Discount LASIK Centers - Not a deal
September 12th, 2006
Here is an article in a Northern California Newspaper.
The ads stare back at you — Lasik for $499. It’s an aggressive price from an aggressive new discount laser eye-surgery company that set up shop in Rancho Cordova about two weeks ago.
The arrival is The Lasik Vision Institute of Lake Worth, Fla., which took over digs vacated this year by TLC Vision Corp., a big national company in the laser vision-correction field that merged this spring and consolidated in some markets.
The newcomer’s introductory offer for the immensely popular surgery undercuts the going rate in Sacramento by 83 percent, but local competitors say they aren’t worried. Their business has remained steady while discounters have come and gone over the past few years.
The difference, they say, is between a “Kmart mentality” and first-rate medicine.
Still, $499 is an eye-popping drop from Sacramento doctors’ average fee of about $1,900 per eye. “My goal is to make a big impression in this market,” says Elsa Fox, local center manager for The Lasik Vision Institute. Company officials say the self-styled “quality medicine” providers are simply overpriced.
The procedure, which takes roughly 15 minutes, allows many people with nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism to see without glasses. It’s not a good idea for everybody, and some eyes cost more than others, depending on the correction needed and the complexity of the case.
Lasik Vision Institute, a division of privately held Musa Holdings, now has 76 centers across the country. Another division, Eye Glass World, touts itself as an eye-care superstore, selling frames and contacts at discount prices. Then and now: Lasik Vision Institute’s entry to the Sacramento market comes less than three years after another laser surgeon swept in with ultra-low pricing, only to depart last year under a bankruptcy cloud.
Arrival of discount chains in the late 1990s raised some eyebrows. In 2000, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration posted a warning online urging consumers to be wary of Lasik deals that seemed too good to be true.
In Sacramento, a large Canadian laser vision correction company opened a center in April 2000, offering to zap both eyes for $999, less than a quarter of what competitors were charging. Laser Vision Corp. signed up its first 1,000 patients before the center even opened.
The problem is that even discount LASIK centers are averaging over $2,000 per eye. This means that despite advertising, patients are not receiving the significant discounts that they were promised. It is like going to a fast food restaurant for the $0.99 value meal and being upcharged to the price of a high class restaurant, except perhaps without the increase in quality.
Established and experienced doctors do not try to compete on price. They try to offer the patients the best possible treatments and charge the patients fairly so that both sides are happy.
Trying to offer the lowest price, assumes that if you perform enough surgeries, regardless of quality, you will make a profit. Low price centers are therefore just as concerned about making a profit as the established surgery clinics. The only difference is that low price centers don’t care as much about their reputation.
Numerous LASIK Centers have closed over the years in bankruptcy. Low priced centers try to make a quick buck and exit the scene. Patients who have been mismanaged or who might suffer complications are left for other centers to handle. Often these patients pay more for their follow-up than they would have had they went to a respectable long-term LASIK provider.
