Home The Institute
Small on purpose, sharp on principle.
Two surgeons, one laser suite, no franchises. VELA does fewer procedures than the chains and publishes better numbers — those two facts are related.
The surgeons
Vela & Rao
Dr. Maren Vela — 14,000 procedures, cornea fellowship, wrote the enhancement-decision protocol two national bodies borrowed. Founded the institute in 2015 after leaving a chain that scheduled her nine minutes per patient conversation.
Dr. Arjun Rao — 10,000 procedures, cataract and lens-exchange lead, the surgeon other surgeons bring their parents to. Runs the January outcomes audit and enjoys it, which worries everyone.
The rule that built the place
The surgeon who scans you operates on you, and sees you at every follow-up. It caps how many patients we can take. It is also why 31% of our patients are referred by doctors and nurses.
Three habits of this house.
"No" is a clinical outcome
19.6% of scans end in declined or deferred. The scan is free precisely so that no one here is ever paid to say yes.
Declined — ~1 in 5
Numbers, audited, in January
An external ophthalmic statistician audits every outcome we publish. If a year is worse than the last, the report says so on page one.
Published — every January
The technology is boring, deliberately
We buy lasers on their second year, not their launch week — after the registries have data. Your eyes are not an early-adopter program.
The team
Fourteen people, zero rotations.
The nurse who holds your hand at the laser has held four thousand hands. Staff turnover in five years: two people, one of whom came back.