How we evaluate clinics
Every clinic is assessed against criteria that can be independently verified — in a public registry, or in the clinic\u2019s own published materials. We do not assess surgical skill, and we do not rank physicians by outcome. Four of our criteria come directly from the questions the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery tells patients to ask.
Who performs the surgery Highest weight
What we look at: Does a licensed physician make the incisions and harvest the grafts, or do technicians?
Why it matters: This is the question the ISHRS puts first. Its position is that preoperative evaluation, surgical planning, donor harvesting, hairline design and recipient site creation should be performed by a licensed physician or physician extender. In practice clinics vary widely, and most patients never ask. The ISHRS wording is direct.
ABHRS board certification Highest weight
What we look at: Is the operating physician certified by the American Board of Hair Restoration Surgery?
Why it matters: ABHRS certification is specific to hair restoration and verifiable in a public registry. A surgeon can be an excellent plastic surgeon or dermatologist without holding it — that is not a disqualification, but it is a fact worth knowing, and it is checkable in two minutes rather than taken on trust.
ISHRS membership High weight
What we look at: Is the physician a member of the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery?
Why it matters: Membership signals participation in the specialty’s professional body, which publishes standards and runs the consumer campaign against unlicensed technicians. It is not a guarantee of outcome. It is a verifiable affiliation.
Who evaluates your hair loss High weight
What we look at: Is the diagnosis and treatment recommendation made by a physician, or by a sales consultant?
Why it matters: Hair loss has causes that require diagnosis — androgenetic alopecia, telogen effluvium, scarring alopecias and systemic conditions present differently and respond differently. The ISHRS warns that non-physician evaluation risks misdiagnosis, failure to identify hair disorders or underlying disease, and unnecessary procedures. A consultation that is really a sales appointment is a different thing from a medical evaluation.
Price transparency Medium weight
What we look at: Are per-graft or total ranges published, or is an in-person consultation required to hear any number?
Why it matters: Almost no US clinic publishes prices. That is the norm, not a red flag by itself. But clinics that publish ranges tend to hold to them, and the absence of any number anywhere is worth noting when you are comparing five options. The opposite extreme — a flat offer to harvest "as many grafts as possible" for one low price — is listed by the ISHRS as a predatory-pricing pattern.
Malpractice coverage of the full team Medium weight
What we look at: Is everyone involved in the surgery covered?
Why it matters: The fourth of the four ISHRS questions. If part of the procedure is performed by someone not covered, the patient carries a risk they were never told about.
Verifiable results Medium weight
What we look at: Are the before-and-after photographs of this clinic’s own patients, operated on by this physician?
Why it matters: The ISHRS lists fraudulent before-and-after photography — images that do not depict the clinic’s actual patients — among the markers of black-market operations. Ask whose patients they are, and ask to speak to one.
Named in AI answers Editorial weight
What we look at: Does the clinic appear when ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews are asked who to choose in this city?
Why it matters: Our own measurement, not a quality signal — a clinic can be excellent and invisible. We publish it because a growing share of patients ask an assistant before they search, and the answer they get is shaped by which clinics have published checkable information. Dated, with the exact queries used.
Featured placements
Clinics may pay for a featured position on a city page. Featured placements are labelled as such on every page where they appear, and payment does not change how a clinic is evaluated against the criteria above, nor whether it is listed at all. We may also earn a referral fee when a reader contacts a listed clinic. Nothing on this site is medical advice.
Corrections
If information about your company is inaccurate, write to [email protected] and we will correct it.