Contact lenses next?
It's amazingly stupid that I, as a tourist, who knows exactly what types of contacts I need, may need to get a US prescription for contacts.
It's amazingly stupid that I, as a tourist, who knows exactly what types of contacts I need, may need to get a US prescription for contacts.
* I've tried to buy contacts online in the US with an expired prescription, the retailers say their hands are tied, they need a current dated one.
I now just buy contacts online from Europe or New Zealand. No BS, same price, the EU company I buy from includes a mini bag of haribo gummies :)
I've used Coastal and Zenni for glasses. No problems.
edit thinking about it a little bit i could see it being harmful to not have someone go through the "you don't want to do this or else you could potentially lose your eyesight" talk at least once.
I would love to do that, could you share which vendors you use?
Looking through my email receipts, I've used:
lenstore.co.uk
visiondirect.co.uk
contactsexpress.ca
specsavers.co.nz
You can be 1 year and 11 months into your prescription and buy 4 years worth of lenses, but at the two year mark, you can't purchase them at all without another visit to the doctor and explicit approval for a specific prescription.
My particular annoyance is that I usually buy a year or two worth of lenses at a time - one set usually lasts a month, but I don't wear them every day. So I can stretch out the time a bit further. By the time I'm down to my last set and want to resupply, I'm required to visit an optometrist. Spending money on another eye exam that tells me nothing new. It's even more frustrating if I completely run out and have to use a set longer than is ideal while waiting for an opportunity to visit a doctor.
I get that wearing the wrong prescription lenses isn't ideal, but I don't understand why prescription lenses are gatekept like narcotics. If you can't see well or have the wrong prescription, there's a natural incentive to visit an optometrist and figure out exactly what you need.
Unfortunately, the answer is regulatory capture. Optometrists in the US make the majority of their income [1] from selling glasses and contact lenses, which of course they also prescribe. There's been a lot of lobbying, collusion, and non-compliance in the industry which the (admittedly biased) link below outlines well.
And an eye exam for specialty contact lenses is way more than $100. Really, more than $100 in many places just for a simple reading glasses RX. And many docs won't just do your Rx. They require you do a full exam.
From the Contact Lens Rule [1]: "a contact lens seller cannot provide contact lenses to its customer unless the seller either obtains a copy of the prescription or verifies the prescription information with the prescriber"
The Eyeglass Rule [2] doesn't contain this stipulation.
https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/rules/rulemaking-regulatory-...
https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/rules/rulemaking-regulatory-...
In California, for example, you can't buy prescription glasses without an active prescription.
I found this out when my glasses broke on the weekend and couldn't get replacements before talking to a doctor -- none of which had availability for several days. So I suffered from headaches and poor vision for several days thanks to this ridiculous regulation.
Maybe it's a Tesla-style showroom thing where you look at the frames in store but technically buy the glasses online.
Neither the FDA nor FTC at the federal level technically require prescriptions for glasses. Indeed, most online glasses shops will simply take you at your word that you have a prescription, presumably because they are located in a state that nominally requires a prescription, but places no requirement on the shops to verify that the customer really does have one.
This is totally different from contacts, where at the federal level, sellers must verify the prescription with the prescriber, except that if 8 business hours have passed since they started trying to contact the prescriber, without hearing back, the prescription is considered verified. (That last is to prevent the prescriber from trying to prevent customer from getting lenses elsewhere by refusing to verify).
Here in The Netherlands, I can walk in a shop and get contact lenses off a shelf. It does not even need to be a dedicated shop. These are available in generic care shops where you can also buy shampoo, vitamins, and even some medicines that don't require prescriptions.
Was very interesting to play around and helped me isolate the 2 prescriptions that my eyes drift back and forth from.
Something that eye doctors had given up on trying to help me.
Just checking because it looks like you're from '79 and talk about drifting vision: you know about presbyopia and accommodation? You might need multi-focals.
Prism glasses fixes this. But it’s a completely different power. +3 goes to -1 or anything in between.
As pressure goes down it reverts. Medication or activity can drop or raise it in an hour or less.
