No, it’s not crazy. While perhaps meant in some degree of jest, they do imply the dishonor of making a professional recommendation for the purpose of personal gain. We in the auto repair field get some of those comments too. I’ve found it’s best, though, to not take them personally. Trust that your clients/customers have respect for you and what you do, and the overwhelming majority of the time they will.
Some people are more observant than others, but the system handles everyone as the lowest common denominator.
Example. When I first went to a certain ophthalmologist, he had me take several exams/tests, including a peripheral vision one. OK, maybe the first visit needs a benchmark, so I went along with it. At the next appointment, I was ushered into the peripheral vision room, but I balked at paying $35 for a test that I thought was totally unnecessary, so the doc was consulted. He said most people aren’t aware if their peripheral vision is failing. I said I would be acutely aware, and made a bet with him. I’d take the test, and if the results hadn’t changed from the last one, I wouldn’t be charged for the test; otherwise, I would.
I passed, wasn’t charged, and refused to take any more in the future unless I felt I needed it. The good doc and I reached an understanding and he didn’t ask any more.
I’m sure I wasn’t a typical patient. Oh, yeah – his yacht was already paid for and his kids were thru college, so maybe he had some leeway.
Maybe you need to have your eyes checked.
Well, for one, it can be a fight to actually get a written copy of your actual prescription (IME). And also, when I’ve ordered online, they’ve at least once followed through on calling the doctor to confirm that it’s right, so if it’s an expired prescription, they’ll cancel the order.
I don’t mean any offense by it, really, and in fact the optometrist I saw last week was very nice. Mostly I just get irritated because of the combination of two factors: I need corrective lenses to function as I have for over ten years now; and I periodically need to pay someone a significant amount of money effectively to tell me that I need corrective lenses to function. I guess I’m outside the norm in that I could always tell if my prescription had changed over the course of a year, but even still, it feels slightly like being treated like a child. “Well, we’d better just make sure you’re not having any vision problems, because I know better than you - and by the way, I make a whole lot of money for doing so.” Maybe it’s just my inner control freak, but it feels somewhat disrespectful, like the assumption is that they feel they’re profiting off your stupidity, because you’re too dumb to notice that you’re seeing flashes of light or what have you.
Tangentially, since we’re here and there seem to be some optometrists: is the exam worth anything if they don’t dilate your eyes?
It’s not that the doctor “knows better than you”, it’s that getting regular exams is a good idea. For many diseases, discovering them before symptoms manifest improves the prognosis long term.
Encouraging routine exams improves the overall health of a population, and the fact that doctors profit off it is an externality.
The reason for this is that the distance between the eye and the corrective lens also counts. If the needed correction is small then the difference will be minimal but as the strength of the needed correction increases the distance becomes mores critical and needs to be compensated for. You can try this with your eyeglasses just by moving them back and forth.
Interpupillary distance is easy to measure and not as critical as the power of the lenses.
In the case of contact lenses it is not only the power of the correction but also the base curvature of the cornea which can change.
I agree that often doctors in America have that air of superiority which I also hate but I also understand where they are coming from. The doctor-patient relationship has become adversarial and they think they are looking at their next lawsuit. I can understand that.
In China you can go into any eyeglass store and they will be very friendly and do whatever you want and whatever you tell them and I love that plus the fact that the price of eyeglasses is ridiculously low. I always buy prescription eyeglasses for a lot of my friends here. Right now I have about a dozen prescription eyeglasses in my luggage for a bunch of people. Some of them with complex prescriptions, bifocals, tinted, etc. I think the average price came in at just about under $20 per set. I know enough about eyeglasses prescriptions that I can discuss the issues with the seller and make decisions. I do this for my friends every year and they have always been happy to get eyeglasses for 1/10 of what they would pay at home but, of course, they understand they alone are assuming all risks. And consumers in developed countries do NOT want this, they want better care, they just don’t want to pay for it. The problem is for those who are willing to spend less and assume the risk because they do not get that option, unless they travel abroad.
We all agree it is good to have periodical checkups of eyes and other body parts and functions. What we do not agree is on how good it is when it comes to deciding how much we want to spend on it.
I have no problem with a doctor “encouraging” exams, but in the OPs situation she is forced to pay big $$$ if she wants new glasses/contact lenses at the previous strength.
