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How Much Does Strabismus Surgery ACTUALLY Cost, and How to Save Money!
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Dec 12, 2022
A simple search will give you a HUGE range for strabismus surgery, $2000-$20,000. Narrow it down with my detailed charts, codes and research. To read the article all about the cost of strabismus surgery, go here: https://strabismussolutions.com/surgerycost/ If you would like to learn more about whether surgery could be a good option for you, go here: https://strabismussolutions.com/freequiz/ If you'd like to learn more about scheduling a consult with me, go here: https://strabismussolutions.com/consult/
View Video Transcript
0:00
I'm Melissa. I've had four strabismus surgeries and I'm here to teach you today about how to know
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how much your strabismus surgery is going to cost. Now, if you give your fate to Google and just
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search it, you're going to get ranges anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000. Actually, I think I saw
0:20
in one place that it was $20,000, which is not super reasonable. So I want to give you way more
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details about how to know how much it's going to cost for you because it's definitely going to
0:33
change based on the person and based on the severity. So if you want to know like the exact
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codes, if you already know your surgeon or you know the medical center that you're going to be
0:45
using, if you go over to my website at strabismusolutions.com slash surgery cost, then you can
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get all of like the codes that are used in billing. Like, you know, if you are operating on one eye
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it's this code. And if it's suture adjustments, it's this code. So you can get all of the breakdown
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of like which codes they use and how much each code costs. I'm going to go through a little bit
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of that here as well. But if you already know that part, you can just head straight to the website
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and get that information. And I will put that in the description as well. But for those of you that
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are here, if you have a non-severe strabismus like I have right now, I actually still have
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astrobismus. And you probably don't think I do. My eyes look straight, but this eye right here
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is actually turning in about eight diopters, which it's not exactly like degrees, but it just
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means it's turned in slightly. So my surgeon has told me that if I'd like to have another
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a fifth surgery and fix this eye turn, then he would only adjust one muscle. Okay. So he would
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just, I think he would loosen up these inside muscles. I can't remember what he told me
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if he's going to tighten or loosen. And it's a really small angle and he can fix that really
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easily with just one muscle. Now, before in 2020, I had 30 to 35 degrees of esotropia
2:09
Sorry exotropia which meant my eye was going out He had to operate on four muscles So the inside and the outside muscles all in one surgery right He also had to do adjustable sutures So the price difference between those two surgeries is going to
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be massive. Um, if you're my surgery that had all four muscles, that was like much more in depth
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that costs about $10,000. Whereas the surgery for just one muscle is going to be a lot less
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more like less than 5,000 most likely. Less severe cases are going to cost less money
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And really we're looking at severity as how big is your eye turn and have you had previous
2:56
surgeries? My surgeon explained it like this. When I was little, they took a muscle that was
3:01
this long and they squished it up this long to try to pull my eyes out, right? So they took a
3:13
and you can just like let it out, right? But sometimes they've like folded the muscle over
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and there's not enough room to move it that large of an angle. They've already like messed with this
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muscle so much that they only have a little bit on each muscle to work with. And so in the beginning
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there's a lot of like latitude going on with those horizontal muscles. In order to get that
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same amount of correction, you're going to have to get a little bit from each eye. And this goes
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into the question so many people have. Why do they do surgery on both eyes when only one eye is
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turning? I have the same question. And the reason is because I'm going to use myself as an example
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Before I had surgery, my eyes were like this. But if I switched eyes, it was like this. And so if
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you think about it, the difference between the two eyes, even if I centered them so they didn't look
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as bad. It was still the same angle. So, you know, this angle here is what the problem is. We want
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that to be like this. And so you can make a little adjustment on this eye. You can make a little
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adjustment on this eye and then they're straight. I want to show you the chart that I have on that
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article I was talking about. And you can get access to this again, strabismusolutions.com
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slash surgery cost. But what you can see here is we've got these two columns. We've got one muscle
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and two muscles So these are the different codes and this is this prices are pretty similar whether it like for exotropia and esotropia which the eyes are going out and in or the eyes are going
4:44