No more worrying that I’m about to stick myself with the wrong prescription because the optician (yes, that’s who measures you for glasses in Germany) or I lost patience trying to find the boundary between spherical and cylindrical correction, or doing this at the wrong time of day, all for less than a pair of glasses costs.
Any brand recommendations?
Edit: it occurs to me that this may very well be one of those things that's dependent on state laws, so your mileage may vary. Worth a try, in any event.
Edit 2: and yeah, this is for old-school glasses. The requirements for contacts may be more stringent.
First, always have a list of all relevant phone numbers (at a minimum, but other information is helpful too) to any healthcare entity you need to work with. Your primary care doctor, your pharmacy, your hospital, your preferred lab, any specialists. Also have all your insurance information on that same list - especially the different numbers for different departments (e.g. provider lines, authorization lines, etc). Just assume they don't have any of your information on file or their information is inaccurate and needs to be updated.
Always get a paper copy if possible (I think some things have to be electronic in certain states, but just strongly emphasize getting a paper copy for anything else). Pharmacies, labs, other offices always say whatever you need wasn't sent (even if you watch them send the request and it says it successfully went through). And yes make sure it has the doctor's signature on it! I'm not sure if it's specific to insurance companies or just certain medications, but they sometimes require diagnosis codes in some states. Find out prescribing rules in your state... I think it has to do with narcotics, so make sure you know the rules in your state for narcotic prescription.
Always know, ahead of time, the exact lab you're going to and hound the doctor's office about using the right paper work and ensuring diagnosis codes are present (there is apparently no universal lab paper work, so knowing ahead of time is important). Get a paper version of the signed referral. It needs to have the diagnosis codes and whatever other codes are required for billing (honestly not sure why medical offices aren't doing this by default, but whatever). Make sure one of "with contrast" or "without contrast" is selected if you see those options on the request sheet for radiology. Assume you won't be able to contact the doctor after this visit to have the lab order sent again. Also assume that even if you can reach the doctor, that the lab won't accept the order without a written copy.
Always get confirmation from the doctor if the prescription is covered by insurance. There are apps like Coverage Search[0] that can give you some information about whether it will be covered or not.
And of course there are a bunch of other annoying little rules that I just haven't encountered yet.
On top of the ridiculous costs, it's your responsibility to make sure things go smoothly ;) gotta love US healthcare
[0]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/coverage-search/id834992816
I’m only commenting on what I’ve seen. I’m sure a lot of people get through the system just fine with no issues. But this list is a compilation of many people experiencing issues receiving healthcare.
I've just learned some new things about the eyeglass rule from a sibling in this thread.
Just curious, since you mention that you're soon to be in the business of eye exams, do you think at some point your business is going to have to maintain this status quo in order to 'play ball' legislatively during your growth phase? If yes, how do you feel about that? If no, can you explain why you'd be exempt? Are these laws something that articulates with your business model or is this only in adjacent businesses like providing lenses?
Many shops won’t sell you glasses unless your prescription is under 1 year old. This allows them to charge you for an exam when you don’t necessarily need it.
Probably not quite as good as a live view, but not bad.
And I find sites like Zenni are so cheap that it's worth taking the risk: an ugly pair can go in the car /gym bag / work desk for if I lose a contact lens.
Maybe your post was sarcasm though :)
That's the economic progress of humanity. We automate, and jobs that were once valued are no longer needed.
Easy to look at a specific instance and fight against the change, but in the long run it's better for everybody.
Glasses/Vision in particular costs hundreds more than it needs to. Glasses could be produced and sold at $10-20 bucks if regulations were eased. What is the material cost to produce these? You can get reading glasses in grocery stores for a few dollars.
I'm fairly well off and even I feel bad paying over a hundred dollars for some of this stuff. Imagine all the lower earners/poor that pay hundreds of dollars for glasses for no reason other than protectionism.
The entire eye exam can be automated very easily (and I believe already has). Would be easy to have machine learning algorithms that can diagnose problems from the image of your retina scan. I really don't think it'd be that difficult, if it doesn't exist already.