Originally Posted by chip anderson
Chip,I love seeing people , who are having problems seeing ,after they have purchased glasses/cls from guys like you who have used an expired rx....
Guess who they are angry at ,and wont buy from again???.....These people are usually easy sales for me,and generally wont deal with another greedy optician...
And of course....in your omnipotent capacity you are able to pinpoint the exact time their vision changed....just before they had the Rx duplicated ..........................................riiiiiight!
:angry:
Your point is well taken. Just goes to my arguement that the current paradigm encapsulated in an eyeglass correction is insufficiently robust to describe all one needs to know.
Especially now, in the era of online fulfillment of Rx eyewear.
I've always said vison is fluid. But I'll bet my license right now, that most "expired" SV Rxs, made with a properly fitted digitally-enhanced SV FF lens, will be more satisfactory to most patients, than an modestly updated Rx made with stock lenses and without care in proper lens placement. This is my experience. The bottom line is that most people need to have at least 0.50D change, or cyl/axis changes of note, before they "see" a difference.
BTW, using your example, a simple acuity test would easy prevent letting someone reuse a correction that far off. Then, a refraction is definitely called for.
Barry
Agreed, as long as, within the United States, the refractionist complies with the FTC Rx Release law, and hands the Rx to the patient RATHER than the optician in their dispensary. It's about freedom of choice, not vendor or trade journal-sanctioned manipulation. IF they wish to fulfill the Rx in the examiner's store, that is *their* choice. But they MUST be given the choice. That's what the law in place to ensure. My clients, who are "directed" or "captured" by their examiner's office, will state very clearly to me that they won't go back to that examiner.
So much for improved "capture" rates.
BTW, I NEVER fulfill an Rx for a client if their last exam is over 1 year ago, unless *they* insist...meaning I advise them that a refraction alone is NOT an eye health exam, and if they skip the full exam, and just have a refraction, they are doing an disservice to the welfare of their vision.
But it is still an individual choice. Just like OTCs.
Barry
Last edited by Barry Santini; 02-01-2011 at 11:25 AM.
i dunno, greedy opticians? i've being dealing with this, "expires in 6 months-year" for a long time....what a joke, when you say greedy there is no optometrist on the planet that is more greedy then my still practicing father, are they all like this, well i don't know, but the optometrist office down the street from me does the highest volume in b.c. for sales, & what you might ask what my feed back from all my customers talk about? it's the extreme pressure they put on the customers (especially the elderly,this one really gets me) to purchase their extremely inflated eyewear, the way they get steered into the back room by high pressure sales....so, how does the reasonably priced optician combat that? well, i'll tell you how, by sight testing, this so called greedy optician is going to be giving this service to the public for free, & i would suggest that all optician do the same when the other provinces allow it...it opens a lot of doors, also here in b.c. it is suggested that the public between 19-65 get a eye health check, every 3-5 years. we can also sight test anyone once you have a prescription from the ophthalmologist, which states "please refract patient" since the eye health has looked after, & all this patient now needs, is just a sight test, & the ophthalmologist just doesn't want to do this, that is where again, a refracting optician comes in
Here's a suggestion: Forget about sending $15,000+/year to eyelogic, find a friendly OD and set him or her up in your office at a fraction of the cost. You save money, an OD makes money, you get to keep all patients of all ages in house, and maintain a greater sense of credibility. Lots of OD's in the lower mainland looking for an opportunity like that.
I'd have to agree Odema. Easiest way to satisfy your patients and yourselves is to work together.
It doesnt matter...the new specs/cls didnt meet expectations....from the customer's perspective the optician messed up...
So anyway, basically we all have to abide by the laws and regulations of our State or Province...which ranges from no limit, to a year or two.
Moderator...I think we've beaten this to death. Why not close it down.
Unfortunately...we all look bad when that happens, and guess what? The general public has difficulty discerning who is optometrist and who is optician. I'll bet you operate under the usual banner of "EyeEyeEye DrsRUs and also stuck an ad under Opticians in the Yellows, too.
Maybe we should all bow to kws, as apparently he knows it all. When do you think an Rx should expire, kws? Only when you can blame an optician for it?
