Americans seeking hair transplants flock to Turkey as medical tourism booms

• Getting hair transplants abroad can also offer men a major confidence boost at a fraction of the cost required to get the procedure done at home, proponents say.

Context: The worldwide market for hair transplants has surged in recent years, just as cosmetic procedures have become more commonplace.

• Social media use and the rise of Zoom meetings mean people are spending larger portions of their days looking at images of themselves and others.
• The global market for hair restoration procedures jumped from $1.9 billion in 2012 to $4.5 billion in 2021, per the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery.
• Yet costs for the procedure remain high — with an average hair transplant costing $7,500 and possibly up to around $15,000, according to the Foundation for Hair Restoration.

State of play: Turkey has emerged as a popular destination for Americans to travel to for the procedure, with glowing testimonials online about the results and cost.

• More than 1.5 million medical tourists went to Turkey last year, spending about $3 billion, according to a Turkish state-owned healthcare company.
• Ali Caglayan, founder of the "city and medi guide" IstanBeautiful, told Axios that hair transplants are the most popular procedure among American medical tourists to Turkey.

Zoom in: The Dr. Serkan Aygin Clinic in Istanbul saw a surge in American patients after the pandemic, Besiana Hoxha, the clinic's general manager for the U.S. market, told Axios.

• The clinic treated about 480 U.S. patients last year, said Hoxha, who works at its Miami branch, which facilitates trip scheduling.
• Turkish doctors first started doing hair transplants in the 1980s. Their experience, use of the most modern methods, and Turkish hospitality make the country an attractive destination for the procedure, Hoxha said.
• Depending on which program the patient chooses, U.S. medical tourists can expect to pay between roughly $3,500 and $8,000 for their hair transplants at the clinic, she said.

The big picture: Hair transplants are only one of the cosmetic procedures Americans are getting done abroad.

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that cosmetic tourism is "increasingly popular," and that the most popular procedures include "abdominoplasty, breast augmentation, eyelid surgery, liposuction, and rhinoplasty."
• It's difficult to know exactly how many Americans travel abroad for cosmetic procedures since many aren't going to accredited facilities, Scot Glasberg, president of the Plastic Surgery Foundation — the research arm of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons — told Axios.

• However, the CDC estimates that millions of U.S. residents seek treatments abroad every year.

Between the lines: Going overseas for medical procedures can come with its own set of risks.

• Though skilled doctors can be found abroad, it can be harder for patients to conduct research into doctors and facilities to ensure they're getting treated somewhere safe, Glasberg said.
• "Unfortunately, in my practice, I see a lot of patients who go abroad and come back with less than ideal results — and that's probably putting it kindly," Glasberg said.
• The internet is also replete with stories of cosmetic tourism gone wrong. The CDC issued a report earlier this year stating that, between 2009 and 2022, more than 90 Americans died after getting cosmetic surgery in the Dominican Republic.

The bottom line: "Health care costs in this country continue to rise, I get it. But again, I'm not sure you want to compromise when it comes to your safety and health," Glasberg said.

• Hoxha said hair transplants are a "minimally invasive" procedure with a low amount of downtime, but patients should still take care to choose an experienced doctor to perform their procedure.

Go deeper: Seeking affordability, more Americans are going abroad for fertility treatments