Once you have decided that you want to see if you are a viable candidate for a hair transplant, the first thing you do is an internet search. Thanks to this time being the age of IT, everything is online already. So, all you have to do is type your query and wait for the results to show up.
I would bet that the very first results that you get if you wrote your hair transplants query in English are either from the UK or Turkey.
But why is that? Well, these places just so happen to be the most sought-after countries for hair transplant procedures.
Another fact—perhaps the most striking difference between the two is the stark contrast on their pricing. The average price of a hair transplant in Turkey is about a third of the average price in the UK.
Let’s discover why that is.
Hair Transplant Costs in the UK
Hair transplants are as thoroughly regulated in the UK as they are in Turkey. The differences start when including the costs of performing the procedure itself. As a high-income developed economy, UK wages are high for international standards.
Not only that but overall operational costs that cover all the logistics involved in performing the procedure are also high.
These factors, of course, will end up being paid by the consumer at the time of soliciting the procedure. The actual high price the hair transplant procedure fetches in the UK is not due to high quality as much as it is due to high equipment costs.
Additionally, the procedure is classified as a cosmetic procedure, not an essential one. Hence the NHS will not reimburse its high price to you.
Hair Transplant Costs in Turkey
In stellar contrast, the labour costs that the economy of Turkey allows are much, much cheaper than the UK’s. Wages in Turkey are comparatively lower than the UK per international standards, so are the costs of the logistics for the procedure. Hence, the inverse happens here: the lower costs of performing the procedure end up saving the consumer money when paying the price.
The prices of hair transplants in Turkey are so competitive that the industry has become a crucial engine driving the economy. This is known as “health tourism,” the act of going abroad to undergo a medical or cosmetic procedure due to lower prices. Turkey has developed a $1 billion industry on that practice, around which 10% is comprised of hair transplants.
Most competitors like to trash-talk the quality of hair transplants in Turkey based on prices. They purposefully ignore the lower costs and imply that our surgeons are poorly trained. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Turkish surgeons were among the first to embrace hair transplants, and they continue to perform with high standards to this day.
Our best surgeons are internationally certified, and they offer video calls where you can interact with them and see their credentials.
On the other hand, the popularity of the industry has also led to scamming. Beware of excessively low prices and sketchy surgeons. Always conduct a thorough online background check for each surgeon you are considering.