According to statistics from the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO), Americans spend more than $15 billion each year on corrective eyewear such as eyeglasses and contact lenses to compensate for refractive errors with their vision.
Prescription changes, replacement glasses/contacts and the inconvenience of maintaining those corrective lenses have led millions of people to explore permanent vision correction. LASIK, ZEISS SMILE and other procedures have helped so many break free from glasses and contacts. … But is the surgery worth the higher upfront cost?
The answer may surprise you!
The Real Cost of Glasses
What you pay for annual exams, designer frames and lenses can rack up quickly. Not to mention nearly every eyeglass wearer breaks or loses those pricy specs at one time or another, so you’ll inevitably have to buy the occasional replacement and back-up pair.
Most reasonably decent prescription glasses start at around $200 or $300, conservatively. Designer brands and specialty lenses, like photochromic and progressive lenses, will add hundreds of dollars per pair. If you tally it up over the course of an average adult’s lifetime (let’s say $250 annually from age 30 to age 80), you’re looking at a cost of $12,500 or more—and that’s not counting decades of inflation and sales taxes. Ouch!
Contact Lens Costs Over Time
Estimating the lifetime cost of contact lens use is more complex. Prescriptions vary widely; you may even have a different one for each eye. Some folks opt for single-use, while others go with monthly lenses. Then there’s the cleaning solution, storage case, backup eyeglasses, etc.
Daily disposable contact lenses, which are popular with contact wearers, start at about $30 per box and last a month. That means you’ll spend $15,000 on contacts over your lifetime, and that doesn’t include cleaning solutions, lens cases, taxes and the inevitable inflation that will multiply that number over many decades of use. In other words, that $15,000 could ultimately be closer to $30,000-$40,000 once adjusted for inflation.
Cost of LASIK in Detroit
So, how does the cost of LASIK compare with the astronomical price tag on a lifetime of glasses and contacts?
First, a disclaimer: When we talk about LASIK, we’re using the term generically here. In addition to LASIK, there several other vision correction procedures available. A patient seeking permanent vision correction may find that there are multiple procedures that are appropriate to fix their refractive errors. The cost of surgery can vary widely depending on the most appropriate vision correction or whether the patient needs both eyes corrected.
The cost of LASIK in 2021 is in the range of $2,400 per eye, or $4,800 for both eyes. Other vision correction procedures can exceed $5,000 per eye, depending on the type and level of correction necessary. The good news: It’s still a fraction of the cost compared to a lifetime of glasses or contacts, and the freedom you’ll experience is what many of our patients describe as “priceless!”
So, is LASIK worth the investment? Thousands of patients we’ve seen at Lake Lazer Eye Center would give you a resounding yes!
To find out if you are a candidate for LASIK or the ZEISS SMILE procedure, schedule a thorough vision correction consultation at Lake Lazer Eye Center today.
Lake Lazer Eye Center offers convenient and affordable payment plans for SoftTouch LASIK and the ZEISS SMILE procedure, and Dr. Khambati has helped thousands of people from all over the world escape the restrictions of glasses and contacts. In the event that you’re not a candidate for vision correction, we’ll assist you with a contact lens evaluation or a selection of designer and specialty eyewear.
