EvilCorporations.com • FTC Docket No. 192-3157 • 23 min read

The Real Cost of “Affordable” LASIK Under Corporate Greed

How LCA-Vision, operating as LasikPlus and Joffe MediCenter, ran a documented bait-and-switch scheme on people’s eyes — and kept doing it after their own employees called it out

The Non-Financial Ledger

What They Stole From You That Never Shows Up in a Settlement

Imagine you’ve been wearing glasses or contacts since middle school. You’ve done the math a hundred times: lenses, solution, annual exams, the occasional scratched frame. You’ve thought about LASIK but assumed it was something for people with more money. Then one morning on your commute you hear a radio ad. Two hundred and fifty dollars per eye. You replay it in your head. Your mind starts doing hopeful math.

You take time off work. You drive, maybe two hours, maybe more. You arrange childcare or reschedule your day. You bring your insurance card because the ad said it might help. You sit in a waiting room for twenty minutes, then move into a consultation that stretches past an hour. Technicians check your eyes, dilate your pupils, map your cornea. You answer questions. You wait more. The whole time, no one tells you what your prescription number means in relation to the price you came in for. That information is, by documented company policy, being withheld from you.

Finally, after the full examination is complete, after your eyes are still adjusting from dilation, after the staff have had time — according to one internal training document cited by the FTC — to “make the patient really want it,” someone tells you the price. It is not $250. It is not close. It is $3,500 or $4,200. You are told the $250 laser is old, dangerous, possibly unsuitable for your prescription. The same laser the company’s own surgeons use on patients with far more severe prescriptions, patients who didn’t come in on the $250 promotion and will never hear that speech.

The two hours are gone. The gas is gone. The co-pay for the exam may or may not be refunded. The hope is gone. And if you complain on Yelp or Google, LasikPlus’s leadership will instruct staff to bury your review under a pile of new positive ones.

This happened to people from Minneapolis who drove 45 minutes to an hour. To people in Kansas City. To people in Louisville, Atlanta, Houston. To people with -1.75 prescriptions who were quoted $3,500. To people with prescriptions several times above what the promotion covered who were told, falsely in some cases, that the $250 laser could not treat them at all. There is no compensation in any settlement for the afternoon you lost. There is no line item for the specific humiliation of being excited about something and then being told, in a medical office, that your eyes are not the right kind of broken.

The FTC’s complaint documents hundreds of consumer complaints. The language in them is uniform in its exhaustion: “they lied,” “bait and switch,” “wasted my time,” “I never got those two hours back.” One consumer compared it to a restaurant advertising a hamburger for $2.50, then explaining at the table that the $2.50 burger is the size of an M&M, and the real burger is $40. That person was not wrong. They were just describing a system that worked exactly as designed.

Legal Receipts

What They Said When They Thought You Weren’t Listening

The FTC complaint is built, in significant part, on LCA-Vision’s own words: internal communications from employees, doctors, and marketing staff who knew exactly what the company was doing and said so in writing.

“It’s simple bait and switch and it works. Let’s not start acting like we’re doing it for the sa[k]e of the world. If you want honesty in advertising we should advertise affordability via financing — but when does any corporation advertise honestly?” — LCA-Vision internal company communication, cited in FTC Complaint ¶38(a)

“I agree that the $250 promotion is deceptive and not consistent with what we are or what we want to be.” — LCA-Vision internal company communication, cited in FTC Complaint ¶38(b)

“Our advertising here in KC mentions ‘starting’ at $250 once in the commercial. It mentions 3 times about call now/schedule now to get this $250 treatment. It definitely makes you believe that we offer treatment for only $250 ALL THE TIME and IT IS EASY TO GET THE $250 TREATMENT.” — LCA-Vision internal company communication, cited in FTC Complaint ¶38(c)

“So we have had 3 patients today mention that they had talked to the call center about the $250 promotion and they felt misled about the promotion. This is a common occurrence in the Minneapolis market, as we promote $250 very strongly. They asked what percentage of patients actually qualify and they were told lots of people qualify. These patients came from 45 min to 1 hour away and took off work to come in.” — LCA-Vision internal company communication, cited in FTC Complaint ¶38(d)

“Advertising low price is the ‘dirty little secret’ in our business … that works!” — LCA-Vision company personnel, defending the promotional-price advertising to doctors who raised concerns, cited in FTC Complaint ¶45

“Respondent changed call center policies because it found that consumers who learned the promotional-price limitations were less likely to come in for a consultation. Respondent now instructs call center employees not to reveal eligibility requirements for promotional-price surgery — even if a consumer repeatedly asks — and to respond that only the doctor, after a consultation, can determine whether a consumer is eligible.” — FTC Complaint ¶23, paraphrasing documented company policy

Societal Impact Mapping

Who Gets Hurt When a Medical Company Runs a Bait-and-Switch

Public Health

LASIK is a surgical procedure performed on a patient’s eye. The decision of whether to undergo it, and with which technology, has direct medical consequences. LCA-Vision’s documented deception corrupted the informed-consent process in several specific ways.

