“Hair transplant for 3,185 euros, closed price”. “Up to 3,500 follicles in one day per only 2,685 euros”. “Hair transplant from 2,500 euros”. Those eager to regain a full head of hair, without wasting much money, have searched endlessly for this type of offer, which has led them to have their particular Turkish passion. In recent years hundreds of Spaniards have embarked on ‘all inclusive’ trips to Istanbul: flights + hotel + translator + tourist route + hair graft. But the flights that return from ancient Constantinople with dozens of Spaniards with a ribbon around their foreheads, could become a thing of the past because, in reality, the offers with which this article begins They are from Spanish clinics.
Throughout the geography of our country have emerged in recent years ‘low cost’ hair graft clinics. Your prices, about 3,000 euros the transplantThey are competitive with Turkish trips and much lower than conventional centers in Spain, which tend to be around 10,000. Cities like Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao or Seville already have these centers; But the big question that potential transplants ask themselves is why are they so cheap and above all, if they are as safe as the more expensive clinics.
“Turkey changed the supply-demand paradigm”
“10 years ago my prices were between 7,000 and 8,000 euros, but Turkey arrived and changed the paradigm of supply-demand and we had to adapt “, tells El Confidencial Juan Ruiz Alconero, hair surgeon and specialist in hair regenerative medicine from downtown Capilae.
The transplant in his clinic is around 3,200 euros, grafting all the appropriate follicular units to the patient using the FUE or STRIP method (the latter is almost in disuse). “There is no ‘secret’ technique to make it cheaper, or anything like that, obviously they can vary which providers you use for the punches, etc … but the technique is the same as in the centers where the transplant can reach 10,000 euros ”, he explains.
“If you lower the price to a reasonable limit and you have good cases, word of mouth works perfectly”, allowing the surgeon to have a full schedule until March and save the cost in advertising, in which he came to invest 14,000 euros per year.
“Equally, It is not necessary to have a commercial staff, since like any medical act, I am the one who has to carry out the face-to-face consultations ”, develops the surgeon, who claims to be the only one who touches the patients’ heads, perform only one surgery a day and follow the entire medical process of consultations and reviews.
“In addition, the business is mine, I do not have investment partners, I don’t have to pay out dividends or anything like that, with which this also affects the price ”, he adds.
From the Ibiza Clinic, where a transplant is around 2,990 euros, explain to this newspaper that they have “such a competitive price because the benefit for surgery is reduced, in no case we cut absolutely nothing. We reduce the profit ”.
“In addition, we not only have a Capillary Unit, but our business line includes units in Aesthetic, Plastic or Reconstructive surgeries as well as aesthetic medicine. So, put another way, we do not live from hair surgeryIt is another source of income, which allows us to reduce benefits in this area ”, they point out.
In this center they put an average of 2,500 to 3,500 follicular units by intervention, “respecting the donor area so as not to damage it”, also using the classic FUE technique or a new one called FUE DHI.
“We we do not cut anything at all, quite the opposite, we offer more for less money “, point out from the clinic pointing out that they perform “a complete analysis, as well as an analysis of infectious agents such as HIV, Syphilis, hepatitis, etc., in some patients, depending on their age, we perform an electrocardiogram”. “The patient is monitored throughout the surgery, controlling blood pressure, temperature, heart rate and oxygen, among others.”
“Queries are unlimited, the patient can spend all they want before surgery and always with the surgeon, no commercials. With respect to postoperative are equally limitless, as a general rule, the patient attends between six and ten times during the year following the surgery ”, they add.
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Both clinics avoid the term ‘low cost’ to refer to its centers, due to the negative connotation that it considers it to have. In this sense they insist that these cheaper operations carried out in our country, they follow the same quality standards as the more expensive hair centers.
By diving into non-clinic hair transplant forums, most opinions of men grafted in these centers they are satisfactory.
“Opening an operating room for only 3,000 euros would make me distrust”
For his part, Hair surgeon and director of the Trichology Unit from the Ramón y Cajal University Hospital, Sergio Vañó, encourages distrust of hair transplants with such a low cost. “I always explain to patients that having a transplant is not like buying a carton of milk from a brand, which you can find cheaper in one supermarket or another. It is a process in which many more variables influence and a transplant in one clinic is not the same as in another ”, points out the dermatologist and trichologist.
“A transplant is influenced by the personnel who do it, whether the doctor does it or not, the material used, the means with which it is done, the operating rooms, whether the material is disposable, whether a new one is used for each patient , it is important that there is an anesthetist in the operating room, to know if after the surgery there is a protocol of standardized reviews to be able to better carry out the follow-up … a series of parameters that modulate prices a lot and, ‘a priori’ in our country, opening an operating room for only 3,000 euros … would make me distrust “, says the doctor specializing in hair and scalp, who is also part of the team at the Grupo Pedro Jaén dermatological clinic.
Against baldness not everything is putting hair
Vaño points out that one of the risks going to one of these ‘low cost’ clinics is that ‘directly’ put patients in the operating room, since “transplantation is one more therapeutic tool, which has to be done in the context of a medical treatment strategy”.
“In most of these ‘low cost’ clinics there is no dermatologist, there is simply a surgeon who do not usually worry about medical treatment. The patient goes and they directly put him in the operating room. But there are patients who, with medical treatment, would not directly need surgery and patients who, if they do not undergo previous medical treatment, the result of the transplant will be very bad, ”says the Ramón y Cajal trichologist.
“Many people believe that surgery is the ultimate solution and they think that the cheaper the better. But sometimes the treatment strategy is cheaper, going to a good place where they advise you well, because sometimes you can save the surgery or make it smaller, ”explains Vañó.
Better a Spanish ‘low cost’ than a trip to Turkey
All the specialists consulted agree that, in any case, it is more advisable to have an economic transplant in our country than in Turkey.
“Here the legislation is more demanding, ‘a priori’, only doctors can do it, you can see if the clinic has the proper permits on the website of the Ministry of Health of the Community of Madrid [en el caso de las clínicas de esta región] and if the doctor has the appropriate permissions on the website of the official medical college. Everyone we have compulsory civil liability insurance and professional, as well as the clinic ”, says the Capilae surgeon.
“In Turkey accessing this information is more difficult, With what are more risky decisions, but as I say, there are great clinics and very well done surgeries in Turkey, but is it worth accessing a clinic where you do not know if the doctor is going to treat you, there is different legislation, in a different language? ”, says Ruiz.
In the same way, the Ramón y Cajal trichologist points out that “at least the added advantage of a Spanish ‘low cost’ clinic compared to a Turkish one is that the approach to the front line of transplantation will be in the Spanish style, because in Turkey there is a straight front line ”.
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