So, I used to recommend America’s Best Contacts and Eyeglasses as a good, cheap place to get glasses or contacts. I can’t really say I do any more, at least at the one in West Des Moines with the eye doctor they currently have.
Here’s what happened: I went in last Saturday for an eye exam to get a new pair of contacts. My pair of contacts had totally worn out and since my prescription from my last visit had expired, I needed a new exam. The exam went fine, and the doctor recommended a slightly higher prescription, which I thought was a little odd since I wasn’t really notcing any trouble seeing with my old prescription.
After the exam, I went to the counter where you “check out” and order your contacts. Now, I have been a customer of America’s Best for over ten years. They used to carry my kind of contacts in the store, but now with the rising popularity of disposable contacts, they don’t carry a very large stock of the “annual” variety I use, especially for stronger prescriptions like mine. After they stopped carrying my contacts in stock, and knowing I lived outside of Des Moines, the clerk who takes the glasses and contacts orders have generally suggested that if I am only ordering contacts that I should order online where no shipping will be charged — otherwise if they are sent to the store and then mailed to me in Ames, they will have to charge a $5-$7 shipping fee.
I told the clerk that I would like to do as in the past and order my contacts online so I would need the information to do that. She asks if I mean I want my written prescription and I say, “sure.” She goes back to get it from the doctor, and comes back empty handed. She tells me the doctor won’t give out my prescription unless I first come back in for a “re check” to make sure the lenses fit. At first, I thought that meant that I couldn’t order them online at all, so I ask to talk to the doctor about it.
I ask the doctor why I can’t just have the written prescription, and she again says something about needed a re-check first. I remind her that I have been wearing the same brand of contacts for over 10 years. She says I have never had a re-check. I said, I have, but it was a number of years ago at another America’s Best location and I have never had problems with this type of lens. She says, well this is actually a slightly different kind of lens (which I found out later it is actually not, just a different name) and besides, it is “illegal” to give out the written prescription without a re-check. I mention that the doctors I have seen there the last two or three years have always given the written prescription with no re-check required. She said something along the lines of, “Well I don’t break the law.”
I complained about the fact that she was going to make me drive to Des Moines again just to get this re-check, and she said that wasn’t what she meant — I could order them online without the actual written prescription. I asked how I could do that without even knowing what to put in the blanks when you order online. She said I could leave them all blank, even put in any kind of contact brand or type, and since they have to check back with the location where I got the prescription anyway, it didn’t matter. I protested a little, since I knew that they charge you based on what brand or type you put in, and I wondered why they would even ask you what the numbers of your prescription are if you don’t really need it. Finally, she conceeded and told me the name of the brand, and told me again that I really didn’t need to know the numbers in order to get the order placed. I grudgingly said “thanks” and left.
I went home and finally placed the order on Monday morning. I notice that this “new” brand of contacts has the name of the “old” brand in parenthesis next to it. Out of curiosity, I looked back at my written prescription from last year — sure enough, both names are written on it. So much for a “new” type of contacts. It was just a re-naming of something old.
On Wednesday, I get an email from the online branch of America’s Best telling me I have no prescription on file. So, I call customer service and they keep me on hold while they call the America’s Best in West Des Moines to track down my prescription. When they come back on the phone with me, they say there is something they aren’t sure about in my file, and they would need to talk to the doctor, who wasn’t in for the rest of the day, before they place my order.
They call back this morning, and get this — they tell me that the brand of contacts only goes up (or would it be down?) to a -8, but my prescription was now a -8.5. I ask if they can subsitute some other brand that does come in the right prescription, and they said they could not because my prescription was written for this brand. The woman on the phone says they cannont order any contacts for me because I basically have a non-existant prescription. I ask if they can call the doctor at the America’s Best in West Des Moines to get a new prescription on a different brand, she says “Oh, I guess I could do that,” with a tone of voice as though the idea had never occured to her before.
A couple hours later I receive an email stating my order had been shipped. I looked at the details on what they had actually sent me. Apparently the doctor “downgraded” my prescription back to a -8.0 so I could get that brand of contacts I had originally ordered.
Now, I am really glad this got worked out but it is disturbing on several levels. First of all, I doubt it is really “illegal” to give a prescription out without a re-check to a returning customer. Second, this doctor had apparently had no idea that these were the same kind of contacts with a new name and that they did not go to as strong a prescription as she wanted to give me. Finally, did I really need the upgraded prescription or not? If it would have been really necessary, she would have not changed the power of the prescription. But, if that was the case, why did she give me the -8.5 prescription in the first place.
Needless to say, although it will cost me more money, I will be going somewhere else next year!
