How Much Does Laser Eye Surgery Cost?
How Much Does Laser Eye Surgery Cost?
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What is laser eye surgery?
Lasers aren’t magic, although their effects can seem that way. Rather than cutting out tissue the old-fashioned way, lasers vaporise it instead. This helps to reshape your corneas to correct vision issues like short-sightedness, long-sightedness and astigmatism.
Laser eye surgery can also be used to treat medical conditions like:
- cataracts
- glaucoma
- retinal tears
- diabetic eye disease
- retinopathy in premature babies
- age-related macular degeneration
With so many use cases, it makes sense that there are lots of types of laser eye surgery out there. In the field of treating basic vision problems, there’s a good handful, including:
- LASIK (laser assisted in situ keratomileusis)
- LASEK (laser epithelial keratomileusis)
- ASLA (advanced surface laser; sometimes known as PRK or photorefractive keratectomy)
- SMILE (small incision lenticular extraction)
These procedures either shape the layer of tissue under the cornea, or shape or remove tissue from the cornea itself to improve your vision (if yours isn’t 20/20 already; laser eye surgery won’t give you extra powerful eyes, unfortunately).
How long you’ll enjoy the effects of your laser eye surgery can depend on how stable your eyes are.
If you’ve been wearing glasses for a while, you might reach a point where your prescription doesn’t change as much as it used to. This is because our eyes tend to grow more stable (i.e. not needing a new prescription as often) as we get older. So, opting to wait a little longer for your laser eye surgery could mean that the positive effects will last longer, as your eyes will be less likely to change and require further treatment. Of course, aging also has its own associated vision problems, so another surgery could be recommended later down the track.
Things are a little murkier if you’re considering laser eye surgery to treat another condition, like a retinal tear or glaucoma. For instance, the laser might deal with the retinal tear, but it won’t stop others forming. Similarly, laser surgery for glaucoma can help manage your eye’s pressure and help prevent vision loss, but it doesn’t cure glaucoma. You’ll likely still need to use other methods to manage it.
How much does laser eye surgery cost?
If you’re looking at laser eye surgery to correct your vision, prices can vary. As of 2024, some estimates were between $2,400 and $3,950 per eye.1Vision Eye Institute – Laser eye surgery So, assuming you want to treat both eyes, you could be out $8,000 or more.
Your private health insurance could help to pay some of this bill, but it can depend on your cover. Also, claiming through Medicare won’t be an option. That’s because correcting your vision via laser surgery isn’t seen as medically necessary. It’s viewed as a cosmetic surgery.
On the other hand, there may be medically necessary instance of laser eye surgery, like treating cataracts or glaucoma. In these cases, Medicare covers all surgery costs through the public health system. Your private health insurance might also cover some of the costs if you chose to go privately, depending on your policy.
Scroll through our graphs to see what the typical specialist fees were for different medically necessary laser eye surgeries in 2022–23, along with how many private patients had out-of-pocket surgery costs and what that cost typically was.
These are the amounts patients typically paid for these services, rounded to the nearest dollar. They do not include hospital payments such as excesses, co-payments or other payments. These fees may vary depending on your situation. Not all patients had out-of-pocket costs; those who didn’t aren’t included in these figures. Data retrieved August 2024.
Are there out-of-pocket costs for laser eye surgery?
A few things can affect whether you have out-of-pocket costs for laser surgery and how much they are.
First, you might have a gap to make up the difference between what your hospital cover includes and what your specialist charges. For medically necessary treatment, your insurer may only cover some of the bill. You’ll need to pick up the rest. If your surgery wasn’t considered medically necessary – as in it’s cosmetic – your hospital cover will not pay for it.
Having said that though, if you have appropriate extras cover, some of the costs of your cosmetic laser eye surgery may be handled. However, you may still have a large gap to pay out of your own pocket, due to tight benefit limits. Additionally, you may need to keep lifetime limits in mind.
If you’re using your hospital cover, you will likely have an excess or co-payments to pay as well. The excess is a set amount you’ll need to pay before your insurer will cover anything. The co-payment is another set fee, this time for every day you’re in hospital. Of course, laser eye surgery to correct your vision can be quite quick (even as fast as five minutes per eye) and you’re unlikely to need to stay overnight. As a result, you’d probably only need to make the one co-payment. It’s also worth checking your policy document to see what your excess is and whether you have a co-payment or not.
