You are interested in laser eye surgery. You have been doing what everyone else does first, which is search through the websites of various laser eye surgery clinics including the big three chains: Ultralase, Optical Express and Optimax, plus independent clinics such as FOCUS Laser Vision, Centre for Sight, London Vision Clinic etc.

The first thing you notice is that some clinics outline some or all their prices, while others give a headline price and give more details after you contact the clinic directly. One very handy site that can help you get all that information quickly is www.lasik-eyes.co.uk where patients can post independent reviews of their experiences at all of the UK’s laser eye clinics plus the price they paid for surgery.

There is a huge variation in the prices paid at UK clinics. Prices paid for both eyes for laser eye treatment vary from around £1,500 up to over £6,000.

But what does this mean for you? What about quality? Do you get what you pay for? Or do prices not correlate well with the quality of the surgery, vision result or service?

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To recap from earlier this week, there are two ways you can upgrade your laser eye treatment: (1) upgrading on the quality of the final vision (you will see better afterwards) and (2) improving the safety and accuracy of the laser eye surgery. These are upgrades on what used to be the best treatment only a few years ago, which is known as non-wavefront LASIK and using a blade device to cut a thin flap in the surface of the cornea (the clear window at the front of the eye).

Upgrading on (1) involves paying for what is called ‘wavefront‘ laser eye surgery over ‘non-wavefront’.

Upgrading on (2) means getting rid of a metal razor-type blade in favour of a laser for the first part of the LASIK treatment (lots of names here… blade-free, dual laser, femtosecond, Intralase, Ziemer, Z-LASIK).

Kay’s questions have been about: is it really worth it to pay more? The short answer is that, yes, you should always look for ‘wavefront’ laser eye treatment. But why?

Well, the reason for this is not as obvious as laser eye clinics may tell you!

Wavefront refers to a technology adapted from astronomy which allows better resolution and clarity when looking at images of space. The principle is to remove tiny imperfections of focus, rays of light that are not getting focused properly and which cause blurriness, glare or hide details. Let’s look at an example from astronomy. In this image you can see how a blurry image of a star was improved though wavefront technology to reveal in fact two stars, known as a ‘binary star’.

'Wavefront' laser eye surgery can improve quality of vision

These imperfections of focus (known usually as aberrations) are not corrected by glasses. They are still there even after putting on your glasses or contact lenses. So after correcting your prescription fully and getting clear vision, you can still have imperfections in your vision which are usually more obvious at night.

Check back tomorrow for the next installment and the full answer on whether it is worth it to pay more  in order to get the best vision results (at most clinics – not mine, I add, FOCUS Laser Vision! – we don’t charge extra for you to get wavefront correction! In fact we charge less for wavefront surgery than other clinics do for their non-wavefront treatments).

See you tomorrow!

Overall all laser eye surgery prices are increasing or set to increase. The cost of new technology to give you better and safer surgery is very high and needs to be constantly updated. Even though FOCUS have the UK’s best prices, you will find the trend everywhere will be up.

For example, laser clinics used to need one laser at a cost of £1/3 million. Now they need two to offer blade free dual laser LASIK, total cost £2/3 million and treatment prices are no different on average to back in 2000.

In a nutshell it costs a lot to do this type of treatment and costs are only increasing. The benefit of that though: highly accurate treatments with better safety than ever before.

At FOCUS, we made a decision to buy the very best technology and to bring that to the UK at the lowest price so that more people could afford to get fantastic levels of surgeon, service and technology, all without compromise. That is not hype. It is just what we have wanted to do.

But all of that does cost and has to be paid for. And no government bail-outs for anyone in healthcare! Unlike some banks we have to be prudent, cautious and look after our customers without risk so that we will be here next week, next month and next year.

Price wars in the US a few years ago meant cheaper surgery at first. Then bankrupt clinics closing with people having to pay all over again in order to get their aftercare. Not a good result for patients in the end.

You may see some special offers following these recent economic changes until things level out and then improve again. You may want to take advantage of those, as longer term costs will go up.

Ultralase laser eye surgery chain has increased prices again. They recently moved to only offering blade free LASIK using the American Intralase femtosecond laser, removing the cheaper option of keratome LASIK.

Ultralase laser eye clinics price for Intralase LASIK including the upgrade for wavefront based correction is now £1,945 per eye.

Click here to the US govnerment clinical laser eye surgery trial results for the Bausch and Lomb laser used by Ultralase and how it compares to the VISX laser used at major competitor Optical Express and the WaveLight laser used at FOCUS Laser Vision.

Private equity company 3i recently paid a whopping £174 million to purchase Ultralase (read the blog post here) so perhaps they would like to start getting some money back…? Just a thought.

The results of the first 50 people to poll our blog are now in!

Nearly 80% of people want to pay no more than £1,000 per eye for their LASIK laser eye surgery. This price is considerably lower than most clinics are actually charging for laser vision correction per eye.

