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.
Blood work too, let me just test my own cholesterol please.
The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription
111–120 of 462 posts
Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription
#112There are a number of healthcare areas in the US that have been protected by regulation, but it’s increasingly unclear if this is good for patients, consumers, or public health at large. The increasing sentiment seems to be probably not. Vision care is another area I’d expect to see more changes and disruption coming down the pipeline. Vision care is very important and advanced cases require special skills, but it’s…
One pretty big (and relatively unknown) law is that your doctor needs to give you your vision prescription so you can buy glasses elsewhere (usually for much cheaper). I think a lot of them get around this by letting you look for glasses while waiting and not telling you that this law exists.
You would think that someone would have a smartphone app for this.
Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription
#113This is going to murder companies like audibene.com / hear.com
Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many optometrists don’t do much more than use a hand held scope to look into your eyes. I’d imagine most GPs either have that on hand already or could get it easily. It’s not like you need an MRI machine in the office to do an eye exam. Yes some office have fancier equipment, but here it’s unclear if that’s actually better for patients and public health or just a way to bill more. Doing a basic exam and then referrin…
I have been to maybe a half dozen different optometrists over the last 25 years and they have always used several expensive looking machines to screen for eye disease. Most frequently a machine that uses a puff of air to measure the pressure in your eye and more recently, a machine with a bright light that gets detailed imagery of the vascular structure on the back of your eye.
Yes, although that test is automated and typically done by a technician not an optometrist. You can train someone to use one of these machines in a few hours. If this was a key test no reason we couldn’t just put one in every GP office and have eye pressure checked during an annual checkup.
Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription
#115"People with mild or moderate hearing loss" should be free to purchase these sort of generic hearing aids in much the same way that buying non-prescription reading glasses is common. If problems persist, it is time to consult a professional.
An improperly tuned hearing aid can make your hearing worse though...actively causing further damage.
This is the same reason prescription glasses are prescription. They change your vision over time.
Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I now just buy contacts online from Europe or New Zealand. I would love to do that, could you share which vendors you use?
I usually just search for "contact lenses EU", check they ship to US (most will list this in their FAQ) and pick the cheapest. Looking through my email receipts, I've used: lenstore.co.uk visiondirect.co.uk contactsexpress.ca specsavers.co.nz
I've had a good experience from vision direct. A student I know says it's the recommended option for foreign students at the university in the UK they go to.
Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription
#117Some feature requests for hearing aid: Can we get hearing aids that are bigger? These small hearing aids make it easier to lose, and I do not mind looking "disabled" to people. Also would like to use bluetooth to both locate the hearing aids, and to connect to devices as needed. Would be cool if the battery can be recharged as needed, maybe through usb-c if possible, but magnetic charging would be acceptable.
All of that is currently available. (and has been for a decade)
Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
An improperly tuned hearing aid can make your hearing worse though...actively causing further damage.
Right, but I can also buy an improperly tuned chainsaw and cut my arm off. I’d argue that there should be a giant warning on the box about proper tuning, and leave it at that.
But who does the "proper" tuning?
Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are some online retailers that have pretty good prices.
Spare a link or two?
I like these: https://eyeglassfactoryoutlet.com
Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are some online retailers that have pretty good prices.
Spare a link or two?