81–90 of 326 posts
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My ophthalmologist claimed he didn’t have the equipment to add PD to his prescription. Bald-faced liar. BTW, the app is called PD Measure.
Ophthalmologist or optometrist? Very different, and I think the difference needs to be overstated more and more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My ophthalmologist claimed he didn’t have the equipment to add PD to his prescription. Bald-faced liar. BTW, the app is called PD Measure.
Ophthalmologist or optometrist? Very different, and I think the difference needs to be overstated more and more.
He's also absolutely dogmatic and dismissive about how LASIK is safe (although he didn't push it for me).
He did give me my PD, though.
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Why can't a new company simply undercut the competition? I don't imagine the barriers to entry are too high for manufacturing glasses, are they?
> Why can't a new company simply undercut the competition? They can and they do [1]. They just don't have the same marketing budget, so you don't hear as much about them. [1] https://www.zennioptical.com/
Same reason medical care is so expensive in the US: Insurance and the art of the upsell. The provider gets to charge high prices because the bulk of the cost is covered by insurance and thus "hidden" from consumers. The insurance company gets a non-trivial cut of the pie, which pads the bill further. And in my experience, when you go in with something wrong with you, most doctors will recommend (or perform without as…
I would suggest checking out other optometrists, most have a much better insurance wall than they had a couple of decades ago. Or go online (to order, not suggesting an eye exam over webcam :D ). That said, I'm currently getting cataracts removed and IOL implants and insurance is like "correcting your astigmatism isn't needed so we won't cover the IOL that does that, just your distance vision". If correcting my visio…
Just thirty years ago you may have never even gotten an IOL due to tradition or cost. After adoption in the developed world there was a huge push to prevent lower income countries from accessing the technology because they “didn’t need” that technology and could benefit from lower cost interventions such as glasses.
So as companies started to innovate and lower cost, single vision non toric IOLs became cheap enough for insurance to cover. Then to make some money on premium lenses companies (and ophthalmologists, sadly) really started to push torics and multifocal lenses.
The fact of the matter is that few patients benefit all that much from toric lenses that fix astigmatism. Most people have less than 1 diopter of astigmatic error, which they don’t even manufacture a toric lens for at any usable tolerance (the FDA allows a +/-0.50D tolerance to all lenses including torics), and surgical modifications can nullify that to some extent. Veterans get it free at most VA hospitals though, so they probably get more implanted than the average population.
In the next fifteen years though I bet Medicare will begin to cover toric lenses, and the rest of the insurance industry will follow. The surgery doesn’t change much between toric and non toric. The Multifocal IOLs will remain “premium” for a while to come I expect.
Nothing new under the sun.
If there was a tire that never wore our, would it be manufactured?
If there was a simple, cheap cancer treatment, would all associated businesses that profit from the treatment of cancer shut down?
If internet could be offered at 10x for the speed, for 1/10th the cost, would it be? Only if the incentives line up for the dominant player(s).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why can't a new company simply undercut the competition? They can and they do [1]. They just don't have the same marketing budget, so you don't hear as much about them. [1] https://www.zennioptical.com/
Not to mention the pupillary distance is not commonly included on optical prescriptions which creates a significant hurdle, even though it can be measured yourself or usually given when asked.
The glasses I got from my optometrist are much better, at 3X - 4X the price of Zenni.
Sunglass frames are in every petrol station. Would it be possible to 3d-print a resin with known index of refraction, then go to town on the buffing wheel for an hour? Would love to hear more about DIY corrective lenses.
You can get glasses from Zenni for under $10 (their website says they start at $6.95), you'd have a hard time beating their price with DIY, gas station sun glasses cost more than that around here. Of course, at that price you're not getting the lightest lenses, or coatings, but you're probably not getting that with DIY either.
I've been paying $350-400 for my high strength prescription glasses for most of my life. Last time around I heard you could order from England and get them for a fraction. Found selectspecs.com and got my -10's for ~100 shipped to my door. Not affiliated at all, just glad I don't have to pay the gouge in the US anymore.
That's a great deal. Were they 1.74 index?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why can't a new company simply undercut the competition? I don't imagine the barriers to entry are too high for manufacturing glasses, are they?
Your employer may offer pre-tax vision insurance, this vision insurance is run by Luxottica, and works exclusively at their retail locations and brands. Sometimes employers will even pay part of the vision insurance premium, thus making it, so your choices are to leave that money on the table OR pay completely out of pocket post-tax dollars. There are alternative ways to use pretax dollars on eyeware, but many people…
Glasses are expensive because there is no competition. One company - Luxottica - owns pretty much everything. You go to LensCrafters and prices seem super expensive, so you go to Pearle Vision and that's expensive too, so you go to Target Optical and prices are still high and then you think maybe glasses are expensive, since you went to multiple stores and they all have similar prices. What you don't realize is that…
I worked on the retail IT side of things at Luxottica. I don't even think that you've scratched the surface of just how prevalent Luxottica is: you've touched the retail side of things, but, you also haven't touched the manufacturing side of things (Lux has patents on the hinges used in glasses), the wholesaling side of things (Lux supplies generic and branded frames to your local optician on less-than-preferred term…
I buy them from https://zennioptical.com
I don't think that I'd ever pay more than $100 for a frame again.
The sunglasses that we buy in a drugstore can be had for paltry sums, why not prescription eyewear?