Why should I buy my contacts from an optometrist?
Recently, a trend has begun in the contact lens wearing community to consider buying your contact lenses from online stores rather than the traditional method of ordering through your trusted optometrist. While these sites may tout cheap prices and convenient to-your-door delivery, there are a number of advantages that these online stores are either unwilling or unable to deliver, that your trusted family optometrist is able and willing to provide. At Mountain Eye Care, our patients can order their contact lenses on our website. There are many advantages of doing this, and in this blog, we share some information about why you should buy your contacts from an optometrist.
The open box policy
In the eyecare world, prescriptions change. It’s a simple fact of life. But, if you ordered your contact lenses from an online store and have already opened the box, you are unlikely to be able to return them, even though the contact lenses you currently have are no longer the prescription you need for your best vision. Your options are either to continue on with sub-par contacts or pay full price all over again to get another box of contacts that fit your new prescription. And then, of course, hope that your prescription doesn’t change again. This is not so if you ordered from your optometrist. Most, if not all, optometric practices have an “open box policy,” meaning that if your prescription changes, you are able to come to Mountain Eye Care and exchange your old prescription for your updated one for free, even if the box is already open.
Personal relationships
The role of your eye doctor is not only to help you see your best but also to help you safeguard your overall eye health and visual comfort. Part of fulfilling this role is maintaining a personal relationship with each and every patient. The same cannot be said of online contact lens retailers, with which you are unlikely to have any personal relationship at all. Whereas your eye doctor maintains a relationship centered on your overall visual health, an online contact lens retailer maintains a relationship-centered around your money and takes no responsibility for your overall eye health.
If there are problems that result from your contact lenses, such as eye infection or dry eyes, you are more likely to be able to solve these issues by speaking to a professional, trained and educated eye doctor at Mountain Eye Care with whom you have a personal relationship than by speaking to a customer service agent whom you have never, and likely will never, meet, and who is there solely to fill orders and make sure the money keeps flowing.
At Mountain Eye Care, we are always encouraging our patients to order their contact lenses online from our website. However, if online purchases are not your forte, then come into our vision car facility and get fitted with your contact lenses in person! For more information about why you should buy contacts from an optometrist, we encourage you to continue browsing through our website. Click here to find our contact information or speak with a representative.