i know a number of Chinese precision optics manufacturers that are making top tier, diffraction limited, Surface smooth telescopic optics.Originally Posted by ml43
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i know a number of Chinese precision optics manufacturers that are making top tier, diffraction limited, Surface smooth telescopic optics.
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Out of curiosity, who prohibits you from charging for an optometric service?
Ostensibly the same people who prohibit me from making that service optional.
It would be helpful for me to understand a $25 P.D. charge if you'd share the following:
What is your usual and customary charges for a comprehensive exam with refraction?
comprehensive exam without refraction?
refraction alone?
(if "comprehensive exam" doesn't work for you, how about "detailed E & M visit")
define top tier.
even ophthalmic optical labs can make decent telescopes, just like china can make decent laser pointers and OTC readers.
remember that precision optics exists beyond glass and lenses.
Last edited by ml43; 10-31-2015 at 07:45 PM.
Ophthalmic optics isn't the only thing my company does. There is a lot of outsourcing going on - direct from China for component optical lenses. I had the opportunity a month ago to see a 1/10th wave flat, master quality, traceable back to standards that came in from China. The price was 25% the cost of a similar flat from a US company.
If you look at the total number of companies in the US manufacturing optical components 15 years ago and compare that to the number today, you will see a significant drop, additionally, many of the companies have downsized, which results in the need for additional imported components.
Interesting...last week, I believe, you wrote: "I don't, I won't, I'll never" provide a PD.
If you're gonna charge more than $20 to measure and provide a PD, then I submit you deserve the 'greedy middleman' comment.
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There it is, post #173 in this thread, recopied here in its unedited form from 10/16/2015. Emphasis mine on the original comment.
I don't disagree with your assessment, but I believe we are talking about two different areas and markets for precision optics.
While there may be companies that have closed or downsized. However there are are still many others that have grown and are still growing. Just depends what area/market you are talking about.
Manufacturing as a whole in the US has gone down over the past few decades. But, that was going to happen, with or without China. Fact is, there just aren't enough skilled manufacturing technicians in the US.
I would assume the part where I said "done as a deterrent, not as a revenue generator" is giving you trouble? They have dictionaries online now.
And yeah, people ask for a PD, I tell them "Okay it's $50." That makes it cheaper to get them in a B&M. They get the message.
I say I'll charge $25 in the unlikely chance we can charge for PD if it is mandated, and you arbitrarily say $20 is good but $25 makes me a "greedy middleman"? What does that make you, when you mark your wholesale purchases up by 100-200% or more, hmm? Be careful with the term "greedy" because anyone who makes profit can be seen as "greedy". I find it greedy that large online retailers aren't happy with the tens of millions of pairs of glasses they already sell and want to get me to provide free labor by force of law to get them even more sales.
Ahh . . . after over 330 posts we have finally returned to the original issue of this post, RESTRAINT OF TRADE.
Has nothing to do with restraint of trade since I do not currently sell eyeglasses. My sole purpose was to protect patients from faulty medical devices. Spin it however you want if you need to find a cheap "win", but I can hardly be accused of engaging in anti-competitive behavior when I don't compete.
BTW, I remember you as the *cough* libertarian. Can you please PM me a schedule of what days you support big government and which days you don't, in case I need to time my postings so as not to come into conflict with your beliefs du jour?
only independent B&M opticians and optometrists who survive will be those who .......
Yes China will, but there is another country as India waking up and they already have huge companies in the high tech field that are making high quality products at low cost and I can already see the market shifting, and our monster optical corporations are ready for it. They have learned in North America.
Last edited by Chris Ryser; 11-01-2015 at 01:31 PM.
I did when I soecified diffraction limited, low point spread and high Strehl ratio
No, just the part where you wrote (quote above) "I don't, I will not". Sounds like an untruth to me. It's absolutely OK to admit you either typed incorrectly or you've changed your mind.
Didn't you also write somewhere that you've got a retail store selling eyewear, and your son runs it?
But more to the point, restraint of trade takes many forms, and you don't necessarily have to be a competitor to engage in it. All you have to do is make it difficult or impossible for someone to buy something that is perfectly legal for them to purchase. It's not your place to decide what's faulty, your place is to diagnose a medical condition, write the prescription for all the corrective and fitting measurements and be done with it. The FTC places no burden on you (and never has) regarding so-called "faulty" eyewear. You can't advise them where to buy eyewear, you can't denigrate eyewear sellers (internet or brick and mortar), and you can't put any barriers in their way.
That's how I get the message across and DO NOT give out PD's since I WILL NOT get someone to pay me $50 for their PD so they can go online and buy glasses when 4 doors down they can get 2 for $39. It all cheapens our service, cheapens our industry, and many of you cannot see it or don't have the ba...ckbone to fight it.
Well considering that I neither sell eyewear nor have a son...
"Restraint of trade" speaks to intent. You aren't restraining trade because you block someone's car in, thus preventing them from going to the store. My place is to protect my patients when it comes to what I am allowed to do. And yes I can denigrate eyewear sellers, even if I cannot specifically recommend them, and that is based on state law regarding maintaining separation from corporate interests. If I do denigrate a seller, they'd have to sue me for defamation and good luck with that because I tell the truth, which is an affirmative defense to all slander/libel suits. Maybe you need to stop worrying about telling me where my place is until you know mine and yours. Additionally, I am not putting barriers up by refusing to facilitate them going elsewhere. Do I have to hand them a card with an FTC-approved list of competitors? Well why not??
I will not handle CL materials for no markup (ala Costco and 1800). I don't think anyone should, and I wish those that did, would stop.
I charge a moderate CL fitting/refit fee...and guess what? Patients don't want to pay that either.
Sometimes you lose them over the cost of goods, sometimes over the service fees....but most of the time, I keep them for both.
You've stated your intentions quite clearly. You don't give out PD's and when you do, it will be "off". You've clearly stated that you will do almost anything to stop the public from buying eyewear on the internet.
A judge/jury would look at the sum of your statements here, and find you guilty of intent. You made those statements freely and without force. I'm surprised you cannot see that you've already buried yourself up to your neck.
But, at the end of the day, that's your business, and you are certainly free to do as you please. All any of us here can do is say "That really isn't a good idea", and most of us who care enough have done so.
Oh please. First of all I don't practice under the name "Tigerclaw". Second of all, even if I did there is no proof that I am the same "Tigerclaw". Thirdly, my intent (for the hundredth time) is NOT to inhibit trade, it is to inhibit the trade of medical devices with what I believe to have a high likelihood of being deficient and/or harmful with the INTENT of protecting my patients. You keep repeating yourself instead of addressing the larger points. I wonder why?
Ah. Now you are hiding behind the internet. You do realize that the board admin can be subpoenaed to get your IP address and e-mail account, right? And once they have that...
You just admitted you actually *DO* plan on inhibiting and interfere with free trade. Good, I'm glad we've finally agreed on something.
Let's move on to your comment about "harmful medical devices"...I'm assuming of course you mean spectacles. What harm/injury do you perceive being done by a pair of spectacles that are off power?
See this is you being out of your depth legally and optically. I am not laying all of my cards on the table, but I do find it odd that you seem to think a PD can provide harm, but a lens power cannot.
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