Two Eyes, Two Countries

The Dim Car Dashboard

Coming back from a Christmas party in 2021, I noticed night driving was getting harder. I blamed the car lights. Fast forward a couple of months and the screen on my 2012 Mazda3 dashboard had gotten really dim. I thought the car had gotten old and might need repairs. Little did I know that it was my vision that needed repairs.

You see, I was blessed with 20/20 vision until my early 40s, needing only the lowest-level readers after I turned 41. So it was hard to imagine that my vision could degrade that fast just a couple of years later. But here I was at 43, being told by my primary care doctor that I needed to see an ophthalmologist.

A Forever Wait to See a Doctor

Of course, I couldn't spell "ophthalmologist" then or now without autocorrect. I went to my insurance website and found a few around. Many weren't accepting new patients, and the rest had a wait of about three months.

Finally, I was able to secure one appointment. Eight weeks later, I was there on a bright, early Wednesday morning. Incidentally, the main doctor in the facility who had good reviews wasn't available for my checkup. Instead, another doctor gave the diagnosis.

What he told me blew my mind. He diagnosed that I had early-onset cataracts. Now, it's not that I had never heard of cataracts, but I associated them with old age. Here I was at 43, without even glasses a couple of years ago. This was genuinely a shocking diagnosis, which I had difficulty trusting.

So, like any normal patient, I decided to get a second opinion. Fortunately, this time I was able to get another appointment a couple of weeks later due to a cancellation. The second doctor who is known as one of the top eye doctors in the DC area confirmed the diagnosis. She also explained why someone my age can get a sudden cataract. She assured me it wasn't the end of the world for my vision and that it could be repaired with surgery.

Covered, But Not Really

This is where I had my first real brush with what we call the American insurance mirage. I was blessed with a job and had decent insurance, which approved the cataract surgery plan submitted by my doctor. But here is a caveat. The approval was for a generic monofocal lens, which gives good distance vision but very poor near and intermediate vision. My doctor obviously recommended against that lens option considering the 20+ years of productive life I had left, which mainly involved working on computers. She suggested that I should get an Alcon Vivity lens, which would provide me with good far and intermediate vision, while needing reading glasses for some tasks.

Of course, my insurance wouldn't approve it, which means I'd have to pay for the lens myself. When you add co-pay, coinsurance and the cost of the lens, my actual out-of-pocket cost was about $7,500 for one eye. Fortunately, I had the financial ability to afford this cost for this first eye. The surgery was completed in May, about two months after my initial diagnosis. One eye down. One to go.

My Second Eye in Another Country

I also needed the same surgery on the second eye, scheduled 6 months later. After the first eye surgery, I had a change in my employment status, and with it, my health insurance changed. Changed insurance meant a new cycle of co-pays, deductibles, coinsurance, and annual maximum. Essentially, I was looking at another ~$8,000 to pay for the second eye. I wasn't paying that twice.

This is where I decided that there has to be a better alternative than paying this cost. Fortunately, as an immigrant, I have a family back in Mumbai. I had spoken to my sister about my eye surgeries. She mentioned her son had eye issues and suggested I talk to his doctor. I got in touch with Dr Mihir in Mumbai and shared my diagnosis reports with him. He also agreed with the choice of multifocal IOLs for my eyes.

Dr Mihir himself was happy to help. But he hadn't done many multifocal lens surgeries, so he recommended Dr Vinod, one of the top doctors in Mumbai for this procedure. I got in touch with Dr Vinod, shared my health reports with his team, and he confirmed that he would be happy to help me. They also provided an initial quote of about $1,600, including the exact same multifocal IOL which I had in my first eye.

Interestingly, this quote was lower than my insurance out-of-pocket, and that didn't even include the premium lens. Since I was already planning to visit my family in Mumbai around December, I decided to give this option a try. What was the harm? Worst case, I meet Dr Vinod in person, don't feel comfortable, and fall back on plan B, come back and get the procedure done in the USA.

It Worked Out, Thankfully

Fortunately, there was no need to use plan B. Dr Vinod and his team made my initial visit as comfortable as it could be. I proceeded to get my cataract surgery on the second eye without any issues. Since I had my Indian family to assist, post-operative care was a non-issue. I recovered in no time and again had excellent vision, which to this day is 20/25.

I still visit the same Reston, VA-based ophthalmologist for my yearly eye exams. She was initially skeptical of my plan to get the second eye surgery done in India, but later on admitted that the work done on my eyes was as good as she would have done. That was the moment I knew.

For the People Without a Sister in Mumbai

Clearly, this result was only possible because I had personal connections to doctors in India through family. That's not possible for the vast majority of Americans. This is where I initially thought of something like UbiCliniq, a way for more Americans to get care they can't afford or can't find in the USA. Here we are, four years after my personal experience, and UbiCliniq has taken the initial steps to make this possible!