• Patients were told, falsely in documented cases, that the Traditional VISX Laser was unsafe for their prescriptions. LCA-Vision’s own surgeons routinely used that same laser on patients with prescriptions of -4.00 to -6.00 when those patients were paying full price. The safety narrative was deployed selectively to push people toward a more expensive option, not to protect their health.
• Staff told patients considering the $250 option that they might experience poor night vision, halos around lights, or require $1,000-per-eye “touch-up” surgeries. These warnings may have been accurate for some patients. The FTC complaint establishes they were used systematically to discourage use of the promotional option, rather than as individualized medical guidance.
• Patients were subjected to full corneal topographic exams, pupil dilation, and multi-stage assessments during 90-to-120-minute consultations, then had pricing information withheld until after the physical exams were complete — a point at which their eyes were still adjusting and company policy called for staff to have already made them “really want it.” This is a structural interference with autonomous medical decision-making.
• The eligibility threshold for the $250 price (a -1.00 diopter prescription, corresponding to approximately 20/30 or 20/40 vision) represents near-normal sight by WHO classification. People who are already close to normal vision are the least likely to urgently need the procedure. The campaign systematically targeted and deceived the people who needed vision correction the most.

Economic Inequality

The $250 price point was not chosen randomly. It was chosen specifically to attract people who could not afford the standard price of $1,800 to $2,295 per eye. The entire mechanism of harm was built on economic vulnerability.

• LCA-Vision acknowledged in internal documents that it lost money on every $250 surgery. The promotional price existed for one purpose: to attract people who were price-sensitive enough to respond to a $250 ad. Those people, by definition, were the ones least able to afford the actual price when it was revealed to them inside the consultation room.
• The average consumer who came in hoping for $250 per eye ($500 total for both eyes) was quoted between $3,500 and $4,200 for the procedure. That is a price gap of $3,000 to $3,700 revealed after 90 to 120 minutes of examination, after time off work, after travel, after childcare was arranged. Consumer complaints document people driving 45 minutes to 2+ hours one-way to access a price that was effectively inaccessible to them.
• The company trained staff in how to offer financing that would make surgery “affordable” at $1,800 to $2,295 per eye, as a fallback pitch. The recommendation was not: if you cannot afford surgery, here are your options. The recommendation was: here is how you can go into debt for this surgery you could not afford and came in believing would cost $250.
• LCA-Vision documented that when it expanded the low-price advertising campaign, treatment revenue increased by 47% while overall conversion rates (the percentage of people who agreed to surgery) declined. This confirms the campaign’s success was built on volume: driving in large numbers of lower-income, price-responsive consumers and extracting full-price commitments from a fraction of them.
• The company specifically chose not to advertise the actual average or typical price for surgery, noting internally that the low-price ads were more effective at bringing people in. Transparent pricing would have removed the filter that delivered price-sensitive consumers to their consultation rooms.

The “Cost of a Life” Metric

The Math Behind the Model

What Now?

Who to Hold Accountable and How to Push Back

The FTC complaint names LCA-Vision as the respondent. The company operates across multiple states under the LasikPlus and Joffe MediCenter brands. The following corporate roles and regulatory bodies are directly relevant to accountability for this conduct.

Corporate Accountability

• LCA-Vision, Inc.: The Ohio corporation directly named in the FTC complaint. Operates all LasikPlus and Joffe MediCenter locations and controls all marketing, advertising, call center scripts, and training materials.
• LCA-Vision’s Marketing Executives: The complaint documents that marketing leadership expanded the deceptive campaign specifically after evaluating its effectiveness, while acknowledging “push-back” from deceived consumers was “off-set by the increase in overall bookings.” These were deliberate strategic decisions.
• LCA-Vision’s Leadership: When a consumer review alleging bait-and-switch tactics was surfaced, leadership’s documented instruction was to “get lots of new, positive online reviews and hopefully ‘bury it.'”

Watchlist: Regulatory Bodies with Jurisdiction

• FTC (Federal Trade Commission): The primary agency that filed this complaint under Sections 5(a) and 12 of the FTC Act. File complaints about deceptive medical advertising at ftc.gov/complaint.
• State Attorneys General: LasikPlus and Joffe MediCenter operated across multiple states. State AG offices have independent authority to pursue consumer protection actions for deceptive advertising under state law, particularly in Ohio (home state), Minnesota, Texas, Georgia, Kentucky, and Nebraska markets named in the complaint.
• State Medical Boards: The complaint raises questions about how the use of the Traditional VISX Laser was described to patients for financial purposes rather than medical ones. State ophthalmology licensing boards have jurisdiction over whether surgeon conduct meets professional standards.
• CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau): LCA-Vision trained staff to offer financing as a fallback pitch to convert price-sensitive consumers. Any financing arrangements offered to consumers in this context may fall under CFPB oversight.

What You Can Do Right Now

• If you visited a LasikPlus or Joffe MediCenter after seeing a $250 or $295 advertisement and were quoted a dramatically higher price, document your experience and file a complaint at ftc.gov/complaint. Every complaint strengthens the federal record against this company.
• Share this article and the FTC source document in any online forum where LASIK pricing or eye surgery is discussed. People are still making decisions about this surgery today. They deserve to know this complaint exists.
• If you have a record of a consultation visit, a quoted price that did not match the advertised price, or an email or text from LasikPlus or Joffe MediCenter referencing the $250 promotion, preserve those records. They may be relevant to ongoing enforcement or class action proceedings.
• Local organizing: Contact your state’s consumer protection office and request they monitor LasikPlus advertising in your market. A coordinated wave of constituent contacts can push state AGs to take independent action alongside the FTC.
• Mutual aid: If you know someone who was pressured into financing expensive LASIK surgery after responding to this kind of advertising, connect them with nonprofit legal aid organizations in their state. The National Consumer Law Center (nclc.org) maintains resources on deceptive advertising and medical debt.