Greedy Optometrist Don’t Like Competition

Photo:www.flickr.com/photos/ el_ramon/3991707892/

Everyday on our google alerts we get a notice about cheap online glasses and contacts. This one blog post really got to me – #1- I don’t think every optometrist is greedy #2) Low placement of value placed on optical professionals. #3) Degradation of products

What I think- if you are an optical professional you should respond to their post and make a comment:

Greedy Optometrist Don’t Like Competition

I have written before about the high price of prescription eyewear. What is essentially two pieces of glasses and a couple of cents worth of plastic around it gets sold for several hundred dollars just because that is what the market will bear. Well, the market decided it would not bear it any more. More and more people turned to online retailers for eyeglasses.

You would think that optometrists would see the writing on the wall and reduce their prices to compete in this changed environment. But that is not the case, at least in the case of some optometrists. A friend of mine recently showed me an online discussion group for optometrists on which these “professionals” posted their opinions on people who ask them for the pupilary distance so that they can get away from their greedy clutches, and buy their glasses online for much cheaper.

It astounded me to read the way these people treat their high prices as entitlements. It was obvious right from the first few comments that all these people cared about was the money. If they were losing business because of this new trend, goes their logic, then they have the right to retaliate using whatever means they have at their disposal. Some of the comments posted on the discussion forum are reproduced below:

“Charge 35.00 to 49.00 for it and give it to them in an encrypted format so that it is only decipherable to you but looks realistic to them. For instance, their pd is 62 ou . so you record it as a derivative of your unique base number . If you base is 100 then their pd is – 38 or give it as a monocular number. If your base is 60 then their pd is + 1 ou . If you used 120 as your base standard then pd becomes 58 binocularly. Your scope measures PD as a base of 0″

Notice how callously this poster suggests they lie to you. Eventually, to make the numbers realistic, they would have to fudge it only by a small, but unknown (to you) number. So, you would actually think it was the correct pupilary distance and use it in filling out an online order for eye wear. Guess what it is going to do to your eyesight though. You think this poster has ever heard of the hippocratic oath of never doing harm first?

“Why would you even entertain and change your business model to accomodate (sic) these people? Notice I didn’t say customers. These are NOT your customers. They are searching for the lowest price period. Not wanting to pay $30 for a PD? Please! Ok so how about this? If every ECP refused to provide a PD, even for a fee then I wonder how the unregulated online opticals would be doing?”

So, you go to these people for your eye exam (which by the way, does cost money, and which can not be done online, so these online eye wear retailers are not really a threat to the optometrists’ main profession of examining patients’ eyes. But now that they have gotten used to bilking their customers for not just writing the prescription for filling it too, they seem to have be having withdrawal symptoms). But that does not make you their customer or patient enough to give you your full prescription. If you don’t buy their hyper-inflated glasses, then you are no good to them. Their solution is to band up and refuse to provide you a full prescription so that you can not save money. Nice . . .!

“In my humble opinion, we should ALL absolutely refuse to get involved with servicing, repairing, adjusting, or even touching a pair of eyeglasses that were purchased without the total involvement of an eye care professional from the start of the process… period… never… not even for compensation. If we were all united in this approach, within a few years the word would spread, and patients would begin to realize that whatever little money they thought they were saving by ordering a personalized, medical device over the internet, was money thrown away. We would then see Internet sales dwindle to nothing.”

Humble opinion, indeed. While we are at it, why not abolish the internet, and take over the world too? Sounds good to me!

“In our office, a PD is not taken unless the patient is ordering glasses, meaning it’s not a regular measurement performed as part of an eye exam. If the patient wants us to provide that service (the act of taking the measurement), we do it for a charge, just like all the other tests and measurements we perform. For our fee, we will also verify the Rx once it has been filled, if the patient wants to show their sheepish face again after obviously taking their business elsewhere. “

This is a nice, subtle, and lucrative redefinition of what an eye exam and accompanying prescription are supposed to contain. Why not charge separately for each number and plus or minus sign on the prescription too. And it goes without saying that if a patient is not wearing a ludicrously over-priced pair of glasses sold by this optometrist, their face would only look sheepish, no question about it. I wonder what my employer would think if I started charging them by the line for code I write . . .

“I once had a person who tried to cover his true motives so hard I was all happy and cheery and said “We don’t charge anything for an eye test!”

What he didn’t know is that times were so slow in store we didn’t have anything better to do.

I did a complete eye test and managed to keep her in the exam room for over 45 minutes!.

When we were done she said: “Ok, thanks can I have a presription?”

And I replied: “That’ll be €30,-”

Her getting angry: “But you said an eye test was free of charge?”

I replied, “The test is for free, the prescrtiption isn’t unless you buy a pair of glasses.” (which is actually the company’s policy).

She then left the store ranting about how I wasted her time!

My collegues almost died laughting.

But seriously, a free PD test? That’s a no-no. You can take a complete eye exam and pay €30,- or get lost.”

Nice. Remember, these are supposed to be professionals, not middle-school pranksters. Most middle-school pranksters wouldn’t stoop to such levels of immaturity, but that is another post for another day . . .

“I tell them something like: “Sorry, but I cannot give you the measurements to go and buy your glasses on line.” Then I explain that we are in business to sell glasses ourselves, not to facilitate purchase elsewhere. Of course I don’t use the word “facilitate”, because it seems like many of our patients are truly not smarter than a 5th grader. “

Ooh, another gem. This brainerd has a pretty high opinion about the brain power of his customers, you can tell! When the customer pay him $150 for a pair of $5 glasses, I am sure he becomes a genius, but when he does not satisfy this optometrist’s greed, he has the brain-power of a 5th grader!!

You see a doctor because you trust the doctor has your best interests at heart. It goes to the very core of the doctor-patient relationship. How can you trust a professional when the professional is looking out only for himself and not for you? How would you feel if your regular doctor refused to write you a prescription for your drugs unless you bought the drugs from his own over-priced pharmacy? Would you trust the judgment of such a doctor to even write out the prescription for the correct drug rather than a more expensive drug that does not actually address your problem? Similarly, would you trust these optometrists not to change your prescription every time you go to them for a check-up just because it more lucrative for them that way?

Is the solution regulatory? Should state licensing bodies require optometrists to write out full prescriptions as part of every eye exam? Should they force optometrists to not own eyeglass stores (that is a bit like doctors all owning their own pharmacies) so that the temptation to mix the two separate lines of businesses (examining patients and selling eyeglasses) does not even exist?

Do you have experiences with eye care professionals who have become testy with you for not buying their over-priced glasses even though you have paid them plenty for the actual eye test itself? Sound off in the comments, and let others know how you have dealt with it. What do you think is the solution here? Should online retailers like Zenni set up deals with brick and mortar stores to measure pupilary distances for a small fee, with the online retailer picking up part of the tab? Should online retailers band together to set up storefronts for the express purpose of servicing their products, including measuring pupilary distances for their potential customers?

Read more: http://blogannath.blogspot.com/2010/06/greedy-optometrists-dont-like.html#ixzz0s0cDOgzn

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