Episode Synopsis: In this episode, Dr. Danyo discusses common misconceptions that people have about hair growth products. He explains the deception that is present in the industry and how several products are actually not scientifically proven to help hair regrowth. He also shares the kind of affordable products and vitamins he recommends to create more desirable results.
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Dr. Danyo: I think the important thing between value and price in what is important to an individual is actually having them meet right in the middle where their value that they’re getting from the interaction with us meets the price that they think is appropriate.
Clark: That was the voice of Daniel A. Danyo, MD, founder and physician at North Atlanta Hair Restoration, a boutique medical practice solely dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of male and female hair loss. And you’re listening to “Hair Restoration” with Dr. Daniel A. Danyo. I’m your host, Clark. And all season long, we’re speaking with Dr. Danyo about how he and his team at North Atlanta Hair Restoration are helping his patients transform their everyday lives for the better. In this episode, Dr. Danyo explains the meaning of value and how his personal perspective influences his work and life. He also shares why the care of his patients always comes first. The importance of providing a safe space before, during, and after a procedure, and how he ensures the price of a procedure matches the value added to the patient’s life. There’s a lot to talk about. So let’s dive right in. Dr. Danyo, welcome back. How are you?
Dr. Danyo: I’m doing great, Clark. How about yourself?
Clark: I’m great. I’m looking forward to our conversation today because it’s about something that you often hear about tossed around but if you really just stop to think about the true definition, it kind of is a double-take. It’s a little bit deeper than just the shallow thing, and that is value. What is value? And so, we’re going to be talking about the value that you provide for this service, the value that you provide beyond the treatment that someone receives from you. But I think it would be interesting to start with just asking what is value? How do you think about what that actually means? And how does that translate to the work you do?
Dr. Danyo: Well, first, value is different for different people. Value for some people might be related to price. You might think of buying a car and buying a car for $10,000 and feel happy that you got a car for $10,000 at a value from a cost standpoint, while somebody else may see the value of buying a new Mercedes, or a new Porsche, or a sports car and find value in that. So, it is a very personal pursuit. And also, the object is individual because people value some items that fits their personality or their lifestyle and might not value other things.
Clark: Right. I’m just curious, a lot of this show, we actually talk about a little bit about your background and your unique look at the work you do. What do you value in life, Dr. Danyo? I know it’s a curveball question, but just in a nutshell, what do you value?
Dr. Danyo: I value honesty, hard work, perseverance is big for me, people that are genuine. That’s what I look at in dealing with people and when I have valuable interactions. You know, we’ve talked about this before that interactions that are transformational to me are just really valuable because I can have a conversation that’s transformational and take something away that actually goes into my brain, and then possibly goes into my heart, and possibly even changes my behavior or thinking. And that’s really what I value at this stage of life. I think success is kind of a secondary payoff for having these types of values. And I’ve always placed my patients first in my practice, and that’s the number one value that I think is important for my practice.
Clark: Good deal, I like that. That’s a good segue, I think, into the value your patients get from this and what that means to them. And sometimes people do value things differently. So, what is the most common, you know, sense that you get when you’re talking with patients? What is the most common thing that they’re saying that they want? Does it surprise you? It’s not just they want more hair, it’s something much bigger and much deeper than that.
Dr. Danyo: I think from a hair standpoint, they’re looking for a safe place which provides sound judgments for kind of creating their future. And their future may be total concealment. And so we have a solution for that, and that’s doing a shaveless or no-shave procedure or possibly long hair, a hair transplant procedure. The next is that, you know, I talked about one of my big values is commitment and perseverance. And I’m totally committed in patient care. And I know my out-of-town clients, I have people that come from the West Coast, you know, the north, south, central part of the country, they find me, and call me, and want to speak with me because I think that our messaging, our podcast, we’ve been pretty clear on kind of this value assessment. And it meets their values. And then we can work as a team, you know, come up with a team approach to working together to find a solution. And I think that’s really the number one value and reason why people call us.
Clark: When you say a “safe place,” how important is that? How does that actually manifest? What does that actually look like when you’re talking about a procedure like this?
Dr. Danyo: Yes. Well, a safe place means that we’re going to do what we say we’re going to do. We’re going to be honest in our graft counts or what we can offer and have results that back that up. And the other thing is just from a medical perspective, anything that sticks my patients is me. That means all nerve blocks, anesthesia, the FUE device to extract the hair and even placing the hairs, that’s done by me. And…
Clark: Nobody else, 100% all you.
