The Best Laser Eye Surgeons

Choosing to have laser eye surgery performed on your eyes is probably the most important decision you will ever make and part of that decision is choosing the best surgeon among a group of laser eye surgeons. How do you choose the best? When you open up the telephone book in your hometown, all the laser eye surgeons say they are the best. So for starters, you can toss away the comical advertising and focus on the meat of what makes the best laser eye surgeons.

Let's start with the track record of the specific surgeon among the laser eye surgeons. Here is where you need to ask some tough questions of your laser eye surgeons and if any choose not to answer then scratch that one off the list. Let's start with the obvious question: Have you ever had your license to perform refractive surgery revoked or suspended? You have a right to ask that question. They are your eyes. And you can go one step further and ask the laser eye surgeons if they have every had their malpractice insurance canceled. You can even get more direct and straight out ask the provider if he or she has been convicted of a felony.

Word of mouth is probably the best advertiser there is among laser eye surgeons. Ask if the provider will give you at least ten names of those who have had surgery in his or her facility. Caution: an unethical provider will have a list of "happy" customers that are happy only because of the kickbacks or benefits they get. It's best to get good referrals of laser eye surgeons from independent sources.

You can ask the laser eye surgeons as to what percentage of outcomes they have had where the vision resulted in 20/20 precision. If they are not recording this metric then don't even bother with them because they could be hiding something. One recommendation indicated that this metric should be around 65% in this profession.

And then of course you want to ask the laser eye surgeons how long they have been doing refractive surgery. Anything less than three years should be unacceptable. You do not want a laser eye surgeon practicing on your eyes. They are too valuable. Enhance the metric of how long by asking how many patients the laser eye surgeons have worked on. Any metric less than 500 should disqualify the surgeon in your book.

But just asking how many refractive surgeries the laser eye surgeons performed is not enough. Ask specifically what type of refractive surgery the surgeon will be performing on you and how many of that type he or she has done. That metric should be around 100.

Many hesitate to ask these questions of the laser eye surgeons they are trying to make a choice on for fear of offending them or maybe missing out on a great bargain. But don't worry about that. These are the most valuable commodity you have: your eyes. Only the best laser eye surgeons are allowed to work on them.