A Tug-of-War Over Contact Lenses - Brief Article

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, Dec, 1999 by Stephanie Gallagher

Finding discount prices is easy--if you can get your prescription.

Contact lenses can be a lot cheaper when you buy them through the mail than when you buy them through your eye doctor. Trouble is, some doctors are keeping a tight grip on lens prescriptions because they'd rather keep the profits in their practice.

Rayna Brachmann, a 26-year-old legal researcher from Reno, Nev., recently switched to Biocompatible's Proclear Compatibles lenses, which have a high water content that makes them well-suited to Nevada's desert climate. But her optometrist balked when she asked if the lenses were available from another source. "One, he didn't think they were available from any other source," Brachmann says, "and two, he had heard they weren't as highly controlled as those dispensed through doctors."

Neither assertion is true. Brachmann got on the Internet and found her lenses on several Web sites for $35.95 for a box of six pairs. (Her doctor was charging $50 a box.) Brachmann says her doctor told her that lenses offered by places like 1-800-Contacts may have failed manufacturers' quality checks. Bausch & Lomb, Johnson & Johnson and other lensmakers say there's no difference in quality between the lenses sold through doctors and those sold directly to consumers.

STATES CRACK DOWN. Attorneys general in 32 states have sued the American Optometric Association and two of the top contact-lens manufacturers (Vistakon, a division of Johnson & Johnson, and Bausch & Lomb), alleging that the AOA tried to get manufacturers to agree to sell disposable lenses only through optometrists or other eye-care professionals. The attorneys general say they also have evidence that doctors agreed to withhold prescriptions from people who sought to buy lenses from other sources, despite the fact that at least 22 states have laws requiring eye doctors to give out contact-lens prescriptions upon request.

Although the AOA says patients should be able to buy their lenses anywhere, the organization has reservations about mail-order purchases. "The difficulty when someone goes through mail order is that they don't come back for regular checkups," says AOA president Dr. Harvey Hanlen.

BE PERSISTENT. What should you do if you have trouble prying your prescription out of your doctor's hands? Your state attorney general's office should be able to tell you whether your state requires doctors to give out prescriptions. If yours doesn't, try reassuring your doctor that you will not neglect necessary follow-up visits, or ask him or her to match prices you've found at an online or mail-order source.

When comparing prices, be sure to factor in any shipping charges that add to your mail-order costs. And ask what a discounter's policy is on replacing damaged or missing lenses; many doctors replace them free. Also check the expiration date when you get your lenses to make sure they haven't expired.

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