EyeWorld is the official news magazine of the American Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgery.
Issue link: https://digital.eyeworld.org/i/129516
8 Supplement to EyeWorld May 2013 Patience is a virtue by Richard L. Lindstrom, MD Richard L. Lindstrom, MD tradi" The LASIK tional patient is in his or her late 20s and 30s, and these are the people who are unemployed or underemployed, who have crushing debt and limited discretionary income. " Source: MarketScope For surgeons willing to wait, the refractive market will rebound— but probably not for a few more years T he laser vision correction market—and in particular, LASIK—saw its heyday in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Except for a rebound that was cut short by the financial crisis of 2008, the LASIK market has been on a decline. LASIK is in the category of consumer discretionary spending; that market has been severely impacted by the current economy and employment data. Consumer confidence rose a bit in the fourth quarter last year, but crashed again in the first quarter this year. For refractive surgeons, that doesn't spell good news. Most laser centers make the majority of their annual revenue in the first quarter. And so far, we're not seeing a good first quarter in 2013. The trend has always been a strong first quarter, Millennials (Echo Boomers) at a glance in 2013 • 76 million Millennials (Baby Boomers account for 25.4%) • 25% of the total population • 26% of U.S. adults are Millennials 18 years or older (Generation X accounts for 22%) • 46.1% of 16- to 24-year-olds were employed in Sept. 2009 (smallest amount on record) Sources: Pew Research Center (www.pewresearch.org/millennials/, 2010); UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School (J. Brack, Maximizing Millennials in the Workplace, 2012) slower second and third quarters, and an uptick in the fourth quarter. To be blunt, I'm not bullish about recovery this year. We may have had an extremely robust stock market over the past few months, but many financial analysts are predicting a correction in the market come fall 2013, when the impact of sequestration on Gross Domestic Product and consumer confidence will be even more fully felt. The traditional LASIK patient is in his or her late 20s and 30s, and these are the people who are unemployed or underemployed, who have crushing debt and limited discretionary income. They simply are not flocking to our centers for refractive surgery at this time. But not all is doom and gloom. I see a great deal of potential in a few years as refractive surgeons and the refractive industry overall transition into treating more presbyopic patients, the Echo Boomers (also known as Generation Y or Millennials) age and become increasingly contact lens intolerant, and collagen crosslinking reduces the number of patients rejected as LASIK candidates.