What about costs after laser eye surgery?
Across the board, aftercare for laser eye surgery is generally quite straightforward. You might need to use eyedrops for a little while. You might also need to book in a follow-up appointment with your specialist. This gives them a chance to check everything is healing as it should and for you to share any issues you might be having.
What this aftercare will cost may vary, depending on what your unique situation requires. Your specialist appointment might be covered in part by Medicare, though (if the surgery was medically necessary). Prescribed eye drops or other medication might be subsidised through the Medical Benefits Scheme, but if you can buy them over the counter, the full cost will need to come out of your pocket.
Is laser eye surgery worth it?
You might want laser eye surgery to correct vision problems purely out of convenience. While glasses and contact lenses are common, they can also be a hassle to take care of. Also, using contact lenses can put you at risk of eye infections. While glasses don’t exactly have that problem, they can be fragile and easily damaged in the course of everyday life.
From a financial perspective, laser eye surgery could also mean you won’t be spending thousands on glasses and contact lenses over your life. For instance, let’s assume that you purchase a new pair of glasses every two years. On average, this can easily cost anywhere from $100 to $300. It could even be more depending on the frames you choose and the lenses you need. That means over 20 years, correcting your vision with laser eye surgery could mean you save $3,000 or more on glasses.
For contact wearers, there could be even greater financial benefits. Say the cost of three months’ worth of daily lenses comes to around $210 for you, over 20 years that could add up to $16,800. If you have fortnightly lenses, you could also be making some serious savings (if not quite as extensive). For example, you might spend $37 on six lenses (3 fortnights worth of lenses), 20 years of not needing to buy them could add up to $6,411.60 saved.
If your laser eye surgery is to treat another issue, you mightn’t care so much about convenience or money. Instead, you might be more motivated by the prospect of improved vision, like removing a cataract that’s been clouding your sight. Or where laser eye surgery is a management strategy rather than a treatment, like with glaucoma, it could give you peace of mind that you’re managing the condition and helping to minimise the risk of losing your vision.
Source: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare – Elective surgery waiting times 2022–23
How long will I have to wait for laser eye surgery?
Your wait for laser eye surgery can depend on a few different things.
For starters, if you’re getting medically necessary laser eye surgery through the public system, your treatment will be categorised by urgency. Removing a cataract with an angle-closure glaucoma present is rated as a Category 1 – this means the surgery should happen within 30 days. On the flipside, if you just have a cataract and it’s not causing a severe disability, it’d be rated as a Category 3 – that’s a recommended treatment time of within 365 days.
Of course, these waiting times are best practice and don’t always bear out in reality. Looking at 2022–23 wait times nationally, there’s room for improvement when it comes to getting everyone seen within those recommended time.
Your wait for admission might not be as long as this if you’re using private health insurance, though. One of the benefits of being a private patient is the chance of getting seen sooner. However, you’ll need to have served your policy’s waiting period before your insurer will cover any costs.
In the case of medically necessary laser eye surgery, this could be as little as two months. That is, unless the condition was pre-existing (as in you had it before you purchased the policy, even just signs or symptoms). Then you could be waiting up to 12 months.
For ‘cosmetic’ or vision correcting laser eye surgery covered through your extras, your insurer might set their own waiting periods. For instance, you might need to hold tight for up to three years if you’re hoping to fix a pre-existing vision problem.
What level of health insurance do I need to cover laser eye surgery?
Like waiting times, the kind of health insurance you need to cover your surgery comes down to whether your laser eye surgery is medically necessary or not. Only the necessary kind is covered by private hospital, like under bronze tier hospital policies and above. Except for cataracts. Cataract surgery is usually only a gold tier hospital policy inclusion, although insurers can choose to offer it with lower tier hospital policies.
If you’re hoping for a hand to pay for vision-correcting laser eye surgery, you’ll need to look at optical extras cover, particularly the more comprehensive and expensive policies.
Where can I find and compare health insurance?
While health insurance might not cover all of your costs for laser eye surgery, it could help make it a reality for yourself. But the first step is finding a policy that includes cover for it! Luckily, iSelect can help with that.
We make it easy to compare a range of health insurance options from different providers online. Alternatively, you can always give one of our health comparison experts a call on 1800 784 772 for a hand finding a suitable policy. .