prisoner RX

[Mizikal]

I had a lady bring in an RX for her son who is in prison.We get this from time to time no big deal. They rx has the PD and we have to mail it to them. This time though it had add power and I had no patient to measure.I was wondering if anybody else had this problem and what they did. I came up with two solutions.

1. Sell patient the frame and the Dr at D.O.P. could mark the bifocal.They then mail it back and we order the lenses. This way the patient gets the bifocal they want and I will know it is measured correctly. D.O.P however does not like mailing things back and forth and I have no way of passing the cost of our shipping to the customer.

2.I spoke with the Dr the patient had seen and he gave me the B measurement of the frame available to the patient and told me he usually does 4 below( I don't really know what that means). He said that would be at about 14mm. I found a frame with a similar B measurement and marked it at 14 and tried it on myself it looked good. just under my lower eye lid. I was not going to sell a no line.I figured it would be better to mark a flat top to low the a PAL to high.

I went with solution two but wondered if anyone has a better solution. Aside from selling them single vision only.

[Ghost Machine]

I think you're on the right track. If you could only have one it's probably better that you have the PD than the seg height as your biggest issue will be comfort (based on whether the height is high, low or perfect). Your doc's "4 below" reference was meant to be 4mm below the vertical center; so you take the B measurement, cut it in half and drop 4mm from there. In this situation (not that I've EVER forgotten to take a seg height ;) ) I would consider a drop of anywhere from 3-5mm based on the frame size and placement of the bridge in respect to overall depth. Error on the low side and you'll probably have fewer issues than if fit too high.

[cocoisland58]

The general rule for seg heights is 3-4 below center for D-segs and 3-4 above for progressives. I have had to do this once in a while for housebound, hospital or nursing home patients. Assuming the frame is a decent fit it will work out.

[Geirskogul]

We completed the tail end of one of these today. Did just about everything stated above for a patient, mailed to a prison, with 4 below center D-seg, and had the prison calling us asking when the person (inmate?) was going to receive their glasses. Checked with UPS and another person/inmate had somehow signed for them and was wearing them. They even used their real last name!

[fjpod]

An old optometrist once taught me that when fitting a frame, if the measured seg height of a bifocal doesn't come out to be 3 or 4 below, then the frame is a bad fit for that patient. When I was young and first learned it, I scoffed at it. Now that I've been doing it for 32 years...I'm beginning to think he was right. Yup, I'm a slow learner.

[Chris Ryser]

An old optometrist once taught me that when fitting a frame, if the measured seg height of a bifocal doesn't come out to be 3 or 4 below, then the frame is a bad fit for that patient. When I was young and first learned it, I scoffed at it. Now that I've been doing it for 32 years...I'm beginning to think he was right. Yup, I'm a slow learner.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s when I had my lab, most opticians and optometrists used to order bifocals by their powers and for measurements gave 3 in and 3 below that was the standard unless it was a progressive, for which we did not accept this standard a wanted monocular PDs and heights.

[optilady1]

An old optometrist once taught me that when fitting a frame, if the measured seg height of a bifocal doesn't come out to be 3 or 4 below, then the frame is a bad fit for that patient. When I was young and first learned it, I scoffed at it. Now that I've been doing it for 32 years...I'm beginning to think he was right. Yup, I'm a slow learner.

It's so true, but I just laughed to myself, thinking of all the huge aviators over the years where the PAL seg ht was a 32. I had an awesome lab guy when I worked for the LC who would always come out to check with me, thinking I'd made a typo, before he would see the frame.

@ Mizikal: My Mother is a Reverand and has worked in and around the prison system for 20 years, so I'm very familiar with inmates. When I was seventeen we actually did Christmas morning in the living room of a halfway house because she was working. I lovingly refer to the men and women who she does Bible studies with as her convicts and have had many of them to my house for holidays when they don't have a family to go to or have been shunned. It can be awkward to know how to interact with them and the people around them. It's nice that you went out of your way to help one. They may have made their beds and are now lying in them, but for many, the simple act of making them glasses is the nicest thing that has ever been done for them.

[MichaelP]

We use estimates for bifocals and progressives and 9.5 times out of 10 there's no problem.

[FVCCHRIS]

Guys- 63/60, 3 below. Gals- 61/58, 3 below. That is assuming(one of my favorite words) that the frame is an acceptable fit. You choose to operate like this and hope the final product, as worn by the "patient", does not produce any results beyond what is recommended in the ANSI guide. While we're at it, do prisoners lose their civil right to "sue" if injured by their glasses? BTW, what we're really talking about here is- how to be successful selling glasses on line, right?