5 Questions You Must Ask During Your FUE Hair Transplant Consultation
Here is the list of the five most important questions you must ask during your hair transplant consultation. Don’t be intimidated to ask these questions. Make sure you speak with the surgeon during your consultation and not a sales rep. It’s the surgeon who will be working on you, so you must meet him or her and make sure you are both on the same page for your desired goals. You must do your own research so you can make a proper decision about your transplant. The most important deciding factor should not be the price, as this quite often leads to botched hair transplants when patients pick the cheapest hair transplant clinic. Dr. Rob Berberian is one of the handful of surgeons in the entire world that does the FUE Hair Transplant manually from start to finish. He is the pioneer of the manual FUE Hair Transplant located in Los Angeles & Orange County, California.
Here are your five must ask questions at your hair transplant consultation:
1. Who performs the extractions?
If you decide to get a successful hair transplant, you must ask this very important question during your consultation. There is only one correct answer for this: The surgeon MUST be the one who performs the FUE extractions during the procedure. More than 95% of the hair transplant clinics in the world including in the United States, have non physicians performing the extractions. Usually it is a robot, a hybrid machine, a nurse or a technician that performs the extractions.
Dr. Berberian specializes in repair work, so we have personally seen the problems that arise when any of these options perform the extractions: including using a much larger punch size than needed (which results in scarring and botched donor area), overharvesting by inexperienced technicians and a very high transection rate (the follicles are damaged during the extraction process). If you want the most successful hair transplant, then you must pick the manual FUE method performed by an experienced and artistic surgeon. Dr. Berberian performs all of the extractions himself by hand and makes all of the incisions for the sites.
2. How can I trust the number of grafts you promise to give me?
Just like in any profession, there are ethical and non-ethical people. Being in the hair transplant business for over 16 years, we have witnessed the scams and lies so many clinics have done on their unsuspecting patients. Since we specialize in repair work, we have seen many patients who have gone elsewhere in the United States and overseas and have received a number of grafts much less than what they paid for. It is very easy to tell a patient that he will get 3000 grafts and place 2000 grafts instead, or 2500 grafts and place 1200 grafts only, or 2000 grafts and place 1500 grafts. How will the patient even know? It’s virtually impossible to count the number of grafts yourself. Don’t be afraid to ask the surgeon that question because there is no way for you to know ahead of time if you will be shorted on the number of grafts. Pay close attention to how the surgeon answers that question. If you notice any hesitation or uncomfortableness, it could be a red flag. The lower the price per graft is, the higher the likelihood that you will be shorted.
We are very transparent with our work and we pride ourselves on the reputation we have built. We never short our patients on the number of grafts they pay for. We show you all of the grafts that we obtain. We group them in sets of 100 and place them in a petri dish. Ultimately, you have to place your trust in the surgeon, so make sure you pick the right surgeon the first time around.
Many shady clinics will encourage you not to shave your head during the hair transplant procedure because it is much easier to lie about the number of the grafts they give you since your existing hair will make it completely impossible to count the number of grafts that were placed. Doing the non-shaved hair transplant takes significantly more time and we charge extra for that service. Would you ever do 3-4 hours of extra work and not want to get paid for it? If a clinic does not charge you an additional fee for the non-shaved FUE, then you must be suspicious as they may plan on shorting you on the number of grafts that you’re paying for. Dr. Berberian specializes in the non-shaved VIP FUE hair transplant, but it is at an additional cost.
3. How many surgeries does the doctor perform in one day?
Many hair transplant clinics or hair mills as we call them, will line up as many patients as they can fit in one day. Feel free to read some reviews about these notorious hair mills in the United States and overseas on many of the forums like Reddit under the hair transplant searches. You will find out that many of these clinics are operated by technicians who perform the procedure with hardly any oversight by a doctor. You might see the doctor initially for a few minutes to draw an unnatural or straight hairline and you never see him again after that. All the work is done by technicians.
Dr. Berberian accepts only 1 patient her day. He is with you from start to finish. It is impossible for a doctor to do multiple surgeries in one day if he is performing the work himself, as the procedure can take 6-10 hours depending on the number of grafts. Most commonly at many hair transplant clinics, they will line up 2-3 patients in different rooms. At overseas hair mills, it’s usually at least 10 patients in one day. The doctor will draw the hairline and then move on to the next room. The technicians will start the numbing process followed by the extractions. Then they will make the sites and place the grafts, or use the DHI technique (implanter pen) where the site and graft placement is done simultaneously.
We do not reccomend the DHI technique as you get far more artistic and superior results when you first make the sites then place the grafts individually. This is more labor intensive, but yields much more superior results. The DHI technique is used to save time and workforce as the same technician uses the implanter pen to make the site and place the graft simultaneously. If you’re lucky, you might see the doctor at the end of the procedure for a quick minute. In some clinics, you could get lucky and have the doctor perform the sites only, but that is not acceptable in our practice. If you want the best hair transplant, the doctor must perform BOTH the EXTRACTIONS and the SITES.
Dr. Berberian personally goes over your post-op instructions after your procedure and provides his cell phone number to all of his patients that way you can easily contact him if you have any aftercare questions. At most hair transplant clinics, you will have a difficult time getting hold of the doctor if you have any follow up questions. So feel free to ask during your consultation if the doctor provides his cell phone number for follow up questions.
