The Questions You Should Ask Your LASIK Surgeon

Finding a great eye surgery deal can be quite an advantage, but you have to be sure that your LASIK surgeon is qualified enough to perform it in the first place. You don’t want to end up with major complications, such as chronic dry eyes or ectasia, after all the hard work you did in researching eye surgery. In the end, a better, even slightly more expensive eye surgeon, is the way to go since you’ll have peace of mind that you’ll be guaranteed clear vision with no scary side effects.

So how do you go about finding a credible LASIK surgeon? You will need to interview the surgeon first and ask many questions about the surgery. You will also need to ask questions about their credentials. If the LASIK surgeon is willing to explain everything thoroughly and truthfully to begin with, then you might not need to question them so intensely. But if you’re not sure about your decision, then you should ask some of these questions:

1. How many years have you performed eye surgery? (The doctor should have performed eye surgery for at least 3 years)
2. How many patients receive a UCVA score of 20/40 or better? (The doctor should answer around 90% or more)
3. What percentage of patients receive a UCVA score of 20/20 or better right after the surgery? (Stats show that this should be around 50%)
4. How many surgeries have you performed in the last 6 months? (This shouldn’t be less than 100)
5. How many surgeries  have you performed overall? (This should be at least 500 or more)
6. Have you had any malpractice claims filed against you? (This should be a very low rate, like 1 in every 500 claims)
7. Have you ever been denied malpractice insurance? (The answer should definitely be no, otherwise run away)
8. Has your licence been suspended for any reason? (The answer should be no)

For the ones that ask about the surgeon’s malpractice record, you should be a little conservative about this, because asking too many questions about this can make you seem like a very distrustful and unfriendly person. The best malpractice question to ask would just be the licence suspension one, since if the surgeon’s licence has been suspended, it means that they’d intentionally caused harm on their own patients in the past. Combined with asking about their success rate, should be a good enough indicator to you if they are a trustworthy LASIK surgeon.

The important thing to realise is the eye surgeon needs to be open and willing to explain the surgery to you. If they do this, then it is almost certain that they are a good LASIK surgeon to have laser eye surgery with.