A P R I L 2 0 1 6 O U T P A T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T 3 3
them on the cutting edge of care? Should you follow their lead, especially when
manual cataract surgery is so safe and so effective? Like most difficult equip-
ment purchasing decisions you face, it depends on the clinical goals of your sur-
geons, the expectations of your patients and the size of your capital equipment
budget.
Cost considerations
Insurers and Medicare don't cover use of the laser, so its per-case cost is passed
through to patients who pay out of pocket for premium services that include
enhanced refractive outcomes. You need a significant pool of patients willing to
pay for premium services in order to recoup the roughly half a million dollars
you'll sink into the laser platform.
That means the femto laser is typically used in facilities where several sur-
geons are working together to keep up throughput, says surgeon Kevin Miller,
MD, a professor and the Kolokotrones Chair in Ophthalmology at the David
Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "In order to afford the laser, you must do
volume," he adds. "Otherwise you'll just get killed and you end up eating the
cost."
How quickly you amor-
tize the laser depends on
how long the system will
be functioning and how
many patients you oper-
ate on during that time.
"Eye centers and sur-
geons don't know those
exact numbers when they
buy the laser," says Dr.
Miller. But they might be
• TIME MANAGEMENT The laser adds
extra minutes to a procedure that demands efficiency.
Ming
Wang,
MD,
PhD
