Thursday, March 3, 2011

Eyeglass Fun

Well, the old eyeglasses have gotten weaker and scratched, so it was time to get replacements.  It started last Fall.  I went to the place that gave good service previously and arranged an exam appointment.  When I arrived, the Dr was three (30 minute) appointments behind.  So I cancelled and went home.  I'm not one to sit and wait.

In January, I made another appointment.  The Dr was again behind by three appointments.

Last week, I made an appointment for the first appointment of the day.  He can't be behind schedule then, right?  Wrong!  Some twit in the office made earlier appointments KNOWING he would be behind schedule from the start!

I walked out, went to the nearest other eye Dr and scheduled a new first appointment on condition that there COULD NOT BE earlier ones.  I was assured there would be no earlier ones.

And there weren't!  I had a thorough exam and even was shown pictures of my retina and blood vessels on a computer.  Mine are (fortunately) GREAT/PERFECT/YOUNG-LOOKING. 

I should mention I am farsighted and need only reading glasses for the computer and newspaper.  To those of you who need glasses all day, I AM truly grateful for my otherwise good vision.  Not like it is something I accomplished myself; I have to say I had good parental genes.

The Dr said I had no serious eye problems, but I AM getting older and "chit happens"...

I looked at the frame selection and was seriously disappointed.  All were small frames (the new fashion?) and ridiculously expensive celebrity-name brands costing $200 and up.  PFFT!  I told them I would have to take the prescription elsewhere.  So they knew that.

So it came time to pay.  No problem there, except they gave me a receipt for the eye exam and said, "well that's it".  Um, prescription please?  Stunned silence at the desk.  "You need a prescription?  Well the Dr is with a patient and it will be about 30 minutes".  Man, once they had all the money they were GOING to get from me, I ceased to exist.  After pacing around the small shop for 20 minutes, though, I guess I got annoying.  a clerk offerred that they could fax the prescription to where ever I choose a frame.  How kind of them...

5 minutes later, I was back at the original place, showed them my current eyeglasses (large enough so that I can't see the annoying frame), found the identical ones (two for $99), and told them to get a faxed prescription.   They did and I was out of there in 10 minutes.  The glasses won't be ready for a week, but that's is OK.

So one eyeglass place cant manage a schedule in three attempts but has great frame selection and is good about taking a prescription order, and the other is good about managing a scheduled appointment but has limited and expensive frames. 


A pox on all their houses!  Or maybe they should merge.

1 comment:

Alastriona, The Cats and Dogs said...

Well I feel for you because I know what you went through. I scheduled an appointment with my regular eye Dr. Foolish me did wait 30 minutes to see him. It was finally my turn, I informed them that I needed new contacts and that I wanted to try the mono vision ( I have to wear mine all day and didn't want to have to wear reading glasses in addition to my contacts). Only to be informed I would have to see the other Dr. in the practice, because my normal Dr. didn't do that. My insurance won't cover the other Dr. (don't ask me why). So they said they would fix it so my insurance would pay for it. Made an appointment with the other Dr. Only to discover after waiting 30 minutes that she didn't do hard contacts. So I got sent to yet another Dr. He at least saw me on time and got me into a pair of contacts that I love. The downside is he isn't local. I wound up having to go out of town to get contacts

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