelve month reviews are included, and what they involve. Twelve months is when the result can actually be judged.

Ask too what the written position is if density falls short of the plan. Again, this is not an accusation. It is the difference between a clinic that has a policy and a clinic that improvises under pressure.

What to ignore

Photographs taken at different angles under different lighting tell you very little, and the ones published are chosen. Technique names are largely marketing refinements of two underlying approaches. A number of years in business tells you about the business rather than about the surgeon who will operate on you.

What is worth your attention: the named surgeon and their licence, their personal case load, who places the grafts, a hairline agreed in writing, a recorded final count, and a follow-up schedule that runs to a year.

A shorter route

Asking all of that across several consultations takes weeks, and you will be asked for a deposit somewhere in the middle of it. We do the asking first, in writing, and introduce you to the clinic whose answers hold up. It is free, and your details go to that clinic only.