Want a Laugh?

[Mawsky]

I'm very new to this dry eye business and have been to see an opthamologist in my area, I have yet to get a diagnosis, he simple said "you have severe dry eyes" put plugs in my upper punctums (cant do lower because of prior surgery) and handed my an RX for Restasis. I saw him twice with a combined time of roughly 17 minutes, and I'm being generous. After handing my the Rx I was told to return in 6 weeks, my appointment is fast approaching. I recieved a courtesy call from a employee at the office, I thought how nice, they are calling to check on me and how I'm doing, I wanted to talked about my dry eyes, and hopefully get some further advice, to my surprise she wanted to talk about evaluating me for a Lasiks procedure, I said, I had in the past considered having this done, as my son had with no problems. But was she really suggesting I so something like this, when Dry eyes are a known side effect?? Did she realize I was producing no tears? I was facing 2 surgeries to correct my punctums that had been surgically enlarged 2 yrs ago? Her answer was I should look into having the procedure where they insert a lens in my eye instead, after all its much less likely to cause dry eye???? I could not believe it! After feeling slighted I laughed so hard, that if I had had any tears to cry they would have been rolling down my face. To think I already paid this guy over 300 dollars out of pocket (he charged 750 for the 2 appts.) I'm canceling my follow up appointment!

[Rebecca Petris]

...or cry!

You know, your story is really the perfect illustration of the depth of long-term damage elective refractive surgery has done to the profession of ophthalmology. It's turned it into quite an impersonal commercial venture.

What probably happened was simply that once you had visited once, you were marked in their database for the next round of refractive marketing calls (probably happens to ALL new patients). Same thing happened to me when I went for a retinal exam for the first time in Silverdale after moving here from Florida. The retina guy was in a large practice... I won't mention names... which also houses one of the largest lasik businesses in the area. It took quite awhile to get myself off the mailing list. I just sighed every time I received an invitation to a "seminar" in the mail. I think probably the way they work is with an outside marketing firm. Obviously they did not bother to filter their contact database before sending it to the marketers.

[indrep]

My wife went to a "friendly" eye doc for insertion of four plugs. His tech was all over her for LASIK even after learning she was there for plugs and my wife. Amazing what "incentivized" people will do for a dollar.

[Mawsky]

You guys are so right! I do think that the person who called me was within their practice and not outside marketing though, but I'm sure a lot of offices do this, it is such a money maker for them, and with what he charged me for the two very short visits, they are all about the money, the person who called me initially asked how the dry eyes were going, so she was very aware, it sounded like she had my chart in front of her. It is so sad that money seems to drive them, and not a real concern for the patient. I know that a lot of people who get refractory surgery do not have problems with dry eyes, but why they would ever suggest someone suffering with it already should undergo this shows how little they care about their patients. By the way i just called and canceled my follow up appointment.