Pre-consult checklist
Questions to ask a stem cell clinic before you pay.
You are on a clinic call. The treatment sounds hopeful. The price is high. You do not need to interrogate the clinic like a lawyer. You need specific questions, and you need to notice whether the answers stay specific.
A regenerative-medicine consult usually goes one of two ways. Either the clinician walks you through what the product is, where it came from, who oversees its use, what the evidence does and does not show, what it costs in total, and what happens if it does not work — calmly, in writing — or the conversation stays on hopeful outcomes and your gut feeling about the practice. This page helps you tell the difference between a specific, careful consult and one that stays on hope.1
Your job is not to become a regulator. Your job is to ask clear questions and notice whether the answers stay clear. A clinic comfortable with what it offers will not be bothered by these questions. A clinic uncomfortable with them has answered the most important one already.
How to use this: print or screenshot the list, take it to the consult, and write the answers in the margin. Most of the work is in noticing — patiently — whether the answers are specific or vague.
Start with three questions.
If you only have time for three, ask these. The full checklist below is built around them.
- 1
What exactly is the product?
- 2
What exact condition is it being used for?
- 3
Who reviews or oversees this use, where it is being offered?
Three sentences. If a clinic answers all three plainly and consistently, you are talking to someone who knows their product. If any of the three blurs — if the product name changes mid-call, if the condition shifts into a broader wellness claim, if oversight becomes a hand-wave — slow down before paying.2
The checklist — six categories.
Six categories, each with a short set of questions, and a note on what a clear answer sounds like versus what a vague answer sounds like. You will not have time for every question; the point is to enter the consult with the structure already in your head.
Jump to a category
A · Product identity
Product identity.
Before anything about evidence or price, get the product itself named. What you are paying for should sit on the page in plain language — what it is, where it came from, and what was done to it before it reached the syringe.
Questions to ask
- What exactly is being given to me?
- Is it PRP, BMAC, fat-derived cells (SVF or microfragmented fat), lab-expanded mesenchymal stem cells, exosomes, donor birth tissue (amniotic, Wharton’s jelly, cord), cord blood, or something else?
- Is it from my body, or from a donor?
- Does it contain living cells, and how is that verified?
- Is it processed in the clinic on the same day, or grown or manufactured in a lab in advance? If a lab, which lab?
A clear answer names the specific product, the source tissue, the processing, and the manufacturer or processing lab if relevant. It will sound like a sentence you could write down word-for-word.
A vague answer leans on umbrella phrases — “stem cells,” “regenerative cells,” “young cells,” “proprietary blend” — without naming the actual product, source, or who prepared it.
B · Condition fit
Condition fit.
Treatments work or fail one condition at a time. A study in one diagnosis is not automatically evidence for another. Before discussing whether something will help, make sure both sides are talking about the same condition and the same kind of improvement.
Questions to ask
- What diagnosis is this proposed for?
- Is this for my exact condition, or a broader wellness claim?
- What outcome are we actually measuring — pain, function, range of motion, imaging, fertility markers, immune markers, hair density, skin quality, fatigue, or something else?
- How and when will we know whether it has worked?
A clear answer names the diagnosis plainly and describes a measurable outcome on a specific timeline. The clinician can say, in one sentence, what success would look like by what date.
A vague answer stays at the level of “it helps the body heal itself,” without naming the condition being treated or what improvement to look for.
C · Evidence
Evidence.
A study can mean many things — a single small report, a registered trial, a systematic review, an animal experiment. Ask which of those is being cited, and whether it is about the exact product, in the exact condition, with the exact route of delivery being offered.
Questions to ask
- What human study supports this exact product for this exact use?
- Was there a comparison group, or only treated patients?
- How many patients were studied?
- Did patients themselves feel the improvement, or was it only visible on a scan or in a lab marker?
- How long was follow-up — weeks, months, years?
A clear answer names a study, registry, guideline, or local authorization, explains what it did and did not show, and is honest about how strong or limited the evidence is.
A vague answer relies on “published studies,” “backed by science,” or “used worldwide” without naming any specific study or being able to describe its design.
D · Oversight and regulation
Oversight and regulation.
Oversight is what makes the difference between a treatment with a paper trail and a service you are simply buying. The shape of that oversight depends on where you are. The honest answer almost always involves a specific regulator, hospital, ethics board, or trial pathway — not a vague claim that rules do not apply.
Questions to ask
- Where is this being offered, and what oversight applies there?
- If this is in the United States, is it an FDA-approved use, a registered clinical trial, a same-day in-clinic processing exception, or a cash-pay service outside an approved use?
- If this is abroad, is it approved by a national regulator, conditionally permitted, used under a hospital exemption, offered inside a registered trial, or simply a cash-pay service outside a formal study?
- Is the clinic using the same product, prepared the same way, for the same condition, as whatever was studied or authorized?
- Who, by name, is the regulator, hospital, ethics board, ministry pathway, or trial registry that the clinic answers to?
A clear answer names the oversight pathway and its scope — for example, “this is offered under our hospital’s exemption pathway, only for this exact indication, reviewed by our internal ethics board.” In the U.S., it might be “this is a same-day in-clinic processing exception, FDA does not require a separate license, and the product is not approved for any specific use.”
A vague answer waves the question off: “FDA does not apply here,” “it is legal in this country,” or “not FDA-approved but better than U.S. options” — without naming the specific regulator, hospital, trial, or pathway behind the offering.
E · Procedure, safety, and follow-up
Procedure, safety, and follow-up.