If you want, click here to see a price comparison of various prescriptions at several laser eye surgery clinics.

Please ensure that you check the final price you will be charged at any clinic you are evaluating prior to going ahead. But be careful – one laser chain seems to not want to disclose any prices until you have arrived for your consultation. You may well be very surprised as just how much the final bill will come to.

Prices do vary considerably and often without apparent differences in the quality of care offered. You can see a comparison of LASIK laser eye surgery prices here.

Since we introduced the Z-LASIK blade free LASIK laser eye surgery procedure into the UK in January 2008, more than 90% of our patients have opted to go dual laser (no blade) for their vision correction.

The LASIK procedure has two parts – the first is the preparation of a thin flap followed by the second stage of vision correction itself. Traditionally, a bladed device has been used to cut this flap and gave some people pause about going ahead with the surgery.

Laser blade free flap makers were introduced in 2002 by the Intralase Corporation in the US. A next generation system was released in 2007 by Swiss ZIemer Group.

The added level of safety offered by eliminating the need for a physical blade cut has proved to be very popular for patients at FOCUS Laser Vision, with 9 out of every 10 people choosing to have Z-LASIK (blade free Ziemer technology). The additional cost of Z-LASIK leaves 1 in 10 people going with the traditional blade version, M-LASIK.

The high cost of femtosecond lasers means somewhat higher LASIK prices, usually around £300 per eye higher than bladed LASIK. The reason is that the blade systems cost around £30,000 per machine compared to £200-250,000 for a femtosecond laser.

The results of the first 50 people to poll our blog are now in!

Nearly 4 out of 5 people want to pay no more than £1,000 per eye for their LASIK laser eye surgery. This price is considerably lower than most clinics are actually charging for laser vision correction per eye.

Despite headline grabbing prices of ‘from £395 per eye’ coming through our doors, the actual price charged at LASIK laser chain clinics is significantly over £1,000 once you have added in the extras not included in that advertised price. Such as modern wavefront advanced optics and blade-free all laser surgery.

Please ensure that you check the final price you will be charged at any clinic you are evaluating prior to going ahead. But be careful – one laser chain seems to not want to disclose any prices until you have arrived for your consultation. You may well be very surprised as just how much the final bill will come to.

Prices do vary considerably and often without apparent differences in the quality of care offered. You can see a comparison of LASIK laser eye surgery prices here.

Please note that only Moorfields Eye Hospital and FOCUS Laser Vision routinely offer a fellowship trained NHS consultant specialist surgeon for laser vision correction surgery.

There are FOUR key points to look at when choosing a clinic:

1. The laser technology
2. The surgeon
3. The clinic
4. The price

Let’s look at these in more detail:

1. Laser technology
The improvements in success rates and safety of laser eye surgery, including LASIK and PRK, have been mainly down to improvements in sophistication of the laser technology. The lasers are dramatically better than they were even a few years ago.
NOTE: not all lasers are made equal, so you MUST look at clinical results to get accurate performance information.

Focus’ data are available on the results page of the Focus Laser Vision clinics website.

99.4% of patients saw 20/20 or better 6 months after Z-LASIK. 100% saw 20/25 or better.

Also note that each clinic makes a claim that they have the best technology, but this of course cannot be true. They can’t ALL have the best laser equipment, as they all have different systems. Focus Laser Vision bought the WaveLight Allegretto system from Germany as it had the best overall FDA clinical results in extensive trials.

2. Surgeon
Equally important for your result and safety is the surgeon who will perform the procedure and assess your suitability for treatment. The most important decision is who NOT to operate on. In the UK you can look for one or more of the following points in your surgeon: 1. NHS Consultant appointment, 2. Fellowship training in refractive surgery and corneal disease, 3. Extensive experience in treating your kind of prescription, 4. Has performed more than 5000 procedures, 5. Works in refractive surgery on a full-time basis or at least two days every week if involved in other areas of ophthalmology (the more time in refractive surgery, the better), 6. Teaching and presenting on refractive surgery skills, vision outcomes and research.

3. Clinic
Look at the support that each clinic will offer to you. Individual independent clinics can usually offer excellent continuity of care so you see the same clinician each time, but may not be as well geographically placed as some of the nationwide chain centres. Ask if you will get your surgeons private phone number after treatment in case of problems or advice being needed. This number is very reassuring for patients.

4. Price
Last of all, look at the price. You want the above three factors to be the best you can get first of all. If you are completely satisfied you have not compromised there, then you can look at price, but ONLY then. High price is not a guarantee of quality, of having the best laser technology, of getting the best surgeon. It may give you these things, but you have to look and make sure for yourself.

In summary, look for yourself and ask the right questions. I have more information of the FOCUS Laser Vision clinics website on this and other related topics.

I got an email this week from a Mr. John Andrews, who was confused about LASIK laser eye surgery pricing.

