Blog vol 3. 5. Can I have my prescription, please?
It was only a few years ago that some enterprising companies started providing spectacles online. At the time the industry experts predicted that online ordering would not amount to much.
Fast forward to 2022, with a gentle nudge from a worldwide pandemic, the number of online prescriptions being filled is legion. The fact remains, people want to order online, and the fact remains that you can get almost everything online.
There are certain services that cannot be done online, such as a brake job on your car, or a root canal on your tooth.
What these have in common is timely intervention, custom procedure, and personal care.
Healthcare should ideally not be done online. Professional, experienced, real person observation of real person patient who can voice concerns and complaints…
Custom measurements, personal care, education about your options and what would work best for you, and counselling and support after the fact, are so important to successful treatment.
Go to a professional health care provider, in person. For eyes and eyeglasses, see an optometrist.
Just yesterday, I had a patient who wanted to order online. The prescription was quite high and would require much attention to details about the frame, its size and shape, and how it fits the patient, with parameters like pantoscopic tilt, vertex distance, and frame wrap being important; and then attention to the right spectacle lens, with lens material, coating, and lens design to be considered.
The patient wanted the prescription and pupillary distance (P.D.) and is ordering online. This will not go well.
Some prescriptions do lend themselves better to online ordering, to be fair.
You use your eyes all the time; you rely on them. You wear your glasses all the time; you want to look good and feel good. Unless you try the frame on, how are you to know if it feels comfortable or really looks WOW!? For sure? What about adjustments and support? And someone to answer your questions? And fix your problems?
I rest my case.
Til next week,
the good doctor