Most regenerative-medicine procedures themselves are not technically complex. The complexity is in who does them, what is checked first, and what happens if something goes wrong — especially if you traveled to receive treatment.
Questions to ask
- Who, by name, will actually perform the procedure?
- What examination or imaging is done before treatment to confirm I am a candidate?
- What complications have you personally seen, and how do you track them?
- If a problem appears after I go home, who handles it, and at what cost?
- What is the follow-up schedule — at 30 days, 90 days, 180 days?
- If I travel for this, how do you coordinate care with my doctor back home?
A clear answer names the clinician and their credentials, describes a real screening process, owns a complication history honestly, and hands you a written follow-up plan with names, dates, and what is included in the fee.
A vague answer relies on safety-by-default phrases — “there is no risk,” “your own cells are safe,” “side effects are rare” — without describing how complications are tracked or who manages them after you leave.
F · Cost, repeat treatments, and refunds
Cost, repeat treatments, and refunds.
The headline price is rarely the total. A careful pre-consult question gets the all-in number on paper, including the parts that often appear later: labs, imaging, anesthesia, travel, lodging, repeat doses, and follow-up visits. If something does not work, what happens next is worth understanding before any deposit.
Questions to ask
- What is the total cost — including labs, imaging, anesthesia, travel, lodging, repeat doses, and follow-up?
- How many treatments are recommended, and on what basis?
- What happens if it does not work?
- Is there any refund, credit, or documented outcome policy, and can I read it before any deposit?
- Is there financing pressure, a deadline discount, or a “today only” quote?
A clear answer arrives as an itemized written quote, with a defensible rationale for any repeat dosing and a refund or cancellation policy you can read in full before paying anything.
A vague answer pushes toward booking — “most patients need a package,” “today only,” “we can’t give a final quote until you’ve put down a deposit” — and treats the cost conversation as something to handle after the commitment.
How to read the answer.
Confidence is not the same as a good answer. A clinic that answers questions in a warm, confident tone can still answer them vaguely; a clinic that pauses to think before answering can be doing exactly the right work. What matters is whether the answer is specific.
- Specific answers build trust. A clinician who can name the product, the manufacturer, the regulator, the trial registry, or the published study is a clinician who lives inside this work day to day.
- Vague answers are information too. The absence of a specific answer to a specific question is itself a fact about the offering — not a personal flaw of the clinician.
- “Every patient is different” is a fair caveat once. As the answer to most questions, it is a way of not answering.
- If a clinic knows its product, it can explain it simply. Real expertise sounds plain. If the language gets denser as the questions get sharper, that is worth noticing.
What to get in writing.
Anything that lives only in the conversation cannot be reviewed later — by your own physician, by your partner, by you the morning after. Before any deposit, ask for these on paper:
- Product name and source tissue.
- Manufacturer or processing lab, by name.
- The diagnosis being treated.
- The route of delivery (injection, surgical implant, IV, topical).
- What success is expected to look like, and when.
- The total all-in cost, itemized.
- The follow-up plan, with dates.
- The complication and emergency plan.
- The refund and cancellation policy.
- Any financial relationship the clinic, the referring service, or the clinician has with the product manufacturer, lab, or affiliate.
A clinic doing this work cleanly will already have most of these documents ready. Asking is a kindness to your future self, not a confrontation.
What this is not.
- Not medical advice. Nothing here is tailored to your case. The job of this page is to help you ask sharper questions, not to prescribe.
- Not a clinic recommendation. We do not name clinics as places to go or to avoid.
- Not a claim that all clinics are bad. Some clinicians do this work carefully, with real oversight, in the U.S. and abroad. The point of these questions is to make the careful work visible.
- Not an “FDA is the only lens” page. FDA status matters for U.S. readers, but it does not automatically mean the underlying biology is useless, and a foreign approval is not automatically suspect. Both still need to be the right product, for the right condition, under the right oversight.
Where to go from here.
If you want to keep reading before your consult, these pages go deeper on what is in the syringe, how we read evidence, what the warning signs look like, and what the whole thing is likely to cost.
What is actually in the syringe — a product field guide →
How CellDecide weighs evidence →
How CellDecide reads a paper and writes a page →
Sources & footnotes
- U.S. Food & Drug Administration. “Important Patient and Consumer Information About Regenerative Medicine Therapies.” fda.gov · the FDA’s patient-facing guidance on what to ask before paying for a regenerative-medicine procedure. Verified 2026-05-14. ↩
- International Society for Stem Cell Research. “A Closer Look at Stem Cell Treatments — Patient Handbook.” closerlookatstemcells.org · ISSCR patient handbook with question lists, claim-vs-evidence framing, and a careful description of the difference between trial participation and routine care. Verified 2026-05-14. ↩
- U.S. National Library of Medicine. “ClinicalTrials.gov public registry.” clinicaltrials.gov · the registry referenced in the oversight section for U.S. trials. A listing reflects registration, not endorsement, approval, or efficacy. Verified 2026-05-14. ↩
- Cochrane Library and related systematic reviews of regenerative-medicine interventions. cochranelibrary.com· the standard the Evidence section’s “how many patients, what comparison, how long” questions are asking the clinic to engage with. Verified 2026-05-14. ↩
- Kuriyan AE, Albini TA, Townsend JH, et al. “Vision Loss after Intravitreal Injection of Autologous ‘Stem Cells’ for AMD.” New England Journal of Medicine 2017; 376:1047–1053 · documented case series of severe vision loss after an unapproved stem-cell procedure at a clinic operating outside trial oversight. Verified 2026-05-14. ↩