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The Only Resource You’ll Ever Need to Understand Your Options for Cataract Surgery

eye surgeon holding eye model

Restore Your Vision With Confidence

Blurry, cloudy, or yellowing vision. Halos around lights. Difficulty seeing at night. If you’ve experienced the worrisome symptoms of cataracts, you need a resource that helps you care for these challenges to your vision.

Cataract surgery removes your cataracts, so you can experience the best vision possible. However, this surgery isn’t one-size-fits-all. You can customize cataract surgery to meet your specific vision goals.

This guide explains your options for cataract surgery in six sections:

  1. Basic cataract surgery
  2. Refractive cataract surgery options
  3. Insurance coverage and affordability
  4. Recovery from cataract surgery
  5. How to choose a cataract surgeon
  6. The health benefits of cataract surgeries

Basic Cataract Surgery

During basic cataract surgery, your surgeon replaces your clouded lens with a new soft, flexible acrylic lens that does not move once implanted. When handled with the care and precision of an expert surgeon, your eyes naturally accept the new lenses.

These lenses are called monofocal or intraocular lenses (IOLs). Typically, the IOLs used for basic cataract surgery allow you to see far distances without glasses or contacts, while relieving your cataract symptoms. However, these lenses may require wearing glasses for other activities, such as reading up close.

Refractive Cataract Surgery

Refractive cataract surgery is a more customizable option. Instead of monofocal lenses, your cataract surgeon provides a range of premium IOLs to help you meet additional vision goals. These options include:

  • Multifocal IOLs to improve your vision at near, middle, and far distances.
  • Toric lenses to correct astigmatism.
  • Aspheric lenses to correct your vision at a single distance. They can also provide blended vision by choosing a different distance for each eye.
  • Light-adjustable lenses™ (LAL) that allow you to refine your vision by applying UV light to your lenses. Unlike traditional multifocal lenses, LALs offer zones for near, middle, and far distances.

Your provider may also fine-tune your lenses with LASIK after cataract surgery to meet your specific vision needs.

How to Afford the Cost of Cataract Surgery

Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance cover basic cataract surgery. It is considered a medically necessary procedure.

Insurance does not cover premium IOLs, so you will pay out-of-pocket. However, refractive cataract surgery providers often offer promotions, discounts, and financing with 0% interest for an extended period.

Additionally, if you have a flexible spending account (FSA) or health savings account (HSA), you can use your tax-free contributions to cover the cost of cataract surgery. An HSA rolls over year to year, so that you can save tax-free dollars over time.

Are There Differences in Recovery for My Cataract Surgery Options?

Patients who choose basic cataract surgery or premium IOLs will experience a similar recovery trajectory. Your choice of lens doesn’t affect your recovery time.

Outcomes for cataract surgery are exceptionally high, and most patients begin to notice vision improvements after 24 to 48 hours. Your vision will continue to improve over the following days and weeks. Most patients experience the full results of their surgery within one to three months.

If you choose to fine-tune your vision after cataract surgery, you will undergo a LASIK procedure with a much shorter recovery time and almost immediate results.

More Options to Consider: Selecting a Cataract Surgeon

Your options don’t end at choosing lenses. You also get a choice of your surgeon and care team. Selecting highly trained specialists who work to ensure your vision health, comfort, and convenience makes a difference in your surgery outcome and your satisfaction with your procedure.

Find the right cataract surgery provider for you by asking whether they offer basic and refractive cataract surgery and the option to fine-tune your vision with LASIK if needed. If your provider presents a range of options, you’ll know they don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach to cataract surgery.

Along with customizable surgery options, look for:

  • Experience: Your provider should have significant expertise in cataract surgery.
  • Specialization: Ensure your provider offers thorough diagnostic and pre-operative testing to tailor the procedure to your needs.
  • Technology: Ask if your surgeon can treat both eyes on the same day with a state-of-the-art cataract surgery procedure.
  • Convenience: The team you choose should offer in-office cataract surgery, so you don’t have to visit an ambulatory surgery center.
  • Affordability: Determine whether your provider has special financing options to make cataract surgery more affordable.
  • Comfort: You deserve a comfortable, private, VIP-like environment for your surgery.

Weigh Your Options and Look Forward to Safer, Clearer Vision

No matter your choice, it’s time to say goodbye to your cataract symptoms and enhance your quality of life as you age. Major medical studies show that basic and refractive cataract surgeries do more than just help you see clearly.

Cataract surgery plays a vital role in:

With outcomes like these, your most meaningful decision isn’t determining whether monofocal or multifocal lenses are best for you. Your most significant step forward is recognizing that cataract surgery can benefit you.