AAO 2027: Nov 12-15, Las Vegas
The American Academy of Ophthalmology holds AAO 2027 on November 12-15, 2027 at the Venetian Expo in Las Vegas, with the AAOE practice-management program running alongside the clinical meeting. An ophthalmology practice's profit turns on three things: cataract volume, buy-and-bill drugs, and whatever share of the surgery you own. Sorso is not an exhibitor, sponsor, or speaker at this event. This is an independent prep guide for ophthalmology practice owners.
The CFO read
Ophthalmology hides its economics in two places owners tend to underwatch: the drugs sitting on the balance sheet and the technicians deciding how many patients the schedule can hold. Retina practices in particular run large injectable drug bills through the P&L on a spread a single payer policy change can erase. Before Las Vegas, price your buy-and-bill spread and the cash tied up in it, then look at revenue per physician against your tech count. The AAOE track is the part of this meeting built for owners. Go to it with those numbers, because the clinical hall will not ask whether your schedule is capped by staffing or your margin is capped by a drug contract.
— Stanislav Sukhinin, CFA · Founder, Sorso
Why this matters for your bottom line
Buy-and-bill drugs, anti-VEGF injections most of all, put large sums of drug cost on the practice before the payer reimburses. A small spread on a high-volume drug swings the whole practice's cash flow.
Ophthalmology runs on its technicians. Revenue per physician depends on how many workups and how much testing the techs handle, and an understaffed clinic caps its own schedule without noticing.
Where the practice owns or shares an ASC, cataract site-of-service is usually the single biggest financial lever, split between the facility fee and the professional fee.
Optical and testing ancillaries carry their own margins and their own compliance rules, and most practices cannot say what the dispensary actually contributes.
What to look for
AAOE practice-management sessions on staffing ratios, technician-to-provider mix, and clinic throughput
Buy-and-bill drug economics: acquisition cost, payer spread, and the cash-flow timing on retina injectables
ASC and site-of-service sessions covering facility-fee versus in-office cataract economics
Optical dispensary and testing ancillary margins, with the compliance rules attached
MIPS and IRIS Registry reporting and its effect on reimbursement
Coding and documentation for testing, injections, and global surgical periods
Financial prep checklist
Review these before you go.
Model the acquisition cost and payer spread on your top buy-and-bill drugs, and the cash tied up between purchase and reimbursement
Run revenue per physician against technician staffing to find where throughput is capped
Separate facility-fee and professional-fee revenue for cataract cases at any ASC you hold a stake in
Break out optical and testing ancillary revenue with margin on each line
Reconcile your MIPS performance and translate the adjustment into dollars
Check which payer contracts reimburse testing and injections below your fully loaded cost
Before AAO 2027 (Ophthalmology), get your own numbers straight
Walk in able to check every benchmark on the slides against your own numbers. Three ways owners start with us:
Fractional CFO
Strategic CFO for $3M–$50M clinics
Forecasts, location-level P&L, and exit prep. Starts at $4,000/mo.
Explore Fractional CFO →Accounting
Healthcare-specialist accounting
Books done right by people who understand clinic finance. Starts at $2,000/mo.
Explore Accounting →Free Assessment
A financial checkup before you go
Four minutes. See where your practice stands so every session is measured against your own numbers.
Take the assessment →Going to AAO 2027 (Ophthalmology)?
Tell us, and we will look at coming to meet you.
Stan does not have a ticket booked for this one yet. If enough clinic owners want to sit down there, that is what decides it. Register interest and we will confirm either way well before the dates — no obligation, and we will not add you to a mailing list.
Register interest in meeting →
Founder of Sorso and a CFA charterholder. Before Sorso, Stan spent 19 years in corporate finance at institutions including UniCredit and Société Générale — managing a $450M loan portfolio and making senior partner at a major mezzanine lender by 29 — then built a fractional CFO firm exclusively for outpatient healthcare clinics.