Choosing a Lasik Center – 5 Mistakes to Avoid

Once you’ve decided to go ahead, how do you choose a suitable lasik center?

Well, it’s hard to beat word-of-mouth recommendations, as long as you listen to more than one opinion.

Use the Internet – but look carefully at any advertising. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Be extremely wary of guaranteed results. Remember nothing can be “guaranteed” in medicine.

Get more than one estimate, and compare what each lasik center is offering.

While the first lasik center you call on may well be the best, you owe it to yourself to check out as many as you can.

The market is huge – more than a million Americans chose Lasik eye surgery last year. The natural result is more and more Lasik surgeons, a lasik center in every city or large town, and more and more information on lasik itself.

And that in turn means advertising, exciting claims, great-sounding offers and glowing testimonials.

You know that you have to do the research that will help you make an educated and informed choice, but how to work your way through all the options?

It’s useful to know clearly what NOT to do when making a decision. Take a look at this list of five mistakes to avoid when choosing your lasik center.

1 Don’t Only Focus on Price at a Lasik Center

Lasik eye surgery can cost anything up to $3500 per eye. While prices have settled down a little, it is still an expensive option for most people. For most it is an elective (you choose to have it) procedure that most health plans do not cover.
All of which makes the financing offered by many lasik clinics quite tempting, but it is a temptation you must resist until you have finished your research. If all other things are equal, then take the best financing plan. But don’t make easy payment terms your reason for choosing a particular lasik center.

2 Be Wary of Lasik Center Advertising

The FDA is quite straight about advertising, saying bluntly that “deals that sound too good to be true usually are”.
And unfortunately the misleading claims are not only financial ones. There will always be people whose advertising is “economical with the truth”.

Take a good hard look at any advertising by a lasik center that makes the lasik eye surgeons look like the best in the world. Some of them make the Lasik procedure sound as normal as having a haircut.

It might be true, of course, but Lasik is a very complex surgical procedure involving skilled operators who must use very complicated tools.

So don’t entrust your eyesight to anyone purely on the basis of a smooth spokesperson, a clever copywriter or a surgeon who is happy to endorse over-the-top claims.

Which brings us neatly to the third “Don’t”…

3 Be Wary of Guarantees at a Lasik Center

Be wary of any “guaranteed” results.

The reality is quite simple – Lasik involves surgery. There are never any guarantees in medicine.

These days the odds are hugely in favor of a successful outcome to lasik procedures.

But it would be smart to put your eyesight in the hands of cautious, careful lasik surgeons rather than go for anyone selling “guaranteed results or your money back”.

4 Do not make quick decisions

If you have read this far, you will have agreed that you have to do the research. Research takes time; you need to evaluate and compare each lasik center, so do not make any quick decisions.

Even if you are a gung-ho, Type A person, do not make up your mind too quickly.

There is lots of information to absorb about the procedure, the risks involved, possible complications and the results you can expect.

Above all, take the time to make sure you avoid making the fifth mistake, which not to take the time to….

5 Compare Each Lasik Center

Visit every lasik centers in your area. Compare their equipment and the procedures they offer.

Find out which lasik specialists are available locally, or wherever you choose to have the lasik procedure. Visit the website of the American Academy of Ophthalmology at http://www.aao.org.

You have probably been to a local optometrist, who may also have some recommendations to make.

See if your candidate surgeon is a ‘Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.’ Any surgeon with a FACS designation has passed an evaluation in the areas of education, training, qualifications, competence and conduct.

After all the “Do nots”, some simple “Do’s” for choosing a Lasik Center

* Do the research, and then action your short list.
* Make a list of questions, listen to the answers, look around the clinic and then score each lasik center you visit.
* Don’t trust your memory – write down your impressions after each visit.

Follow this simple procedure and you will end up with a surgeon and a lasik center you will feel you can trust.

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