Medicare pays less for cataract surgery. Eye docs are turning to lucrative lasers

A member of the surgical team cleans a surgical instrument as Ricardo Funke, chief of surgery at Clinica Las Condes, uses an autonomous, artificial intelligence-guided camera and MARS (Magnetic-Assisted Robotic surgery) robots while performing a gallbladder removal alone, in Santiago, Chile September 8, 2025.

REUTERS/Pablo Sanhueza