4. Who owns the hair transplant clinic?
Quite often, larger hair transplant clinics are owned by marketing or multinational companies and not the doctor. This is a very important question to ask because when the doctor doesn’t own the clinic, he or she may not care about the reputation of his work or of the clinic. Most of the doctors at the large clinics are simply employees or independent contractors that get a small fee for every transplant performed. The fee is small because they don’t do any of the work themselves as it is delegated to the technicians. So their incentive is to line up as many patients as possible in one day and recommend as many grafts as they can. Dr. Berberian owns his private practice and genuinely cares about the quality of the work he does. His goal is to help you achieve the most natural and artistic hair transplant.
Also be very careful about a clinic upselling you more grafts when you show up the day of your procedure. It is a common tactic at shady clinics to pressure you into getting more grafts than they recommended when you show up, knowing that they will short you on the number anyways. Also some clinics will charge you extra for any additional grafts they extract. Let’s say you agreed on 2000 grafts and they ended up extracting 2150 grafts, so they will charge you for the additional 150 grafts despite you not wanting to do or pay for more. They will include that in the paperwork you sign the day of the procedure, so you will have no choice but to pay for it after the fact. Also, can you really trust them that they truly extracted 150 additional grafts or are they just saying that to get more money from you?
Since Dr. Berberian does all of the consultations with our patients himself, he is very transparent about the number of grafts needed and the cost associated with the transplant. You pay for the number of grafts recommended. If we happen to obtain additional grafts during the extraction, whether it’s 50 or 100 extra grafts, we never charge our patients for it. Consider it a gift for being our patient. Also, we do NOT charge you for any follow up appointments. Please note some clinics will charge you extra for your follow up appointments. We have no hidden fees whatsoever.
The only other optional cost is the PRP hair injections. This is completely optional and available at an additional cost of $900. PRP hair injections are done during the course of the hair transplant procedure. Be careful of clinics that offer stem cells or exosomes with your hair transplant. Many clinics will mislead you into believing that stem cells and exosomes or even PRP will regrow new hair. This is false. Once a follicle is dead, nothing will regrow it. These non-surgical modalities help maintain and strengthen your existing hair but do not regrow dead follicles. Also be aware that there are fake stem cells and fake exosomes in the market. So you have to be very careful where you go to get these injections done. Even PRP is not the same at different clinics. The method of preparation and injection technique will differ from one place to another which will affect the concentration and efficacy of the PRP. Dr. Berberian was one of the first surgeons to use PRP for hair restoration over 16 years ago.
5. How do you design your hairlines?
Most hair transplant clinics will create unnatural looking hairlines. As you may have seen some posts on social media about botched hairlines that look too straight or pluggy. This is a very common problem we see. We specialize in repair work, so we have seen thousands of hairlines that are simply too straight or too low. Some places use a red light laser or a ruler to draw a straight line or a semi-circle. This is completely unnatural. We advise you to provide us photos of your hairline before you lost your hair, so we can try to recreate that or if you have a hairline of a celebrity you like, we can recreate that as well as long as it matches the proportions of your face. No two hairlines should be identical. Every patient gets his own custom designed hairline based on his facial proportions. The secret to a successful hair transplant is that the hairline is so natural looking that no one can tell you had it done.
Dr. Berberian takes measurements of your facial features, takes into consideration your age, your degree of current hair loss and the number of grafts needed to design and create the most natural and artistic hairline. Where you place single and double hair strand follicles is essential for a natural look, along with the angle of the incisions. Also note that some clinics will curve the temples and make them look feminine. Female and male hairlines are very different. Male hairlines have sharper corners in the temples, while female hairlines look much softer and curved. So if you’re a male, you don’t want to end up with a feminine hairline design. Feel free to look at our photos and videos so you can evaluate the quality of our hairline designs.
Make sure you ask these questions during your next hair transplant consultation so you can make the right decision the first time around. Dr. Berberian specializes in fixing prior unsuccessful hair transplant procedures. So if you didn't like your hairline or the results were not what you were hoping for, there isn't a case too tough to fix. We will work with you to come up with the best solution with whatever limited donor supply you may or may not have to provide you the most successful procedure with the most natural looking hair!
Dr. Berberian's patients travel to him from all over the world as he is the pioneer of the VIP FUE Hair Transplant that does not involve shaving your hair. This process is a lot more complicated and requires additional artistry and skill to perform. He has done the VIP FUE Hair Transplant on actors, musicians, producers, executives, CEOs, politicians and athletes who do not want anyone to know that they've had a hair transplant. Privacy is completely valued and on the day of your procedure, you are the only patient.
We are located in Newport Beach, California near Hoag Hospital. We serve all of Orange County, Los Angeles County and San Diego County. We welcome out of town patients as well. You can send us photos of your hair via IG DM for review.
Minimum cases start at $8000.
Financing available.
Discounts for models and/or last minute cases.
Text us your photos for review by Dr. Berberian so we can provide you your free quote: 424-744-3816
For more info, click here: Dr. Rob Berberian - Hair Transplant
FUE Hair Transplant Los Angeles & Newport Beach, California 1000-4000+ grafts performed manually by Dr. Rob Berberian.
