Unfortunately, my sentiments are pretty close to the earlier review, but let me lay out my…read moreexperience so you can decide for yourself.
I had a stye on the underside of one of my eyelids which had callused and, according to my optometrist, not going to heal on its own. I asked UPMC first (also my insurance provider), and the earliest time they could find an optomologist who could perform the surgery would have been a month & a half away. My optometrist referred me to Everett and Hurite, so I gave the nearest one a call. I told them my issue, and my referring optometrist, and they said the optomologist/surgeon could see me at the end of July, about 3.5 weeks in the future.
I specified that my optometrist had said the stye would need to be lanced and drained, and so the diagnosis was done and I just needed the surgery. The office reception said the doctor needed to see me first, but then she could do the surgery. The day of, I took a scheduled sick day off work (ironically, I'm an essential worker too, I make eyeglasses as a lab technician, but there's nobody to cover for me unfortunately), I arrived only 5 minutes early, sat in the lobby for a bit over half an hour (episode of a home renovation show finished on the TV, to make waiting pass the time easier), had a nurse perform a reading acuity test, struggle with a digital scope which I can't remember what it was for (it was unrelated to the stye), and a couple other things. THEN, the optometrist shows up, basically says "Yep, that's a stye," squeezes it a few times, and then informs me that she doesn't have time to drain it today and schedules me for another appointment a week later. I paid the $80 co-pay and the doc's office got more from my insurance, just to confirm what I had already told them and my optometrist had already diagnosed, so that I could lose a second day of work.
The week later, I came for the surgery, this time for real. The wait was much more brief, they used the digital scope to check my eye again (but didn't struggle to make it work this time, or administer the reading test), and then they were ready for the surgery. They put a mask over my face and injected a numbing agent several times, and tried to keep up a conversation with me as they performed the surgery to distract me from the fact that my eye was open and I couldn't really blink. I think they worked with expediency. There was no need for any stitches, just a gauze eyepatch that looked less Pirate and more Phantom of the Opera.
I tried to pay my bill immediately, they said they would mail it to me; as of the time of writing it just arrived this week, to the tune of about $150 (my health insurance paid an additional $250). $75 of the charges was for an "XTRNL OCULAR PHOTOG," if that's a photo they took I never saw it and they didn't offer to share it with my optometrist or PCP.
My rating attempts to balance how I feel about the time I spent on two visits which I feel could easily have been done in one, balanced with the fact that they did get the job done. It has healed well, and I am grateful my eye is back to normal.