Dr. Danyo: Yeah, it’s all physician-driven. So, you know, there’s a lot of bad stuff that can happen in any medical procedure. And we’re constantly tweaking what we do in medication management to cut down on bleeding, pain control, obviously, from a physician, any time you do a procedure, I mean, there’s always a chance you could have a reaction to a medicine or have a drop in blood pressure or pulse, and all these things really need to be treated with a medical doctor, somebody who has knowledge to make the right judgment and intervene to keep things safe.
And then the last part is just the actual procedure. You know, we’ve done a couple of podcasts recently with folks that have had some bad results and, you know, just poor growth or they thought they got 2,000 grafts, but when you kind of look at things, they probably didn’t. That’s an unsafe relationship, unsafe, you know, working place where that procedure was done. There’s no other way to say it. And especially if it’s being done by a technician without medical supervision. I completely do not understand how physicians can allow that to happen in their clinics. But it’s happening very frequently. And that’s definitely an unsafe atmosphere, unsafe place to get a procedure.
Clark: When you think about value, when you think about trust, the reality, the sad reality is this industry I feel like sometimes has not the best perception because people are not trustworthy. And that’s some of the stories that you have heard from the people you’ve worked with, they come to you…right?
Dr. Danyo: Well, it’s also even on the front page of the ishrs.org. So ISHRS is International Society of Hair Restoration Surgeons. They have a huge warning on black market procedures or procedures that are not being completed by physicians because they recognize that this creates safety issues and creates likely bad results and bad customer outcomes.
Clark: Yeah, that’s bad news. So, your approach is completely different. And some of the factors that make that possible, it is completely physician-driven. You’re the only person working on this. This is not a technician, this is not somebody in training, it’s all done by you. So, that’s discussing, you know, leading up, the value that…what makes you different, and the actual value of the actual procedure. What about after the procedure, how does value come into play here? What all is included when someone engages with you and your team? What can they expect not only before and during, but also after?
Dr. Danyo: Sure. Well, the value that we provide starts with the initial contact with our office. We have everybody trained on the same page as far as information that we provide to our patients that we do great messaging through a texting app called Klara, that’s, K-L-A-R-A , which is HIPAA-compliant. But it gives access to pretty much everybody in the office including myself for questions. We send a lot of videos and information on those to get people ready for the procedure. And then, so the front end is very easy.
The second part is that we do the final billing after we actually get all of the grafts out for hair transplantation, which is not very common. A lot of places require full payment a week or two before. And what happens is it can set up a situation where maybe inappropriate graft counts are completed. Some people just…let’s say they were quoted for 2,000 grafts, many patients can’t get 2,000 grafts safely from their donor site. So, instead of refunding and having accounting issues, we feel that it’s better to do a graft counting right at the same day and do the billing the same day. And occasionally, that puts us at risk. We’ve had a couple of patients that have just not shown up for procedures. And you can have possibly a lost day of revenue. But we feel that this is kind of an important concept to build trust, that we’re going to do what’s right and you’re going to pay for what was done and what was said.
And, you know, we’ve talked about this on another podcast, I’ve seen too many patients that were promised large graft counts and when they come back for a second procedure, they did not have that number of grafts. Or either they had bad results from what was placed or the graft count was overstated and they paid for things that weren’t done. And that’s, from my perspective, totally unacceptable. But it’s not uncommon in… So patients have to be aware that this is going on. And that this is not a sales transaction. This is something that we really hold dear, we’re passionate about it.
So, the next part, you know, we talked about the procedure. We’re constantly tweaking what we do, and that’s done through research, being involved with webinars and different courses, changing medications so that the procedure goes smoothly. And then postoperatively, we found that the more that we tweaked a procedure and refined it, our patients have minimal pain, minimal swelling, minimal downtime, and better results. And that is a huge value.
And the last part is just the follow-up. You know, we don’t charge people for follow-ups. I do all the follow-ups personally. And so, that’s vital to, you know, the full service of care. We generally do it at 6 and 12 months. And for the out-of-town people, we’ve set up conversations through our texting app. We can do video calls or people send in pictures. But we keep that constant dialogue without, you know, like bugging people. We don’t have like all the sales information and constant contact with specials and things like that. But I think our patients find a lot of value in the fact that we respect them in that way. But we’re there for them. And we do these incremental follow-ups that are kind of programmed in our system so that they get the best results.
