An ophthalmology marketing agency will usually pitch lead volume: more calls, more forms, lower cost per lead. A surgical practice needs something narrower and harder: to know which marketing produced consultations and surgeries, by procedure, while staying inside Medicare's inducement rules and the FTC's record on LASIK ads. Much of your volume also comes from referring optometrists, which most agency dashboards can't see at all. This page turns those needs into questions to ask, a reporting standard, a look at pricing models and an honest comparison with in-house staff and a platform.
What ophthalmology practices need from an agency
Few administrators search for an agency directly. "Ophthalmology marketing agency" draws about 20 searches a month in the US, and "ophthalmology marketing" about 110 (Google Ads Keyword Planner data via DataForSEO, US, 12-month average to Sep 2026). Search results won't filter the field for you, so your evaluation has to.
What a capable agency covers for an ophthalmology group:
- Referral support: materials and a website experience for referring optometrists and primary care, and data on referral volume by practice. Most groups pair this with an internal liaison.
- Procedure pages and education: cataract and lens options, refractive surgery, glaucoma and retina, written for seniors, families and cash-pay patients. See our cataract surgery marketing guide for what that content looks like.
- Paid search for cash-pay procedures: LASIK and refractive surgery mostly, with careful price and outcome claims.
- Compliance awareness: Medicare beneficiary inducements, LASIK advertising history and HIPAA.
- Procedure-level reporting: from inquiry to consultation to surgery.
General-purpose healthcare agencies can do much of this. The question is whether they understand the parts that are specific to eye surgery. Our overview of healthcare marketing agencies covers the general landscape.
What good looks like in the first 90 days
- Month 1: an audit of your website, Google Business Profiles and ad accounts; a referring-doctor page and referral form reviewed; ownership of every account confirmed in the practice's name; a BAA signed.
- Month 2: procedure pages fixed or written for your highest-value services, LASIK price ads rewritten with per-eye pricing and conditions, and negative keywords in place.
- Month 3: the first report showing consultations and surgeries by procedure and source, plus a short list of what to change next.
An agency that can't describe its first 90 days in this kind of detail is selling activity, not results.
Questions about referrals, Medicare and LASIK ads
Ask these in the first meeting. Vague answers tell you as much as good ones.
Referrals
- How would you help us grow referrals from optometrists without offering anything of value to the referring practice?
- Can you report referral volume and conversion by referring practice, using aggregate data?
- What would you put on our referring-doctor page, and how would the referral form protect patient information?
A good answer to the first question shows they know the Anti-Kickback Statute. The HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) states that paying for referrals is a crime (opens in a new tab) in federal health care programs, and that remuneration can take many forms besides cash.
Medicare patients
- How would you market cataract seminars without creating a prohibited inducement? (Look for knowledge of the OIG's nominal value policy (opens in a new tab): gifts to Medicare beneficiaries up to $15 per item and $75 a year, never cash or cash equivalents.)
- How would you present premium lens upgrades? (Look for awareness that patients pay only the upgrade portion and must be told before surgery that Medicare won't pay for it, per the Medicare Claims Processing Manual, Chapter 32, §120 (opens in a new tab).)
- Would you ever advertise free transportation? (The right answer is no.)
LASIK and refractive ads
- What did the FTC require of LasikPlus in 2023, and how would that change our price ads? (Look for: clear disclosure (opens in a new tab) of whether a price is per eye, the price most consumers pay per eye, and any qualifications.)
- Where do your outcome figures come from, and who approves claims before they run?
- How do you keep ad copy from implying a viewer's health condition on Meta?
Patient data
- Will you sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) for forms, the CRM and anything else that touches patient information? HIPAA requires written assurances from any vendor that handles protected health information on your behalf (45 CFR 164.502(e) (opens in a new tab)).
- Do you place ad-platform pixels on consultation forms or patient portals?
- Will you upload patient lists to ad platforms? (Google's personalized advertising policy (opens in a new tab) bars advertiser-curated audiences such as Customer Match when promoting health services, so the answer should be no.)
For more on LASIK specifically, see our page on LASIK advertising rules.
Reporting: from click to consult to surgery
Lead counts are the easiest number to inflate and the least useful for a surgical practice. Ask for a monthly report with this shape, using aggregate numbers:
| Stage | LASIK and refractive | Cataract and premium lens | Glaucoma, retina, cornea |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inquiries by source (search, social, referral, direct) | Count | Count | Count |
| Consultations scheduled | Count | Count | Count |
| Consultations attended | Count | Count | Count |
| Surgeries scheduled | Count | Count, plus premium lens selections | Count |
| Paid media cost per consultation | Value | Value | Usually not applicable |
Add referral volume by referring practice, and note any practice whose referrals dropped.