John wrote:

Having visited your site I am not clear what criteria you used to determine the cost of treatment. What level of myopia do you treat for £295 per eye assuming a thick cornea and no astigmatism?

And here is my reply to John:

Dear Confused

Let me clarify!

There are two pricing models in the UK. One based on prescription and the other a fixed price per treatment type. We base short sighted correction prices on prescription, in the same way that Optical Express does.

Prices for keratome based lasik start at £295 for WAVEFRONT based lasik. This covers up to 1.5D of astigmatism and up to 1D of myopia. Anyone with up to that prescription gets wavefront treatment at that price.

NOTE: You can see the £395 headline price from Optical Express and Optimax is not what you will pay at all when you want modern wavefront LASIK. Those prices are for non-wavefront treatments and you have to pay extra if you want up to date wavefront LASIK. They start at these clinics at £795 per eye.

Our prices are for wavefront based treatment with FDA confirmation that this method outperforms ALL other lasers for custom treatments (see our web site under results.)

We are cheaper than ALL other London based clinics for a range of prescriptions. Check out my blog on this topic with a graph comparison of prices for various prescriptions at various London clinics. (keratome (bladed) wavefront LASIK)

lasik-truth.com/2008/01/25/how-much-should-you-pay-for-lasik/

To clarify, if you want keratome (bladed) lasik, for the above prescription range, then it will cost £295 per eye. If you want to upgrade to a dual laser system (most , but not all, want to take the upgrade by choice) then that will be £595 per eye. This is still markedly cheaper than other London centres.

SO:
Cheaper price, NHS consultant corneal and laser fellowship trained specialist, lasers with best FDA results.

Easy choice, isn’t it??

If you still not sure, ping me a reply!

It is quite confusing for people looking at where to go for their laser eye surgery treatment. Especially so in London where there are many laser eye clinics to choose from.

In other cities you can usually find one or more of the big three chains: Optical Express, Ultralase and Optimax and these centres are probably doing about 80% of all laser eye surgery in the UK, partly because of their wide geographical footprint and so easy access for many people.

Most people really are not sure what to look for in a laser eye surgery provider. They don’t understand the difference between different laser systems and they don’t have easy access to the true performance or knowledge about individual surgeons.

So most people default to the ‘look and feel’ of the website and clinic if and when they attend for a consultation, or follow up from a word of mouth referral to a centre where someone has already had treatment.

Most of the brochures are pretty interchangeable, all making the same claims about experience, technology etc. You could swap the company name and not really notice the difference in various claims.

There are FOUR key points to look at when choosing a clinic, and these are coming tomorrow in my next blog post. Watch this space!!

Prices for laser eye surgery treatment in the UK have fallen by up to 80% for correction of short sight. However, tremendous variation between clinics means a difference in price of up to £4,000 ($8,000) for the same glasses prescription.

You can see the press release article on the fall in LASIK laser eye surgery prices here

Please join our poll over on the right side of this page!

Just click on how much you think you should pay, per eye, for modern LASIK eye surgery including wavefront based correction.

Click here to see how prices very hugely amongst London clinics.

See our featured article on LASIK prices and what the real costs are at various clinics.

You can see the £395 headline price from Optical Express and Optimax is not what you will pay at all when you want modern wavefront LASIK. Those prices are for non-wavefront treatments and you have to pay extra if you want up to date wavefront LASIK.

Click here to go directly to the page.

Here you have a comparison of what LASIK costs at London LASIK clinics. You can see 4 typical prescriptions and what each clinic charges – and you will see the huge variation in LASIK laser eye surgery prices!

For example, for a simple -1 dioptre correction there is an enormous variation in LASIK cost. The lowest is £295 per eye for wavefront LASIK and £595 for femtosecond laser blade free LASIK at FOCUS Laser Vision (www.focusclinics.com). The highest are £2145 at Moorfields eye hopspital (www.moorfields.nhs.uk) and £2250 at Centre for Sight in East Grinstead (www.centreforsight.com).

All three centres offer fellowship-trained specialist NHS London teaching hospital consultant surgeons and advanced wavefront LASIK treatments. Yet the difference in price (money you will save) is up to £3,000-£4,000 for both eyes treated for a -1D correction. For an common prescription, e.g. -2.75/-1.50 x 90, you will still save up to £2,600 from the cheapest to most expensive. And this includes teaching hospital NHS consultant surgeons at both centres, plus the best blade free all laser LASIK option. It’s a remarkable price difference.

The chart below shows prices for wavefront keratome (mechanical) LASIK laser eye surgery. Optimax and Optical Express will charge approximately £300 more per eye for all laser blade free LASIK, as do FOCUS Laser Vision. London Vision Clinic and Centre for Sight include blade free in the prices shown. Ultralase only now offer blade free LASIK but curiously still offer non-wavefront treatments, and so are not in the chart below. They charge £1895 per eye for wavefront blade free LASIK.

Check out this chart for London centres. More on this coming soon.