Clark: I know you’ve described the hugs, the high fives, the follow-ups, how there’s a lot of excitement. And that’s something I think that you’ve got to love. Your team has got to so enjoy just getting to experience the full circle aspect. And if someone has never met you before, that concept you just shared of always be learning and improving, that is your story of, you know, what you do with fitness, what you do with schooling, what you do with your family, what you do with the business, always learning, always improving. Because I would imagine if you ever get to that point when you feel like you know it all, that’s when you get stagnant and things change around you.
Dr. Danyo: Yeah, you know, I definitely have a constant pursuit of learning. I haven’t said this on the podcast before, but I’m in the process of getting my MBA through Auburn University, which is a Physician Executive MBA, but it’s just something that I’ve always wanted to do to better myself. And, you know, I try not to be or act like I’m the smartest guy in the room by any means. But, yeah, I try and be a good listener. And, you know, just give sound information and having as much information and kind of experiences as I can I think leads again to that more transformational approach that I talked about earlier, that that’s what really kind of sets me on fire is if I can actually be transformational in people’s lives. That’s what I enjoy the most.
Clark: That’s great. Well, any other thoughts, do you have any other thoughts about value and what you’ve learned over the years, and why something like this, you know, why people decide to do it, and why they look back and they’re happy they did it?
Dr. Danyo: Sure. I think the last part, you know, we had talked about price. And price is always kind of a sticky subject for people because price and value again is individualized and, you know, has to be looked at in different lenses. But back to price. We’re not the most expensive, but we’re not the cheapest. It’s something that we try to analyze and make sure that we’re where we need to be from a price and value standpoint. And I think our patients understand it and they get it, where our success and really our busyness has kind of proven that to be true. So again, if price is your mitigating factor, we’d still love to talk to you, we’re happy to help. And, we’re not here to preach our values onto you. But again, there may be some things that we could discuss that may open up some doors in your mind to say, “You know what? This is valuable to consider,” when choosing a physician or an office to do their procedure.
Clark: Good stuff. And what an encouragement too that you and your team, you’re not here to just try to maximize the price. I mean, because how amazing is that that you might actually start looking at the situation and say, “Hey, you don’t need as much as you might think.” Or maybe there’s even a potential refund in some cases as you were describing. That goes back to your values as a person, as your company, your team. I think it’s really encouraging.
Dr. Danyo: Yes. And my thought is to never overharvest somebody’s donor site. Today I had somebody come in for 2,000 grafts, but he had 2 procedures before. And I was only able to get 1,000 grafts safely from his donor site, and from the head. And we ended up doing 500 from his beard to get to 1,500. But it was valuable when I talked to him and just said, “Listen, you do not want to deplete a donor site. And 2,000 is just a number. And you’ve already got great coverage, and this will only enhance even though it’s 5,000…or correction, 500 less than what you had planned on getting when you walked in the door.” He was happy when he left.
Clark: Nice. That’s great. Yeah. Just shooting them straight, letting them know. Well, Dr. Danyo, I always enjoy our talks. I like that tonight we could also get a little philosophical about value, and price, and what does this actually mean, and lots of things to be thinking about. So I know your team is always ready to have that conversation. It is a safe place. These are conversations you’re having all the time. So what’s the next step for someone who’s thinking, “Hey, maybe this is the right next move for me.” What’s the best way to connect?
Dr. Danyo: There are a couple of ways to connect. One is to just phone our office at (678) 845-7521, that’s the main number to our office. The next is to connect through the website. We have a secure portal. And there is a way to download pictures and answer a few questions about your history of hair loss. And then it sets the process off of having the office contact you. And then eventually it gets you on my schedule to do a virtual consult or possibly have an in-person consult for those that are local to Atlanta. But the virtual consults are great, especially in the day of COVID. And we can talk about things I can do either through the phone or through a secured video app, which is easy. And again, we just try and make the journey easy, and that we appreciate you.
Clark: Hey, thanks so much for listening to “Hair Restoration” with Dr. Daniel A. Danyo. Book your consultation today with Dr. Danyo by calling (678) 845-7521, or online at nahairrestoration.com. And be sure to follow, rate, and review this podcast wherever you listen to your audio content.