This tends to increase prices because, unlike the auto service poster above, a consumer can’t choose a do-it-yourself option with medicine. The government has decided in its wisdom to not only regulate prescription drugs, but prescription lenses as well. My heart breaks when I read about young kids getting hooked on prescription eyewear…
Yeah, it’s crap to be less than perfect, but life isn’t fair. And while you can spend thousands on “eyewear” a basic exam and basic corrective lenses are well within the reach of all but the poorest Americans. There are charities for those who are destitute, and you can always try to negotiate a payment plan. Fact is, contacts are a luxury in all but a very few, rare medical conditions. If she wants them yes she’ll have to pay for them.
What? “Hooked” on eyeware? Please tell me this is sarcasm.
i said that with my first pair of glasses in third grade. before that i always passed the “memory” test.
my mother thought i was making it up, until the person adjusting my glasses told her i couldn’t see individual leave unless i was in the tree.
I don’t deny that they’re a luxury (though they are the only way my vision can be fully corrected), and while I wish that the lenses were cheaper, my beef isn’t with needing to pay for the actual lenses. It’s needing to pay an optometrist to confirm that yes, I do need contacts. I know I need contacts, I know what brand and prescription I wear, I know I’m not having any problems with them.
If you want that to be different, you’d best work to change the laws and medical practice standards.
Well, you know, you start them out on sunglasses, then you move them to prescription lenses…then before you know they it, they’re selling their milk money for bi-focals.
I don’t think the optometrist doubts you need contacts - few people would bother with them unless they were necessary - but rather that he/she needs to confirm your prescription hasn’t changed (which most people can’t detect as easily as you, and the rules are set for the average person in this case) and that you aren’t developing some disease whose symptoms YOU haven’t noticed but that might appear on a routine eye exam, particularly those diseases that are treatable if caught early. Failure to do these things is a breach of professional ethics for the optometrist.
Actually, if she wants to wear glasses, she can wear them for as many years as she wants without going back in for an exam. Or, I guess she could order several extra boxes of contacts while her script is valid and avoid getting an exam. But we’re not talking about all that much money–you can get an exam and contact fitting at Walmart for around $100, or what it costs to get 3 months worth of my contacts.
Maybe contacts shouldn’t be prescription items, but the simple fact is that they are. And if a doctor writes you a prescription for something, and it turns out to be harmful to you because of something an exam would have picked up, guess whose ass is grass? Ain’t yours.
I still have yet to understand the need to get a ‘prescription’ from an optometrist for eyeglasses. Contacts, sure. Those can have nasty side effects, and not everyones eyes can handle them. Eyeglasses, however, are far simpler. A trained technician should be able to operate that little machine and send the order off. I do pretty much that every time I adjust my binoculars, though on a simpler scale.
Prescription for contacts? Sure.
Prescriptions for eyeglasses are like prescriptions for shoes.
Several years ago I was surprised to learn that optometrists were, in fact, even post-grad graduates! We’d always gone to an ophthalmologist for anything having to do with the eyes except for glasses. The optometrist was just kind of a technical worker. I realize now as an adult that there’s more to it than that, but I still have a lot less professional respect for an optometrist compared to an ophthalmologist.
People need glasses because their eyes are malfunctioning. When organs don’t work right, you need to see a doctor. If you put eye correction in the hands of Al Bundy, because it’s cheap, many people will wind up with horrible eye problems, not only from undiagnosed disease, but from the wrong prescription.
Plenty of people wear the wrong size of shoe, hell I’ve heard that a solid majority of women aren’t even wearing the right size of bra. I have no doubt that the majority of non-prescription eyeglasses would be incorrect for one reason or another.
Most (all?) online stores verify prescriptions with your eye doctor. Contactlenses.com will call your eye doctor to make sure the prescription is current, and they won’t fill it if it’s not.
An optometrist is a trained technician. He is trained to do that job adequately according to American laws and regulations. If you want one with less training just come to China. You’ll love it here. Don’t complain if your eyes go bad due to incorrect treatment though. Or about poisonous additives in the food. It’s all part of raw, unregulated, liberalism here.
But of course, you can buy eyeglasses off the shelf. They’re called reading glasses.