How a Nifty Nashville Startup is Rocking the Cataract Surgery Patient Experience

The cataract surgery patient experience in many practices is broken. Couple this with a commercial process that asks a person to make a high-value decision at the same time they learn they need surgery and you may agree that something must change. What’s great is a Nashville start-up, Surgiorithm, is just what doctor’s need!

How did we get here?

Ophthalmology practices are busy places. Future demographic trends for patients and doctors indicate this will only get worse. Reimbursement for cataract surgery is declining and no data shows this getting better. In fact, if you’re the wagering type, put your money on reductions.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Busy ophthalmologists and their staffs learned to quickly move people through clinics to serve cataract surgery patients and drive revenue. Surgical procedure advances gained time, new equipment created efficiencies in the office and the machine hummed.

When did the cataract surgery patient experience begin to matter?

One word: LASIK. Why? Because LASIK introduced an aspirational element to how people see. People all of a sudden learned that the vision they’ve struggled with all of their lives can change. All with a 10-minute procedure.

These same people are now cataract surgery patients or connected to one. As a result, the cataract surgery patient experience is evolving. Also, these same surgeons who built spa-like practices to serve LASIK patients are now focused on marketing and delivering on outcomes with upgraded cataract surgery procedures.

Is LASIK killing the cataract-only surgeon?

Data shows these experiential LASIK surgeons are skimming the cream off