Why Should I Buy Contact Lenses From My Optometrist? (2024)

FAQs

Why Should I Buy Contact Lenses From My Optometrist? ›

Eye infection or dry eyes that result from your contact lenses are more likely to be addressed successfully by speaking to a professional, trained and educated eye doctor with whom you have a personal relationship, rather than by speaking to a customer service agent whom you have never, and likely will never, meet, and ...

Contact lenses are often recalled due to safety concerns. When you buy on the internet, you may receive a recalled product – and you'll have no optometrist to verify its safety. Even well-fitting contact lenses can damage your eyes.

Like eyeglasses, contact lenses correct vision problems caused by refractive errors. A refractive error is when the eye does not refract (bend or focus) light properly into the eye resulting in a blurred image. Contacts can improve vision for people with these refractive errors: myopia (nearsightedness)

Should you buy contact lenses online or at the eye doctor's office? That's up to you. Purchasing them at your optometrist's office may make things easier, since he or she knows your needs. You are free to price shop online, however.

Simply put, a Contact Lens Exam is a Routine Eye Exam on steroids, therefore, it is of an additional cost. If you wear contacts, you are required to have an annual Contact Lens Exam in order to maintain your prescription (even if your prescription isn't changing).

The Power of Rebates

The truth is, while the original price on some online sites may give the appearance of lower prices, the bottom-line often ends up costing you more than ordering from your eye doctor's office would have.

Contact lenses are thin lenses that sit on top of the cornea (the clear outer layer of the eye). They correct refractive errors to make your vision clearer — just like eyeglasses. About 45 million Americans wear contact lenses. If you use them the right way, they can be a safe and effective alternative to eyeglasses.

However, contact lenses may not be a good option for people who: Have had repeated eye infections. Suffer from severe allergic reactions. Have problems with eye lubrication.

1-800 Contacts tops our list for best overall online contact retailer but that doesn't mean they're always the cheapest. You may find lower prices at Walmart.

Cheaply made contact lenses can create a host of problems in your eyes, including being a host for bacteria and other foreign bodies that could cause irreparable damage to your vision. When it comes to your eyesight and your health, don't compromise them both to save yourself a little money.

Why can't I just buy contact lenses? ›

Anyone selling you contact lenses must get your prescription and verify it with your doctor. They should request not only the prescription, but the name of your doctor and their phone number. If they don't ask for this information they are breaking federal law and could be selling you illegal contact lenses.

Why is there a yearly contact lens fitting fee? This fee covers the extra tests performed by the doctor and includes any necessary follow-up visits and trials lenses.

Avoid Denials by Billing Separately. Unfortunately, Medicare considers this a routine test and therefore does not approve it making it a non-covered service. Since Medicare doesn't cover it, many commercial insurance companies follow suit and also consider it a non-covered service.

An incorrect prescription can happen for several reasons due to human error or changes in your vision. Errors can happen during an eye exam; an optician may read the optometrist's handwritten prescription wrong, or someone may make a typo when entering information into the computer.

Most plans, including VSP insurance, provide a higher benefit for glasses, allowing for the cost of both frames and lenses and usually amounting to almost double to what is given for contact lenses.

It's best to wear glasses instead of contact lenses to an eye exam so your eye doctor can accurately measure your prescription and assess your eye health. When you know what to expect, you can better prepare for an eye exam.

Opticians will usually be cheaper , but not by much because the profit margins are quite small on contacts so prices can't be much lower. There is a contact lens site that is a phone number , 1800contacts,,,well that site belongs to Walmart so the prices at that site are the same as at the store.

Eye care professionals have a huge variety of options to choose from to fit contacts for patients who not only have nearsightedness or farsightedness but also astigmatism (a curvature on the eye's surface) and presbyopia (nearsightedness due to aging).