Darling Buds Hair Transplants

All beginners are naturally wary of the following questions when they start a new business-

Can I spend heavily in a modern clinic?

Will clients come to my clinic?

How can I perform megasessions with less staff?

How can I provide a state of the art quality from Day1?

However, since you have to start at some point, the following steps shall help you in this venture. But

first be patient.

Step1: Market Research

Define your catchment area. It can be your city, your district, your state to start with. Who are the

leading names in this area with an established practice? Learn about their systems and practice. Pay

them a visit if they are receptive to it. Hire a professional company to do the market research.

Step 2: Define your goals

Do you have the requisite skills?

Do you like to work in a team or alone?

Is your financial background sound?

Do you have leadership qualities?

Do you have a knowledge about the legal aspects of running your own day care center?

Would you like to take a franchise, or get in a partnership, or go it alone?

Do you plan to be active in other fields of plastic surgery/ dermatology as well?

What are your personal goals and how much time can you dedicate to your clinic?

Define your short term (300 days), middle term (1000 days) and long term goals (2000 days) Targets can

have quality and quantity. Just brainstorm yourself and write them down.

With this introspection, you shall find out what you want and whether you are able to meet the needs

for leading a hair restoration clinic. May be you will find out that you have no interest in administration,

marketing, legal and business affairs. Then you might try and enter the franchise system or work as an

employee. But if your challenge is your own hair restoration clinic then you should follow the next few

steps.

Step 3: Developing a business plan

Start with an investment plan. Take a loan after doing an exhaustive survey of the equipment you shall

need.

Be realistic and take the following into consideration- the architects fee, building the clinic/ renovation,

rent to be paid, furniture, hardware, medical supplies, staff salaries, municipal charges, electricity and

water charges, printing charges, advertisement expenses. Now, after you have the capital to invest, start

your business marketing plan by estimating a realistic number of patients you are likely to do and the

paying capacity in your target area. What is your expected market share going to be n your city? Now

you can forecast your expected turnover for the next 5 years. 

Begin to forecast your “PROFIT AND LOSS PLAN”. This plan enables you to evaluate your start up cost as

well as you can find your break even point. Here you evaluate all costs to run your business depending

on a defined number of operations. Finally, compare it with your planned turnover. Be conservative in

your estimates. This planning helps you to get a fair overview from the financial point of view and it

enables you to find the necessary financial support and a tailor made finance solution.

Step 3: Ensuring a perfect quality with your first operation?

After attending all workshops and seminars of the AHRS-India, you have obtained a lot of knowledge

about the medical aspects for a hair restoration surgery. But will this be enough to try an operation

and who will cut and insert the grafts?? During the meeting you find a lot of offers for live surgery

workshops for completing your knowledge. Try and arrange a know-how transfer agreement.

Step 4: Setting up your own HR center?

The office should include a waiting area, a reception desk, an office for your manager, a physician’s

office, a consultant’s office, a consulting room, 2 or 3 surgery rooms, an in office rest room, a break

area for the staff and a CSSD. Optional rooms include a consulting office, a second consultant’s office, a

suture removal; and other minor surgical room, a photograph room, an employee bathroom and a room

for patients charts and office supplies. In some cases an’ office manager should have her own office if

possible.

The waiting area for the typical HR surgery office does not exceed 144 sq ft, although a larger room is

certainly acceptable. Typically, you shall not see more than 8 patients for surgery in a single day and only

2-3 of these individuals will be in the waiting area at one time.

Most consultations are scheduled atleast one hour apart, so there is no need for a larger waiting area,

unless you plan to hold some seminars in your office, where as many as 20-30 people may appear at any

given time.

The waiting area should be neat and professional. You may want to display your logo on a wall and have

it well lit. There should be ample magazines and newspapers for them to read since longer waits are a

possibility, especially when surgeries run over schedule. Try to make the waiting area as comfortable

as possible- with TV, channeled music, etc. If it is possible to include a TV in your waiting area, this is

a wonderful idea and can be used to display information about your procedure, and whatever other

products your company might endorse or provide.

The reception area should be large enough for patient files, plenty of office supplies and office

equipment without equipment without seeming cluttered.

You should have a fax machine, copy machine, credit card machine and plenty of general office supplies.

Typically this office contains a computer, which should be networked to the other computers in the

office. Should you also require high-speed internet access later, you would place your internet in this

same telephone equipment room. This will allow all computers in your office to access high-speed

access and e-mail capacity. The reception area should be free of clutter and appear professional. You

will need to set up an account with one of the major credit card companies to process your credit card

transactions. You should negotiate a lower transaction fee amount.

The consultant’s office should contain a file cabinet for his most recent consults. His work area should

be neat and professional. If he is to see patients in this room, it should contain professional furniture.

He should have a computer workstation with access to patient database. There should be chairs for the

prospective patient, his/her spouse or friend/ family members, the consultant and the physician.

You should have a phone which is on the internal phone system. You should have plenty of before

and after photographs in the consulting room (and follow up photos if possible). Teaching aids like

video microscopes and photos of the procedure or specific size grafts should be easily accessible

to the consultant. You should have a densitometer, at least 2 mirrors and an erasable marker.

The physician’s office needs to appear neat and professional. Necessary equipment should include a

desk, guest chairs, a lamp, a file cabinet, a computer, a telephone and in some cases a sofa is acceptable.

Your surgery room should be a minimum of 12×12 although many physicians are capable of working in

a smaller environment. You should have a workstation to cut grafts. The height of this table needs to

take into consideration the height of your surgery staff and the method they will use to cut grafts. In

general, technicians who cut grafts with loupes, position their heads lower to the table than individuals

who use a microscope. Therefore, the height of the surgery chairs is important. Individuals who cut

with a microscope tend to sit more upright and are benefitted by proper back support. Individuals with

loupes tend to bend at the waist over their workstation and do not benefit from the back support.

You should have a surgery light. I find that ceiling mounted lights take up lees room and are easier to

work with than floor stand lights on wheels. The amount of heat a light puts out is very important. If it

generates too much heat, it can cause damage to the patient, staff and ofcourse to the grafts. Custom

made surgical tables are a necessity. A chair made specifically for this purpose by some companies is

also preferred by some.

This room should have a television with a DVD player. You can place the television with cable or satellite

system and even run internet in the OR to provide patients with a comfortable environment. Your

cutting tables should accommodate 3-5 technicians at any given time to cut grafts. This will depend on

the number of grafts you will perform on a given patient. You should have ample cabinet space for your

supplies. Each room should be stocked and equipped the same so that each room is a mirror image of

the next room. This will improve the patient and surgical flow. Some individuals like a shampoo sink and

chair in each room to wash the patient’s scalp after the procedure or the next day. You will want a Mayo

stand for your instruments and perhaps a special table to place your grafts upon. Supplies should be

kept in closed cabinets and along with a running inventory of all medical supplies. You need a room to

clean and sterilize your instruments. You should have shelving in the room with doors to protect clean

or sterile materials from contaminated materials. Your medical waste should be kept separate from

clean materials, as well, and should be boxed according to legal guidelines. You need an autoclave in the

sterilization room. You will need a storage area separate from this to keep your instruments once they

have been sterilized.

Before planning your own center you should take advice from an established hair transplantation

surgeon who will be able to give you a rational plan for your specific needs.