Am pretty nervous about not writing a five star review as they have nothing but five star reviews. I had a pretty good experience with them, both in selecting them as my provider even though they were less convenient and in my actual appointment. It's hard to call this as good as it gets for two reasons. One reason, as someone else mentioned, is that the contact fitting exam fee is ridiculous--and even though theirs is much more reasonable, what you get is one more glance at your eyes with a bright light. The other is the glasses. There are a lot of stylish frame options available. None of them fit me or my partner. Neither ethnic chick nor white dude. We actually set aside money this year to get new frames, so now we have to figure that out somehow outside of this office. Will be an adventure in awkward shopping. That's the extent of my complaining. On to the good stuff.
I had a bad experience with another optometrist office located smack dab in the center of town. Like, walked-out-of-the-office bad. But I still really needed contacts. So I called around to the other optometrist offices Uptown. Well, the top 3 offices on Yelp, anyway. I received a call back the next day (and nothing from the other two offices at any point, by-the-by...) and after a tiny bit of phone tag got to speak with a fabulous staff member who was clear and invested in our conversation and helpful and just a pleasure to speak with. I made essentially side-by-side appointments for myself and partner for less than a week later at 7:45a so that we would both be done and at work before the whistle blows.
When we arrived, the security gate was down and there was a sign outside the store. I almost thought it was going to say, Under Renovation, Go Away! Nope. It said we open promptly at 7:45a. Once I was close enough to read the sign, I could also see that there were two staff members working diligently on computers in the dark. Prepping for the day, presumably. I window shopped at the neighbors in Overstreet Mall and, surprise: the security gate went up at 7:41a. We filled out a super brief form, sat down, and pretty much immediately stood up to be led to our respective rooms. My person (assistant???) was calm and efficient. My partner's person was apparently perky and morning-happy. Glad the pairing went the way it did as I would not have handled perky well at 7:45a.
The process was good--answer questions and gather history, get checked out on the latest and greatest machinery, double check my color perception and peripheral sensitivity and range of movement, then the doctor came in. She did the specific lens and letter checks to confirm that my vision hadn't changed one bit, double checked my contacts that matched the prescription and that I've been wearing for years do indeed fit, and left. The presumably perky person came in to help me close out, apologized that given my prescription, they didn't have anything in stock to tide me over until my new contacts arrived (not even remotely surprising but also amusing as this is supposed to be a core component of what is covered under the contact fitting fee), ordered contacts that I would have to physically come in to pick up in five days (or they could send it to me but it would take a few extra days for them to process and ship from the office...), etc.
Back out in the main office/store area, we looked at glasses (the cases are weird so you can't look at them without help but the "help" you get isn't very engaged or informative as to retail layout), and moved on. It was pretty painless, aside from the early hour which I specifically chose to not have to miss work.
My new contacts did arrive before I ran out. There wasn't anything done to check that my new lenses fit (which is also something supposedly covered under the contact fitting fee which is higher for new patients for this reason) and I walked in and walked out in just about the time it took to get the boxes from the back. The person at the front tried to help me opt out of getting a gazillion text messages (I texted STOP and stop and OptOut and STOPtoOptOut and everything else I could think of to make them stop but the kept coming!), but I suspect they didn't do it properly. We'll probably find out definitively in about a year.
Am going to stick with them, as really there were just a few small things I didn't like, but I just can't call this 5 stars. read more