What determines contact lens pricing?

I apparently wear exactly the most expensive single-vision contact lenses a brief search finds - they’re $120/box of 6 at my eye doctor (who, thankfully, accepts my measly $115/yr insurance allotment). Other than demand, is there any reason why some lenses, even within the same brand, are so widely varying in price? Is there a technological reason that a higher strength is harder to manufacture?

(an internet search reveals that I can buy them for around $95/box, or slightly cheaper if I buy in volume, but my eye doctor’s office staff are absolutely awesome.)

Marketing hype.

With emphasis on:

• extended wear
• little or no maintenance
• HD (High Definition)

There always seems to be a latest-and-greatest gotta have make of contact lens hitting the shelves every six months or so.

You can set your calendar to it.

Fortunately, my brand of contacts, Acuvue 2, run about $19.xx for a box of six at WalMart.

That is the cash price.

Q) Insurance? We don’t need no stinkin’ insurance!

I guess of note to add: these are Toric XR contacts. A contacts.com search says that the non-XR are exactly half the price, same with the Frequency line, and the price difference between the Vertex Toric and Toric XR is even greater ($35 vs $93)!

I’m beginning to think that baby seals and saffron are involved.

I’ll tell you what I tell everyone when they price out lenses. Call Sam’s Club. They’ve consistently had the best prices on lenses that I could find. Walmart get’s their lenses from 1800Contacts so their pricing is similar, but Sam’s gets them else where, and there’s usually a big difference.

IIRC, The Toronto Globe and Mail had an article (about 15 years ago?) on contact lenses. Basically, long term disposable contact lenses (wear for about 3 months, take out evry night) were the identical product to the disposables (wear once and throw away). The only difference was the printing on the box and the price. The industry howled and said all sorts of things about “quality of production” differences, but seriously, lawsuitwise, how much are they going to deliberately skimp on quality for something a hundred million people stick on their eyes?

This is true for one or two specific type of contact lenses, in which two weeks and dailies are the same. It is not true for the vast majority of dailies/extended wear contact lenses out there. It was also, in my opinion, an incredibly stupid thing to do, as it leads patients to believe that they can wear all their daily lenses or two week lenses for three months or what have you.

There are a few reasons why some lenses are dailies, some monthly, some bi-monthly.

  1. Lenses are made of different materials which allow for different amounts of oxygen permeability. Lenses designed to be worn long-term or even “overnight” allow more oxygen into the lens. If the lens gets coated with proteins or lipids, as can occur through everyday wear, the higher oxygen permeability is supposed to be protective.

2.Daily lenses can also be made thinner since tear resistance is less of an issue.

  1. Many lenses, silicon hydrogen materials in particular, do not wet well and require coatings on the surface of the lens which only last for a particular period of time before they degrade. A poorly-wetting lens will be less comfortable, more irritating to the cornea/conjunctiva and lid, and will absorb less oxygen.

Mind you, the price probably does have as much to do with marketing as the actual cost in manufacturing the lens, but there are differences in lens materials that have a clinically significant difference in terms of ocular health.

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5 minutes to report! Damn, you are takin’ my fun away.

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