Two cautions:
- Linking marketing to surgeries involves patient data. Whoever matches a form to a scheduled surgery is handling protected health information and needs a BAA. Many practices keep that matching in-house and send the agency only totals.
- Attribution is imperfect. A patient may see an ad, ask their optometrist and then call. Treat source data as directional and look at trends over quarters.
Red flags
- Reports with clicks, impressions and "leads" but no consultations or surgeries.
- Ads promising 20/20 vision, or a "from" price few patients qualify for.
- Seminar promotions offering meals or gifts without any mention of Medicare limits.
- No BAA, or a reluctance to discuss where form data is stored.
- Ad accounts and the website held in the agency's name.
Pricing models and contract terms
We don't quote agency prices because few are published and they vary by scope. Compare models instead.
| Model | Works when | Risk for a surgical practice |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed monthly retainer | Scope is written down in detail | Paying for activity rather than consultations |
| Percentage of ad spend | Large, stable LASIK budgets | Incentive to grow spend, not lower cost per surgery |
| Project fees (website, campaign) | One-off builds | Ongoing edits billed separately |
| Pay per lead | Rarely a good fit | Leads that never become consultations |
Contract terms to check before signing:
- Minimum term and notice period.
- Ownership of the domain, website, content, Google Business Profiles, ad accounts and analytics, all in the practice's name.
- Whether ad spend is billed through the agency or paid directly to Google and Meta, and any markup.
- What you receive at exit: site files, ad account access, reports.
- The BAA, and how patient data is returned or destroyed at the end.
Our guide to agency contract terms goes clause by clause.
Agency, in-house coordinator or platform
Each option fits a different kind of group.
| Item | Agency | In-house marketing coordinator | Platform (for example, Medfy) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strength | Creative work, campaigns, events support | Knows your surgeons, referrers and protocols | Website, SEO, analytics and reporting at a published price |
| Weakness | Varies in eye-surgery knowledge; fees scale with scope | One person's capacity; needs tools | Doesn't do liaison visits, events or organic social |
| Referral marketing | Materials and reporting | Can own liaison work | Referral forms and pages; aggregate reporting |
| Best for | Large refractive budgets, rebrands | Multi-surgeon groups with steady needs | Independent groups wanting core marketing handled affordably |
Where Medfy fits: Medfy is AI marketing software for independent practices in the US and Canada. The $349/month base plan covers your website rebuilt and hosted on your own domain with a page per procedure and HIPAA-compliant referral forms, weekly researched articles you approve, AI visibility tracking, first-party analytics, Google reporting, a patient CRM, and an AI CMO dashboard with leads by source and a weekly brief by email. Add-ons are Google Ads management ($199/month), Meta ads + AI creatives ($199/month) and a HIPAA AI chat widget ($49/month). Ad spend is paid directly to the platforms, never marked up, and it's billed monthly with no long contract: you can cancel anytime. Medfy signs a BAA before patient data flows and uses aggregate numbers for marketing. Many groups pair it with an in-house coordinator or liaison. See Medfy pricing, and get a free audit before you hire anyone. For the wider strategy, see the ophthalmology marketing guide.
Frequently asked questions
What should an ophthalmology marketing agency report each month?
Consultations and surgeries by procedure and source, not just leads. A useful report shows inquiries, consultations scheduled and attended, and surgeries scheduled for refractive, cataract and premium lens, and other services, plus referral volume by referring practice and paid-media cost per consultation. Keep patient-level matching inside the practice or under a BAA, and share aggregate totals with the agency.
Do ophthalmologists need a specialized marketing agency?
Not necessarily, but the agency must understand what is specific to eye surgery: optometrist referral relationships and the Anti-Kickback Statute, Medicare inducement limits for seminars and gifts, patient-paid premium lens rules, and the FTC's record on LASIK price and outcome claims. A general healthcare agency that answers those questions well can serve you; one that can't will create risk.
Who should own our Google Ads account?
Your practice. Create the account under your business, put billing on your own payment method and give the agency manager access. That way the account history, conversion data and campaigns stay with you if you change agencies. The same applies to Meta ad accounts, analytics, your Google Business Profiles, the domain and the website content.