A London clinic has completed a hair transplant paid for in bitcoin. Vinci Hair Clinic, situated in London’s medical treatment options hub Harley Street, mentioned it completed the hair transplant on 18th Dec for the cost of 11.538461 BTC.
The clinic said its hair transplant patient was a 32-year-old man from the Middle East who wanted to remain anonymous. The patient paid the clinic in bitcoin, which was worth $ six,000 at the time, which the clinic instantly converted to GBP.
“We began to take bitcoin seriously in November when we got inundated with requests to spend in bitcoins,” mentioned Vinci managing director Salvar Bjornsson in a press release.
International payment problems
Vinci’s buyers were clamouring to spend in bitcoin in November, when the value of the digital currency spiked relative to fiat currencies. But buyer demand wasn’t the only explanation for the hair clinic to adopt the digital currency. According to Ken Fryer, a spokesman for the clinic, accepting bitcoin payments from consumers solved some main headaches surrounding international transactions:
“We have had clients who faced difficulties with fund transfers due to currency and banking restrictions. We have had to cancel surgeries due to the fact clientele had been not in a position to transfer funds to the UK in time.”
Vinci operates clinics in London, Spain, Dubai and Brazil. About a third of clients at its London clinic travel for remedy from outside the UK. In Spain and Dubai, the figure is bigger, with about half the consumers at these clinics travelling across borders for procedures. All Vinci clinics now accept bitcoin as a kind of payment.
“We are hoping that bitcoin can assist us resolve this problem at our clinics worldwide,” Fryer stated.
The hair restoration company
Vinci is element of a global sector for hair restoration procedures worth $ 1.9bn final year, according to Fryer. The clinic’s most well-liked procedure is the hair transplant, exactly where hair is surgically moved from the back of a patient’s head, where it’s abundant, to the front, where it’s thinning. The process fees anything from £4,000 to £12,000, depending on the size of the area that’s getting transplanted.
According to Fryer, the trickiest portion of acquiring a hair transplant appropriate isn’t the surgery itself. As an alternative, it’s producing positive individuals have a clear notion of the process’s outcome:
“Getting the patient to have a realistic expectation of the entire process is equally essential.”
A less costly process that’s expanding in recognition is scalp pigmentation, Fryer stated. The goal of scalp pigmentation is to help a patient achieve the appear of an really closely shaved hairstyle. Vinci uses technicians, who are supervised by physicians, to tattoo the patient’s scalp to produce the effect of closely cropped hair. Scalp pigmentation costs £2,500 on typical at Vinci.
Vinci was established in 2006 with clinics in London and Malaga in Spain. The privately held firm currently employs eight doctors and 120 men and women in total, according to Fryer.
Even so, a cursory Google search by CoinDesk revealed a number of damaging critiques for Vinci’s treatment options on hair loss forums. When asked about the critiques, Bjornsson claimed they have been written by “one individual” and stated the clinic is taking legal action to have the critiques removed. Bjornsson wrote in an e-mail, referring to the evaluations:
“Anyone with half a brain will se (sic) by way of this.”
Healthcare tourism
Customers jetting around the world for health-related procedures – cosmetic or otherwise – drive the worldwide health-related tourism sector. In the UK, healthcare tourism has been estimated to be worth £42m to hospitals in 2010 and £219m to the wider economy, including hotels, restaurants, purchasing and transport, according to a study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and York University.
Clinics focused on health-related tourism are keen to adopt bitcoin due to the fact it is effortlessly transferred. For example, CoinDesk reported on Nordorthopaedics, a Lithuanian clinic focused on international patients, that started accepting bitcoin payments in December simply because funds could be transferred swiftly and with minimal charges.
For clinics with significant amounts of international buyers, like Vinci and Nordorthopaedics, bitcoin payments make sense. As Vinci’s Bjornsson noted:
“We at present get payments in more than ten distinct currencies so adding one more [1] is no problem.”
Pictures by way of Ken Fryer / Vinci Hair Clinic
View London Clinic Performs Hair Transplants For Bitcoin on CoinDesk.
London Clinic Performs Hair Transplants For Bitcoin
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