Patients of the Foundation for Hair Restoration and Plastic Surgery will always meet with the doctor whom they are having their surgery with on the day of the procedure, even if they are unable to visit the doctor before the procedure.
As over 70% of our patients fly in from out of state or out of country, a large majority of patients are not able to travel to one of our Foundation offices to have a live evaluation.
While Dr. Epstein and the other Foundation doctors always like to meet with a patient live when possible, many of our patients will either submit photographs for review and then follow up with live phone calls and e-mails with the doctor and/or their patient advisor and then schedule a procedure. Others will schedule a live web-cam so they can “meet” the doctor without physically meeting the doctor live, while others will travel all the way to our offices and have a live consultation if they are near enough to do so.
In any of those three cases, the patient will still meet the doctor the day of their procedure in the morning. So even if a patient has only had a photograph review from their doctor they will, when they arrive in town, have a meeting to start their day and review their photographs or review their web-cam consultation. Our doctors will draw out and mark out what is expected to be done and the procedure does not begin until both the doctor and the patient are satisfied with the recommendation and the plan.
So while we always like seeing our patients live when possible, we absolutely through web-cam and photograph reviews are able to schedule a patient’s procedure before meeting the patient live.
Posted by Jon Hoffenberg, Executive Vice President FHRPS