What is an “enhancement”?
The goal of refractive surgery (LASIK/PRK) is to provide excellent vision without glasses. Although the laser provides excellent results, up to 15-20% of patients will still need glasses or contacts after the procedure. Some of these patients will elect to have an enhancement procedure to improve their uncorrected visual acuity. Studies have shown that the chance that someone would need an enhancement is proportional to the original amount of refractive error (so someone who had 10 Diopters of myopia is more likely to need an enhancement than someone with just 2 Diopters of myopia). If an enhancement procedure occurs up to one year after the original surgery, the corneal flap will be lifted rather than creating a new flap. The risks of an enhancement are similar to the risks of the original procedure.
When a significant undercorrection or overcorrection occurs, it is often (but not always) possible to lift the LASIK flap and retreat with the laser. The “enhancement” rate is 5-15%, depending on the original refraction. Higher corrections have higher “enhancement” rates. There is no additional cost for enhancements done during the first year.
An enhancement is any request that will result in changes that alter the intended behavior of or add additional functionality to a product or to documentation. Typical enhancement requests are requests to add support for unsupported features or requests for special white paper documentation. If you are experiencing an issue that a SupportLink representative determines is expected behavior based on the specification that the product is written to, or on the published product documentation, your case may be filed as an enhancement. When an enhancement is created, the original case that was opened to address your issue will have an enhancement created and attached to it. Please note that enhancement requests are typically reviewed by program management for a given product only when planning begins for a new release.
