grrrrrrrrrrr...............

[optilady1]

I just got done talking to a lady who dropped her pre-cataract surgery (done three years ago) glasses in boiling water, and now can't see through her foggy lenses. She refuses to get her updated rx and now isn't wearing anything to drive in. My lowest prices are too steep for her, so I encouraged her to go to Walmart or another discount optical, so she has something! Of course, she won't, says it's not worth it, and she'll just have to keep driving around with no glasses.

This infuriates me so much. No regard for anyone else. Thankfully she lives and works in this little town, so there's no way my own children will come across her blind a$$ driving around, but what about all the other kids and general people she could mow over going out to get a pack of cigarettes?

I'm sorry, I just had to vent to you folks, because there are days when these patients make me so mad. Say a prayer or drink a beer or do a rain dance that no one dies due to this wonderful example of sheer brilliance.

OK, I kinda feel better now. Thank you.

[Robert_S]

I'm surprised that you're surprised by this. I gave up worrying about my relationship with these kinds of customers a long time ago, threw away my tact, and now I simply explain exactly why what they are doing is so selfish and abhorrent. Surprisingly, they usually agree to either glasses or laser surgery.

[chip anderson]

Hope she is pseudophakic. If she's aphakic, stay off the roads!

[J.P.]

HAHA, I had a lady with something very similar last week.

She came, complained that we had moved our office to a new location, I explained that we moved 2 years ago, and she said she only moved away 2 years ago and just got back into town last month (This will be important later). She was asking me to repair her glasses. I look at it and immediately said there was nothing I could, the frame was broken in such a way that not even duct tape would fix it. She got mad, and demanded that I replace them. I told her that I could not because the frames were VERY old and I was 100% certain the frames were discontinued. She got mad again, and demanded I pick out a new frame and make a new pair with her prescription. So I go and look up her last exam.....

Wait for it.....

It's gonna be good.....

.....

It was 10 1/2 years ago when we last saw her, Just after opening our practice. And she was demanding that I use that RX to make a new pair of glasses at no cost because "Those'em is yours glasses for yours office that I's bought from yous just before I moved" .... remember, just 2 years ago.

I explained that there was nothing I could do, and no way that I would make her a new set of glasses with a prescription THAT old. I would be happy to make her an appointment with one of the 4 doctors as soon as possible so that we could a new prescription to make a newer pair for her at her expense.

She snatched up her glasses so fast off my bar top, wadded them up int he paper towel she had them so gently wrapped in when she came in, grabbed her cane and told me "There's no ways in hell she could afford to dos that, justa gonna makes due wit my old pair", and slowly waddled out the door ..... God be with the people she drives around, because if she was driving okay with a 10 year old pair, I wonder how bad she's driving in her "Older then that" pair.

Sometimes I'm shocked, and sometimes you see and hear things you never would image before.

[Wes]

It's only Tuesday and you had to remind me of what I have in store for the weekend. Thanks a bunch. ;)

[chip anderson]

Now comes the question were they needed for her survival (like + or -3.00 or above) or just a pair of + or - 1.00's with an add? If she couldn't see to get home I would have done something, JB weld, or tape or crazy glue or edged them down to something else or something.
True she should have had a new exam and new glasses, and true she should have had a spare pair. But would you refuse to replace the battery in an old pacemaker because the work order and heart exam was old, out of date or expired?
There is an old moto a hot rodding friend of mine used to have: "If at first you don't succeed, rig it."
I do realize that insistant people usually have a very slight Rx and just think they can't see without them.

Chip

[FVCCHRIS]

When helping a contrite/patient/kind customer I will bend way over backwards to assist them. Once the discussion "goes south" I'm done! I've heard it all, and seen it all and I know what is a problem and what isn't. It is not a good thing to help a patient do themselves a disservice by not being properly prepared for the future. The single pair lifestyle that some patients live has to be changed. And I certainly don't lose sleep(anymore) when a patient tries to lay their whole problem at my feet.

[Java99]

I just got done talking to a lady who dropped her pre-cataract surgery (done three years ago) glasses in boiling water, and now can't see through her foggy lenses. She refuses to get her updated rx and now isn't wearing anything to drive in. My lowest prices are too steep for her, so I encouraged her to go to Walmart or another discount optical, so she has something! Of course, she won't, says it's not worth it, and she'll just have to keep driving around with no glasses.

This infuriates me so much. No regard for anyone else. Thankfully she lives and works in this little town, so there's no way my own children will come across her blind a$$ driving around, but what about all the other kids and general people she could mow over going out to get a pack of cigarettes?

I'm sorry, I just had to vent to you folks, because there are days when these patients make me so mad. Say a prayer or drink a beer or do a rain dance that no one dies due to this wonderful example of sheer brilliance.

OK, I kinda feel better now. Thank you.

I'm going out to dinner to celebrate tonight for the first time since Feb; I will have a glass of wine with you in mind!

I ask those people if their car insurance is up to date. Makes them stop and think for a second or two anyway.

[optilady1]

She is still -7.00 in one eye, -2.75 in the other. We all should buy tanks.

[chip anderson]

Bad that they blew the implant power that much.

Chip

[Chris Ryser]

This infuriates me so much. No regard for anyone else. Thankfully she lives and works in this little town, so there's no way my own children will come across her blind a$$ driving around, but what about all the other kids and general people she could mow over going out to get a pack of cigarettes?

This does not only happen in you little town.............................

When I owned a condo and spent the winters in a Naples Golfing community for 15 years and was for 6 years on the Board of Directors I learned very fast that many people dont care about others.

The communty has 1257 condos in buildings of 4 or 2 condos and some single villas, with 2 golf courses and a quite a few miles of streets without side walks. There are lots of parties and many older people drive even to the mail boxes 2 or 3 buildings away. Many of them have to be helped out and in of their car by others at the mailboxes.

One block away from the Sheriffs main office in Collier County, over 150 people in that community are legally blind and still drive their late model cars, as well as do a fair amount of drinking. That is close to 10%. I had to jump into the grass many time when walking my dog in the evening.

I just wonder how many of the other many hundreds Condo Associations over Florida have the same statistics.

[FVCCHRIS]

She is still -7.00 in one eye, -2.75 in the other. We all should buy tanks.

Yep, and learn how to fire the weapon!

[Bev Heishman]

It might be worth the call to the State Police and ask the protocol in regards to the situation to protect unsuspecting citizens. I know it is the duty of the eye doctor in this state to report the decreased acuity of drivers. This certainly accounts for concern.

[spectaclegal]

I agree, the kinder and sweeter, the more i will bend backwards to help. Buut, I would at the very least in these situations offered a dog frame that their lenses would pop into for like next to nothing. (say $20 to $40) price depending on how hateful they were, but at least they'd be seeing again. Haha, but I'd tell them I'm letting you have this at or about cost, so, "NO WARRANTY.' Take it or leave it.

If your old copy of the Rx said 10 years ago, we have no real way of knowing if the pt. has been examined 9 times since with just no change. AAnnd, to my knowledge unless something has changed, in my state, we are allowed to Neut & Dup. which does not require a copy of an Rx.

[Browneyes1208]

We have "discontinued" frames for just that purpose....yes, take it or leave it.



We had a gentleman that came in that apparently was well "known" in town...you know, on many local commericals and etc...he came in and wanted to buy glasses with the Rx that was in his glasses he was wearing. I explained to him that we could not, and would not do that. ( I was not that crass, though). He was just appalled by the fact that I would not do this for him. I explained to him that he could be wearing his neighbor's grandmother's glasses for all we knew. Seriously, it takes all kind.