I Paid $600,000 per Hour for LASIK Eye Surgery
And that's why ophthalmologists don't bill by the hour.
I recently paid a flat price of $4,000 for LASIK eye surgery on both eyes.
It took the laser 20 seconds to correct the vision in my left eye. My right eye required only 12 seconds.
For you armchair mathematicians playing along at home, that 12-second, $2,000 procedure worked out to $600K / hour:
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Convert the procedure time into hours: Since there are 3600 seconds in an hour, the procedure time in hours is:
Time in hours = 12 \text{ seconds} / 3600 \text{ seconds/hour} = 1/300 \text{ hours}
Time in hours = \( \frac{12 \text{ seconds}}{3600 \text{ seconds/hour}} = \frac{1}{300} \text{ hours} \) -
Calculate the hourly cost: The hourly cost is the total cost divided by the time in hours:
Hourly cost = Total cost / Time in hours = $2000 / (1/300 hours)
Simplifying this:
Hourly cost = \( 2000 \times 300 = 600,000 \text{ dollars/hour} \)
So, the formula for the hourly cost C of the procedure is:
C = 2000 / (12 / 3600) = 600,000 dollars/hour\( C = \frac{2000}{\frac{12}{3600}} = 600,000 \text{ dollars/hour} \)
The Real Cost Per Hour
Of course, I didn't actually pay for my surgery by the hour.
And the surgery itself was a tiny portion of the time they spent with me. That said, the bulk of the time was spent going through the two-and-a-half-hour free (!) consultation.
The day of the surgery I spent about 2 hours at the facility (though much of that was spent recovering in the waiting room). I will also have multiple follow-ups that will all be covered under the single fixed price. All told, I will likely receive about five hours' worth of services.
One could argue, then, that the true hourly cost is more like $800 per hour ($4,000 / 5).
The Win-Win of a Productized Service
At their best, productized services offer customers a clear value proposition and offer providers a repeatable process that can be optimized through a series of incremental improvements.
LASIK eye surgery is the perfect candidate for a productized service.
- Fixed scope
- Easily repeatable
- High value
Fixed Scope
No scope creep here. What's the business outcome? 20/20 vision.
If the procedure doesn't work, they operate again until it does. No extra cost.
Easily Repeatable
This place was a well-oiled machine. During a single two-hour consult:
- I met with 3 different technicians, an optometrist, and the surgeon.
- I did half a dozen or more different eye tests at various machines
- I had a full eye exam with the optometrist
- Met with someone to review insurance and financing
I never spent more than ten minutes waiting for any step in the process.
High Value
The procedure has both high tangible and intangible benefits:
- Tangible: a lifetime of cost savings on glasses and contacts
- Intangible: waking up and being able to see!!!
Lessons for Access Developers
In the Access world, it's rare to find a service as tailor-made for productization as LASIK eye surgery.
That said, if you look for processes that fit the above criteria–fixed scope, easily repeatable, and high value–you might be able to make the concept work for you.
To further whet your appetite, here are some ideas for Access-related items that could be productized:
- Migrating data from back-end Access files to SQL Server
- Migrating data from on-prem SQL Server to Azure SQL
- Migrating data from one on-prem SQL Server machine to another
- Converting 32-bit only Access apps to 64-bit compatibility
- Making an Access app available in the cloud via some sort of virtual desktop
- Implementing a touch-friendly UI on an existing Access app
- Creating a professional installer for an existing Access app
Acknowledgements
- Cover image generated by FLUX-schnell.
- Mathematical formulas and symbols generated with the help of ChatGPT.
