the Price of Eye Surgery

My daughter had lazy eye, technically called amblyopia, surgery. The surgery was performed on both eyes, for an outward turn. The surgery was performed in a children's pediatric hospital, and the cost included 4 follow up visits with the eye surgeon over the following 2 months.

We received excellent care. The surgery took about an hour. Our daughter recovered and came home that afternoon. The follow up visit was four days later, with another visit at the 2 week mark, one month mark, and two month mark.

There was a post-operative infection picked up from the hospital in our case, with all antibiotics and two follow up visits for that covered by the doctor, but that is not included in our case.

Day surgery centers perform many moderate surgeries. This includes eye surgeries, cartilage repair, and other surgeries that do not require cutting a person "open" or are on the core (trunk) of the body. Because they do not do the biggest and most complex surgeries, they do not require all of the complex equipment or liability insurance that hospitals require. We later found out that we could have saved about 20% simply by having the surgery done at what is essentially a mini-hospital than at the full hospital down the street. And day surgery centers are covered under insurance if the doctor doing the surgery is under your insurance. If I had known it was allowed, we would have done the surgery at the day surgery center.

Using your current eye doctor is cheaper than using a referred surgeon. However, this requires finding an eye doctor who is qualified to perform surgery once you realize the need to see a vision specialist.