ASCRS 2027: April 2-5, San Diego
The ASCRS Annual Meeting runs April 2-5, 2027 in San Diego, alongside the ASOA programme for administrators. Cataract and refractive practices carry an unusual mix of insured procedure revenue and elective cash revenue, and the two behave nothing alike. Sorso is not an exhibitor, sponsor, or speaker at this event. This is an independent prep guide for ophthalmology practice owners.
The CFO read
The number that separates ophthalmology practices is premium conversion, and owners consistently quote it higher than the chart data supports once you count every eligible case rather than every case discussed. Pull the real rate before San Diego, along with contribution per premium case net of lens cost. If conversion is the lever, you want to know what a five-point move is worth in dollars before you sit through a session telling you to improve it.
— Stanislav Sukhinin, CFA · Founder, Sorso
Why this matters for your bottom line
Premium intraocular lenses and refractive procedures are elective, cash-pay revenue sitting inside an otherwise insurance-driven practice. Conversion rate to premium is one of the few levers an ophthalmology owner controls outright.
Where the cataract case is performed changes the economics completely. Ownership in an ASC, a facility fee arrangement, or sending cases to a hospital outpatient department produce three different sets of numbers for the same surgery.
Medicare reimbursement drives the insured side, so professional fee changes flow straight to the bottom line without any volume change. Practices need to model that rather than react to it.
Equipment for refractive and diagnostic work is capital-intensive with long payback. Buying it without a case-volume assumption written down is how practices end up servicing a lease on an under-used laser.
What to look for
ASOA administrator sessions, which carry more practice-economics content than the clinical programme
Premium channel sessions: conversion rates, counselling process, and pricing structure
ASC economics for ophthalmology, including syndication and facility fee arrangements
Equipment payback modelling for refractive and diagnostic technology
Coding and documentation for cataract, YAG, and diagnostic testing
Consolidation and private equity activity across ophthalmology groups
Financial prep checklist
Review these before you go.
Calculate premium IOL conversion rate and the contribution per premium case after the lens cost
Separate insured procedure revenue from elective cash revenue and margin each on its own
Compare professional plus facility economics for cases done at your ASC against cases sent elsewhere
Model the Medicare professional fee on your actual case mix rather than on the headline change
Run payback on each major piece of equipment against the case volume it actually sees
Check diagnostic testing utilisation and denial rates, where documentation requirements bite
What it costs to send someone
Registration is the line everyone budgets first. It is rarely the one that decides whether the trip was worth it.
Registration
ASCRS has published dates and city for 2027. Rates are not out, and the ASOA programme is priced separately in most years, so budget for two registrations if the administrator attends.
Coverage and lost production
Four days takes clinic and OR time together. Cataract volume displaced by the trip pushes into the following weeks rather than vanishing, which means the cost shows up as a compressed schedule after you return.
Who else travels
Sending the administrator to ASOA alongside the surgeons is usually the highest-value version of this trip, and it is also the version that doubles the bill.
What comes back as a deduction
IRS Publication 463 allows the travel deduction for a convention where “your attendance benefits your trade or business,” on the ordinary rules for travel away from home. Meals are generally limited to 50% of the unreimbursed cost. Keep the agenda with the receipts, and confirm the treatment with whoever signs your return.
No rates are quoted here. The organizer had published none when we last checked this page against their site on 10 August 2026, and travel is yours to price for your own dates anyway. The point of the list is that the two lines owners leave out, coverage and headcount, are the ones that decide the real number.
Before ASCRS 2027 Annual Meeting, 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 ASCRS 2027 Annual Meeting?
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.