Cost of Cataract Surgery

The cost of cataract surgery is a concern for people private cataract operations. While the NHS provides excellent treatment, the long waiting lists mean many people in the UK are now considering the costs of private cataract removal to be less important than immediate removal of the cataract. 

What are the costs involved? 

The price of private cataract extraction includes the fee of the eye surgeon and charges of the eye clinic, the costs of medication and the surgery procedure - as well as the cost of the replacement intraocular lens.

Prices are relatively standard between eye clinics for the procedural and surgeon fees - the price differences are largely due to the type of lens used. When considering the cost of the replacement IOL it is important to weight the benefits between a monofocal and multifocal lense. 

Monofocal lenses are the cheapest IOL option and the most commonly used lense. This type of lens is more likely to be covered by insurance policies, reducing the costs of the cataract operation. Patients whose surgeons insert monofocal lenses after cataract extraction often require prescription glasses for reading or seeing objects at a distance (depending on the area of vision the lens targeted) so it is important to factor the cost of glasses into the total cost of cataract surgery when choosing between monofocal and multifocal lenses.

Multifocal lenses are more expensive than monofocals and are not provided by most NHS eye clinics. For patients who want to correct additional vision problems, such as near or far-sightedness, without loosing any other vision, multifocal IOLs are a more financially suitable option as the higher cost of the lense is balanced by  not needing to pay for glasses after surgery.Many cataract patients who opt for private treatment above NHS, do so to replace the natural lens with the more advanced multifocal lens.

Private treatment for cataract removal surgery costs between £1500-3000 for surgery on one eye. If cataract surgery is needed in both eyes, most eye clinics offer patients a discounted rate for the second surgery. 

If your insurance policy does not cover the cost of cataract eye surgery, there may be other financing methods available and the chosen eye clinic will be able provide more information.

***Light adjustable lenses, LALs, (currently available at a limited number of clinics in the UK) are a more expensive option. The cost of cataract operations using light adjustable lenses is averagely £6000 per eye.