up and down for hypertropia. So the codes for one muscle are over on the left, the codes for two
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muscles are over on the right, and that's just talking about one eye. So if your surgeon wants to do both eyes, you have to double all those costs. So you're going to have three different
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prices that you're going to be charged. You're going to be charged a fee from the hospital or
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surgery center, whichever you choose. Totally recommend surgery center. You can make that
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happen. You've got the cost of the surgeon and that's just their fee. And that's, you know
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for them doing the procedure that they're doing. And then you've got a cost from the anesthesiologist
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who's putting you under. And so the surgery center and the surgeon are going to bill using these
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codes that I have listed at the top. The anesthesiologist just bills by time. So you're
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looking at the overall cost when you include all of that is you've got between three and four
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thousand if they're just adjusting one muscle in one eye um if you're adjusting one muscle in two
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different eyes it's going to be more like five or six thousand maybe even seven or eight probably
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not that much and then if you're getting two muscles in one eye you're looking at between
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you know, and that one before was like for a hospital. It's less if you're going to a surgery
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center. It's like more like two to three thousand for a surgery center. I'm just looking at the
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numbers right here. So then for a hospital, for two muscles in one eye, you're looking around like
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five to six thousand. At a surgery center, three to four thousand. Say I have a few tips for saving
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money. One, do it at a surgery center. You can, your surgeon might resist a little bit and you
6:27
can push and it's okay. I believe in you. You can, if you are able, save up money and pay cash
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A lot of times you can get a cash pay discount. Those numbers that I gave you, the lower end of
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those numbers is all based on the Medicare, like minimum or minimum average, I guess that they pay
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out for that. And a lot of offices will use that as their cash pay amount. So to get that lower
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amount you got to be able to pay cash usually up front Sometimes you can kind of sweet talk them into letting you pay the cash pay over time But usually they like no we give you that rate if you pay for it before the
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surgery. Another thing is make sure your insurance is going to cover it. They will. It is definitely
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like a covered expense, but you do have to make sure you jump through that right hoop. So you've
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got to talk to your surgeon and make sure that they get it pre-approved through your insurance
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but before that even, you need to call your insurance and make sure your surgeon is in
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network. And if they're not in network, you have to go to an in-network doctor and get a referral
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And as much of a hassle as that sounds like, it's worth it because I know with my insurance
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if it's out of network, they only pay 50%. If it's in network, it's like 80 to 90% depending
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on the service. So that's going to make a huge difference. So you've got to do those things
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beforehand to make sure that once it actually comes, it's, you know, you're all squared away
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There's nothing worse than finding out afterwards that you, if you had gotten in network, you would
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have saved three or $4,000. Like when you, they say $20,000, that's for people that are paying
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out of pocket because their insurance, you know, it was an out of network thing. They're the people
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who aren't calling, asking for the cash pay discount. They're the people who just have it
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done at a hospital and just say, okay, sure, you want me to do it at a hospital, I'll do it at a
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hospital. Instead of saying, hey, I don't want to do this at a hospital. I want to do it at a
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surgery center and save a lot of money. And if you are wondering if it's worth it, I think it
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totally is. I had some strabismus surgery. It's made a huge difference. It's helped me with my
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vision therapy as well, being able to use both eyes together. It's awesome. If you're wanting
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to talk to me, I offer consults. You can sign up for that on my website at strabismusolutions.com
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slash consult. And during these consults, we basically talk all about your history, all about
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your goals, what you're trying to accomplish. And then I help you figure out if surgery or vision
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therapy or different techniques and exercises would be beneficial for you. I've been at this
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for years and I've learned so much. I'd love to help you with your process. So hopefully that helps
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that you kind of have a better understanding of how much serbismus surgery costs. And I will see
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you later
#Eye Exams & Optometry
#Laser Vision Correction
#Surgery