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O P H T H A L M O L O G Y
FAMILIAR FINISH
Surgeons finish procedures in the OR after
starting incisions with
lasers in another room.
$50,000 and
per-click
fees in the
hundreds of
Ming Wang, MD, PhD
dollars to
the equation,
and there's
no meat left
on the cataract reimbursement bone, especially when lasers aren't
included in covered services paid by Medicare and private insurers.
There's no simple way to pass the additional costs on to the average
patient who doesn't want to pay out-of-pocket for premium IOLs or
astigmatic corrections.
Thomas Boland, MD, is a high-volume doc at Northeastern Eye
Institute in Scranton, Pa., a facility he says is always on technology's
cutting edge. "Even we pumped the brakes based on those start-up
costs." He instead opted to perform bladeless cataract surgery with
the LASIK laser the facility already owned (see "Performing LASIK?
You're Halfway There").
"If your reimbursement for the case isn't going up in line with your
costs, that's not a very good business model," says Dr. Boland, who
knows some surgeons who've purchased laser systems and struggle
to generate enough income to justify the investments.
The number of cases you'd have to host to break even can be stag4 6
O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | N O V E M B E R 2012
