How Much Does Dry Eye Treatment Cost?

Key overview

  • Home care is the cheapest by a wide margin: a mask, a cleanser and supplements, then very little ongoing.
  • In-clinic procedures such as IPL and thermal pulsation run into the hundreds per session and usually need a course.
  • Prescription treatments are ongoing costs rather than one-off ones.
  • All figures below are indicative and vary considerably by clinic and region. Ask for a written quote before committing to a course.

Cost is rarely discussed alongside dry eye treatment and it shapes what people actually do. These are indicative New Zealand figures, and they will vary — by clinic, by region, and by how severe your case is. Treat them as orders of magnitude, not quotes.

Home care

The cheapest tier by a considerable margin, and the one that resolves the majority of evaporative cases.

  • A heated eye mask — a one-off in the tens to low hundreds, lasting years.
  • A lid margin cleanser — tens of dollars, lasting months.
  • Lubricating drops — tens of dollars, ongoing, and the cost rises sharply if you are using preservative-free unit doses several times a day.
  • Supplements — tens of dollars monthly, ongoing, judged over a three-month course.

The important number here is that ongoing home care after the initial purchases is small. The mask is the only substantial item and it does not need replacing.

Examination and diagnosis

A dry eye assessment with an optometrist is typically in the low hundreds, and will usually include tear break-up time, staining and lid examination, sometimes with meibography imaging of the glands. It is worth its cost when home care has stalled, because it tells you which mechanism you are actually treating.

In-clinic procedures

This is where the numbers change scale.

  • Intense pulsed light (IPL) — commonly several hundred dollars per session, and typically a course of three or four sessions, with maintenance sessions afterwards. Total cost usually runs into four figures.
  • Thermal pulsation — a single-treatment device procedure, generally high hundreds to low four figures, sometimes lasting a year or more.
  • Punctal plugs — relatively inexpensive per plug, relevant to aqueous deficient dry eye rather than evaporative.

These are legitimate treatments with real evidence behind them. They are also the tier where it is worth being certain the cheaper options have had a fair trial first, because in-clinic heat is not categorically different from home heat — it is more powerful and more consistent.

Prescription treatment

Ciclosporin, lifitegrast and short steroid courses are prescribed for inflammatory dry eye. Costs vary with funding status and are ongoing rather than one-off. Our guide to prescription drops covers what each does.

How to spend sensibly

Two principles. First, exhaust home care properly before escalating — properly meaning eight to twelve weeks of a correct routine, not a fortnight of an approximate one, because most apparent failures are execution failures. Second, before any course of procedures, ask what the expected number of sessions is, what maintenance will cost annually, and what happens if there is no response. A clinic that answers those clearly is one worth buying from.

Part of our guide to Dry Eye Treatment.