How much should you pay for Laser Eye Surgery?

Finding the right Laser Eye Surgery treatment at the right price can be incredibly easy or excruciatingly difficult.

It’s not like say buying a new car, in which you find a few that take your fancy and then compare prices across dealerships, knowing that no matter where you end up purchasing your chosen make and model, it’ll have the same specs, interior, engine size, and optional extras.

Due to the lack of regulations in the industry, Laser Eye Surgery clinics and providers essentially have free reign over how to create, market, and price their treatments.

Some providers grab this opportunity with both hands and go to town with it, offering a plethora of time-sensitive deals, bargain basement promotions, and whatever other ploys their marketing departments can conjure up to get more customers through the door.

But the issue with lenient regulations stretches far beyond deceptive pricing and clever branding. It also means a diverse standard of service and care, surgeons with different qualifications and experience, and treatments with differing levels of safety and performance.

Take for instance standard LASIK surgery, the most popular laser eye treatment in the world. You may visit one provider and find their price for LASIK covers both eyes and includes the initial assessment, ophthalmic exam, wavefront analysis, aftercare, and everything else you need. Yet you may walk into another and find their advertised price is only for one eye and excludes wavefront, all assessments, exams, aftercare visits, and medications.

How to find quality and value: 5 Things to consider

We all like a bargain, and you can certainly find them in the Laser Eye Surgery market. But considering you’re having a procedure to correct your vision and not a quick pedicure, grabbing a bargain shouldn’t be number one on your list of priorities.

When choosing a treatment and provider, quality trumps all. But again, not all of us have the luxury to only consider quality and forget about the price tag. So how do you know when you’ve found a good balance of quality and value?

Well, you just need to know what to look for. Consider the five points below when reviewing prices and take the strain out of finding your perfect Laser Eye Surgery treatment.

Transparent fees and single-price treatments: Clinics that offer single price treatments have no hidden fees, extras, or surprises on top of the marketed price. It’s not as easy as that, though, some clinics that advertise as having no hidden fees may only include a limited amount of services in their prices. For instance, a limited number of follow-up visits or no initial consultation. Check out our list of things we believe clinics should include as standard.

Cheaper prices often mean older technology or treatments: Just like in many markets, low prices can often mean older technology. When clinics offer treatments at a discounted rate, one of the first things you should ask is ‘Why?’ Outdated techniques such as scalpal-based surgery and PRK/LASEK are still used today and are still useful in some cases, but they’ve long been superseded by newer techniques.

It’s normal to pay a bit more for higher prescriptions: Every eye is unique, and therefore what treatment you need and how much you pay will likely be different from the next person. Many clinics don’t tell you this upfront; advertising one price which is only applicable to a patient with a common prescription. Due to their complexity, high-profile prescriptions take more in depth screening and treatment and, therefore, cost more.

High quality and care is not a guarantee: You can compare cheap Laser Eye Surgery to buying a ready made suit from the high street. It does what you need it to, but it’s far from an ideal solution. High-quality surgery is like visiting a world-class tailor and receiving a suit that is perfectly tailored to your shape, size, and preferences. Such clinics offer you an individual and optimal solution and don’t cut corners on staffing, equipment, and time spent with patients. Therefore you are not only comfortable but 100 percent sure you’re getting the best possible treatment for your prescription.

With surgeons, you get what you pay for: As mentioned, the regulations of the Laser Eye Surgery industry are not as strict as we would like. To be a Laser Eye Surgeon, you do not need any specialist qualifications or training; all you need is to be a registered doctor. What’s more, there’s no minimum requirement of experience or standards to regulate working conditions and prevent clinics from overburdening surgeons with too many patients and procedures.

If you’d like to find out more about the costs of Laser Eye Surgery or book a consultation, leave us a comment or speak with one of our Patient Care Coordinators.