Choosing a Laser Treatment Doctor

We very often get email or telephonic requests to help a patient find a laser specialist doctor more local to them. Whether that inquiry comes from the next county, country, or continent over, here are some thoughts and facts we wish for you to consider before choosing an ophthalmologist to treat your vitreous floaters.

We strongly believe that the YAG laser treatment procedure is NOT a commodity procedure. Your experience and results will differ greatly from one practitioner to another.

We will use the more commonly-accepted LASIK procedure as an example of a commodity procedure. There are many talented and skilled eye doctors performing LASIK these days. More important, though, is that much of the procedure is automated. The wavefront measurements of the refractive error, the Intralase® laser creating the corneal flap, and the laser ablation treatment itself is software driven and quite automated. You will likely find at least one skilled and well trained LASIK surgeon close to your home. This is of course not the case with laser treatment for eye floaters.

With some quick internet searches, you will find that there are just a few of us in the US, and just a few more worldwide (concentrated in Europe) performing this very specialized and difficult procedure.

In choosing the right doctor for you, we strongly urge you to read discussion forums and see if the doctor really is a specialist in the procedure, or if they instead just perform it occasionally. Since there is no formal training program, or certification board for laser ablation of eye floaters, it is your responsibility to do the research to find the surgeon most likely to achieve the best possible results and outcome.

Vitreous Floater Solutions Consulting & Research Group Inc. is the only practice exclusively providing treatment for eye floaters. Ours is NOT a general ophthalmology practice like others. We are completely focused on treating eye floaters.

One of the key features that sets us apart from all the other practices and doctors treating floaters is that our practice is exclusively dedicated to treating floaters. We are focused on floaters literally and figuratively. We do not have a waiting room full of cataracts, glaucoma, red eye, and dry eye patients wit the doctor trying to move briskly from one room to the next all the while mindful that people are always waiting. We typically may only see 3-6 patients per day. This allows Dr. Johnson to spend 60-120 minutes with each patient as needed – at every visit – to give them his full attention and focus. It is rare to have someone waiting because we block off and set aside so much time for each patient.

The reality is that floater treatment can be very technically challenging for the doctor and emotionally challenging for the patient. Difficult location of floaters, previous corneal or refractive procedures, and/or previous cataract surgery with lens implant can add a level of complexity and difficulty to the procedure. Patients with these conditions can not simply be treated in an allotted 10-15 minutes. These difficult patients often require an uninterrupted, and un-distracted effort for best outcome results.

We believe the time generously spent with the patient is important to our success and reputation. It allows the patients to ask questions and receive in return lengthy, thorough, and honest explanations. We also believe that the first visit is the opportunity for the patient to essentially “interview” Dr. Johnson.

So how does our practice compare to others also offering laser treatment for floaters? Every other practice incorporates their treatment offerings and scheduling within a general ophthalmology medical practice. The overhead of a larger space, a few-to-several employees, and multiple and expensive diagnostic or therapeutic devices place heavy financial pressure on the practice to see as many patients as possible just to make business overhead expenses. Other practices may appear to squeeze in their patients amongst a waiting room full of patients.

You can also look at the web sites for a practice to get an idea of the emphasis and dedication to treating floaters. Some of the European practices barely mention treating floaters – if at all.

With that all said, time and finances may still truly dictate where you will go to get your evaluation and possible treatment. We will help you out in your research with this world map and index to the practices that we are aware that claim to treat eye floaters with the YAG laser. Listing of these doctors is not a recommendation, or an affirmation of their ability or experience. We have no financial or other interest in their medical practices and we list these practices merely as a courtesy to you. As with all things medical, it is important that you do your research, check the doctor’s credentials, read the discussion forums, consult with your eye doctors, and make an informed decision.

That said, we will boldly list our competitors here to help you compare practices as you research your treatment options. We are confident that you will make the best decision for yourself when you have the appropriate information available.

1. Vitreous Floater Solutions | James H. Johnson MD
   
2. John Karickhoff MD- Falls Church, Virginia, US
   [eyefloaters.com]
3. Scott Geller, MD – Ft. Myers, Florida, US
   [ vitreousfloaters.com ]
4. Marie-Jose Tassignon MD, Antwerp, Belgium
   [ http://www.healthcarebelgium.com/index.php?id=193 ]
5. Brendan Moriarty MD – Cheshire, England
   [ brendanmoriarty.com ]
6. Steven Bailey MD – London, England
   [ csbailey.com ]
7. Eric Mehel, MD – Nantes, France
   [ corps-flottants.org ]
8. Franz Fankhauser MD – Bern, Switzerland/Suisse
   [ augenzentrum-fankhauser.ch ]
9. Piotr Sobolewski MD – Bialystok, Poland/Polska (not on the illustrated map)
   [ laserowa-korekcja.pl ]

You can read Irv Aron’s Journal blog about lasers in the ophthalmology industry. He featured laser treatment of eye floaters in two articles:http://irvaronsjournal.blogspot.com/2010/08/using-lasers-to-treat-vitreous-floaters.html (featuring Drs. Johnson, Geller, and Karickhoff in the US) and http://irvaronsjournal.blogspot.com/2010/09/using-lasers-to-treat-vitreous-floaters.html (featuring the European specialists).

Our apologies if this listing is incomplete. Please contact us if there is a specialist not listed here. We will review the information and consider adding it to the list.

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Please do no use the comments section to leave personal contact information or detailed personal medical information. Keep it to comments, questions, or stories that will benefit other readers and floater sufferers. If you do have personal questions or requests, please go to the Email Dr. Johnson Page.