Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.
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don't blink when they tell them it's a few hundred dollars extra per eye out of pocket for a laser-assisted procedure. Then there's the option of partnering with an outsourcing firm that will provide the laser on an as-needed basis, an option that might be best if you host a few cases each month. Before deciding what's best for your facility, consider the true costs of adding the technology, your surgical volume and the number of patients your eye docs can upgrade to laser-assist- ed surgery. A numbers game Patients view the femto laser as a sexy new technology that they want their physicians to use, even if laser-assisted cataract surgery hasn't yet proven to be more clinically effective than manual techniques, even though it is generally more predictable and precise. "The marketing advantage is real — lasers do attract patients to a surgery center," says Kevin Corcoran, COE, CPC, CPMA, FNAO, presi- dent of the Corcoran Consulting Group in San Bernardino, Calif. The capital investment for a laser is significant — between $300,000 and $600,000 — and you also have to consider the approximately $300 per-case patient interface fee, annual maintenance contacts that run between $25,000 and $50,000, and the staffing costs of the technician who runs the platform. Getting a return on the investment is depend- ent on having physician-owners recoup the purchase as part of the amount they charge patients out of pocket for premium IOLs and bet- ter refractive outcomes. "Now the question becomes, can you make the business case in dollars and cents?" asks Mr. Corcoran. "You can if you host enough cases." So how many patients would it take to make the total investment worthwhile? "That's the sticky part," says Mr. Corcoran, who explains that not 7 0 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • J a n u a r y 2 0 1 7