Another few Questions:- How do Opticians react when you say you will be using your (paid for by yourself) Contact Lens Prescription for buying on line contacts,?
Is it difficult to get out of having to buy theirs ?
Anyone had experience with this before please ?
The prescription you require for contact lenses can be more complicated to establish. Sometimes when you are fitted with new lenses, the prescription may be tweaked more than once to get the best vision for you. So the optician is not required to supply a contact lens prescription until they are happy with the prescription you are using. But in the end it is your choice whether you buy lenses from the optician or online. I've had lenses for 40 years now, and would probably not buy online myself, as I prefer knowing that my optician would be there if I had a problem. And people do.
If you trawl round high street opticians for the price of their lenses, and what you get for your money, usually a package. A direct debit scheme will probably include the cost of all aftercares, free sight test, money off glasses, free replacement lenses for damaged ones, delivery of lenses to your home. You may find that it's not that much dearer at the opticians. And lenses are slightly cheaper now, at least for own brand ones.
I have had lenses for that long too, had monthly to begin with, but they are so annoying when camping, taking them out putting them in solution so I swapped to daily's online last year. I will still go back to opticians when I get my letter telling me too.
If you go through an opticians. your monthly payments cover your lenses, cleaning stuff and check ups, so it is a complete package they usually post them to you so you don't need to go in. I just got fed up with it all so have opted out for a year.
Recently I have taken 2 people for eye tests, Boots took nearly 3hrs as they only had one machine to test something, and there was a queue of 5 before my lady and each eye can take up to 10mins.
Specsavers took 2hrs to complete, ridiculous amount of time, they should have more of those machines at each branch.
It is a Optician who works at my robbing gits who told me to buy online.He always tells me what strength readers i need and to buy from the pound shop.And also him who told me the contacts my franchise was prescribing were cheaper online.
He also tells me and my sister inlaw after our eyetests that the girls outside are going to recommend this or that and we will be fine how we are.
I expect most opticians only have 1 of each machine. An eye examination take about 30 mins, some of that time, approx 10 mins, will be measuring pressures and fields, or taking a picture of the back of the eye, tasks often done by the assistants. Only if repeats are required by the optician do you get a queue. And I expect that in city stores where they have more than 2 consulting rooms you might get a queue too. Though I do know that some opticians are registered to see diabetics as well, and if they have dilation drops, you might need to wait for them to work, and have an extra pressure measurement after to check that the drops haven't affected the pressure.
Any idea how much 'Prescriptions' for Contact Lenses are ? and next time you have your eyes tested for glasses is it easier to get both prescriptions done together ?
Apologies for more questions.
If you ask for a contact lens prescription, and you aren't buying lenses from them, then when they do an aftercare and issue the prescription, they may charge something like £35-40, the cost of an aftercare.
The eye examination normally done for people who wear glasses doesn't usually include the examination of the surface of the eye necessary for contact lenses. And the contact lens examination also requires a check of the back of the eye, which is done for a normal eye examination.
From a time point of view, it is easier to have both done together, it will be a double appointment, and you should be charged separately for each, unless you are exempt from paying for an eye examination, in which case you should expect to pay just for the contact lens check.
Thank you franbee for your very informative answer and also for your previous post above, I have now got my head around it all, and it is all quite straight forward.
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Topic: on line contact lenses