DragonlensmanWV N.A.O.L.
"There is nothing patriotic about hating your government or pretending you can hate your government but love your country."
If you recognize a spectacle correction as a prescription, and therefor requiring professional requirements to presribe, then an expiry must be included. If there is no medical requirement, then no presription is required. For those who are advocating that position, are also advocating for no prescibing requirements for spectacles or contact lenses and are in favour of internet sales, as no risk of harm is present.
Trial Framing the Rx in situations where it's efficacy may be suspect *always" helps to separate the wheat from the chaff.
FWIW
B
I don't blame you for doing so. Prescribers that are not within your dispensing location "just don't get it", for the most part, because they are not paying the lab bills.
The weak-link where an immediate decision from a trial-frame evaluation may lead one astray is when the client cannot differentiate better/sharper from familiar/more comfortable. This is but one example where arriving at what is best for an individual's vision is not always predictable the first time at bat. So with a certain percentage of remakes invariably in the mix, i feel the more time an ecp practice devotes to trying to arrive at meeting the client's needs, the more they differentiate themselves from practices that don't...whether online or down the street.
My $0.02.
B
Interesting discussion, Canadians plus others.
I think we have to decide whether optical care is part of the overall health care community. If so, then there's one course of action, and certain consequences.
If optical care is separate from the health care system, then there's another course of action and another destiny.
What do you think...is optical care an integral part of vision care and eye care, or is it more about selling products?
It doesnt matter what my personal thoughts are,,,,the marketplace has already decided that optical care is retail....and about selling products...
1 year is reasonable....
Not quite....I actually come out of this looking good....Im not the guy who should have known better than to have used an expired rx.....
In the customer's eyes the optician just wanted the sale....
There are lot's of other businesses that sell products, but differentiate themselves through service, advice, repair, warranty and customer loyalty/word-of-mouth.
Eyewear has just arrived there. Contacts have already become commoditized, but that hasn't put legions of ECPs out of the business of professional care and fitting them.
B
Well in Mass. on a spec RX some docs say 1 year others 2 years, we honor 'their' expiration date. Now if a patients does not have their RX and we neutralize existing glasses our office policy is to ask date of last exam and if over 3 years old we will not fill.
Yes and no....The *******ization of the cl end of things has resulted in a downward spiral in cl fees and dispensing volume....Eventually ,you will likely see more ecp who stop working with cls because the hassles arent justified by the diminishing fees...
Chip should be able to chime in here about the downward spiral of cl related income...
Actually the CL business has practically died for independent fitters at least. Now the industry has changed and prescribers have increased fees to the point that they now get as much as we were getting plus the cost of lenses in thier "contact lens exam" fees. Many are forcing or inducing the patient to buy a year's supply (on a year only Rx.) But as far as the independent fitter we now only see: Old patients who are intensely loyal, very difficult fittings (keratoconnus, corneal transplants, rediculouly high cylinders and patients that for one reason or the other the presciber doesn't want to fool with.
Used to fit about five new patients a day, now if things go well I see this many new ones in two weeks. And those are often people that several other people have failed to be able to fit. Gone are the teenage myopic females that used to be our bread and butter.
Unfortuately as an independent fitter one can't charge outrageous exam fees (we used to make a good living on replacements) or ensure that everything the patient can get with that Rx must be obtained for us. And then Softlens fitting is so simple that a near zero expertise level is required, so the prescriber gets the teenage myopes.
Chip
Ahhh yes......the venerable, inexplicable "contact lens exam fees". I know how to handle this question when it comes up with my own fittings, and how to coach existing fits in handling the situation. How does one explain, when asked "Why was I charged more for my routine eye exam, just because I wear/wore contact lenses?".
Ah but you don't understand the doctor will sometimes even consult a chart for the fit, actually read the corneal measurements off the auto refractor, and if he's real concientious give them a pair of trial lenses that he gets from his free trial set he got from the manufacturer. No follow-up later of course. Think of good doctor's Time in doing all this. And if this doesn't work, the patient couldn't wear contacts or had contact lens intolerance.
Chip
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