In a previous post, I talked about cheap eye surgery in Asia. This is still by far the most cheapest option for laser eye surgery. However, if you’re not too keen on Asian healthcare standards (which you really shouldn’t if they are JCI accredited) then perhaps you may want to find cheap eye surgery elsewhere, like Europe for instance. You might be thinking that Europe isn’t a place for cheap people, since with all its culture and technology, it may be a little too sophisticated for the average non-European. But fear not! You can still find a bargain for anything if you search long and hard enough. If there’s a will, then there’s way!

You will typically find cheap laser eye surgery in around the Eastern European countries, like Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Estonia and Belarus. Hungary is apparently the cheapest European country to get eye surgery with savings of up to 70% compared to average European and American prices. There’s the Eurohealth and Latvius Vital in Budapest, Hungary which should offer these cheaper prices. (Unfortunately, to find more information about these places, you’ll have to call them up yourselves since online information about these places is hard to find).

However, you still find good prices in the other Eastern European countries. For example, in the Czech Republic, you’re looking at about $700-$800 for PRK per eye. LASIK is about $850-$1100 per eye and LASEK is about $50 more expensive than PRK per eye. Places in the Czech Republic to get cheap eye surgery are the UVN Central Military Hospital Prague – 6, Refrakèní Centrum in Prague and the Oční Centrum MERAL in Brno. The Refrakèní Centrum charges about $800 per eye for PRK and about $900 per eye for LASIK. You also got to add about $50 for pre-operative examinations. The Oční Centrum MERAL is slightly cheaper at about $650 per eye for PRK or $1300 for both eyes, including post-operative care fees. You’ve also got to add about $25 for pre-operative examinations. This center also doesn’t provide LASIK eye surgery, only PRK and LASEK.

One thing to note about European laser eye surgery is that PRK tends to be the most popular, most performed and therefore, the most affordable laser eye surgery option. The Europeans imply that PRK is superior to LASIK since there is a lesser chance for re-treatments, but this is really dependent on your own individual prescription (and surgery preference). The higher your prescription, the greater chance for the need of a re-treatment.

Another popular European country to get cheap eye surgery is Turkey. There are medical tourism companies who can arrange all your accommodation, flights, post-operative fees, surgery fees for 1 single cheap price. A well known company specifically for Turkey eye surgery is Salveo Travel. If you book with them, you can get LASIK or LASEK eye surgery for both eyes and everything else for about $2600. If you’re just looking for laser eye surgery treatment alone and can handle the accommodation and flights on your own, then it’s about $1800 for both eyes. Good places to go to are Dunya Eye Hospital – Nispetiye Cad, Yanarsu Sok No 1, Istanbul and the Yeditipe University Hospital – Devlet Yolu Ankara Cad No, 102 – 104, Kozyatagi, Istanbul.

A lesser known Eastern European country to get cheap laser eye surgery is Romania. You can definitely get low cost treatments in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. Places to go to are the Carpatia Group – 2 Burebista Blvd, D14-3, Apt. 79-80, 4th Floor, Bucharest and the TORO Medical Trips – Parincia 1, Bucharest. The Carpatia Group offers LASIK surgery for about $1150 per eye. On the other hand, TORO Medical Trips is significantly cheaper. This company offers PRK and LASEK for about $700 per eye. It also even does iLASIK for about $1100 per eye. You’ll also have to add about $30 on top of the surgery prices for the consultation fee. But still, this is the best place in Romania to go for laser eye surgery.

While Eastern Europe can offer some amazing eye surgery prices, the western side can offer some pretty good deals as well. When I’m referring to the west, I’m actually referring to the UK only. I don’t want to go into the other countries like France or Spain (for now) because this will be too long, and there really is no need to. The biggest eye surgery clinics in the UK, like Optimax, Optical Express and Ultralase are always offering some kind of special deal or discount on eye surgery. In particular, you can find Optimax and Optical Express discount vouchers and coupons on ebay.co.uk. Just search the term ‘eye surgery’ (without quotes) and you’ll get a list of several coupons of up to 500 pounds off your eye surgery. That’s about a $770 discount! Of course, you’d have to be already in the UK to get the coupon since most aren’t willing to send the coupon internationally and also you’d have to be in the UK to get the eye surgery done in the first place.

In any case, you can see that there are many places in Europe that you can get cheap eye surgery done abroad. The best places are the Czech Republic, Turkey and Romania. The UK could even be the cheapest place, if you qualify for their £395 advertised price (about US$600). To qualify, you must have a prescription less then -2 and less than +2. Also, add in the discount vouchers, and your surgery could even be free! Anyway, these are the places in Europe I recommend to you to get cheap laser eye surgery.