Initially, my enthusiasm was similar to Anne's, and I was looking forward to recommend to all my friends. I found the office staff very pleasant and knowledgeable, and there are some great technicians there.
I headed into the procedure expecting it to be smooth, but my experience during and after the operation made me feel awful. It felt like a rush job and they seemed more concerned about getting it over with rather than how I was doing, or even the outcome.
Dr. Clinch is an expert, however most of my consultation was done with assistants. There were a few minutes spent with him before the procedure, but his attention seemed to be focused on running some tests during this time, not actually sitting down discussing the procedure.
One problem was the doctor's attitude during and after the operation. During the surgery he and his staff made some flippant remarks which made me feel very uncomfortable.
At one point it was --excruciatingly-- painful on one of the eyes and I thought something had gone wrong because it only happened in one eye, while the other eye felt fine. I think it's because they didn't bother to communicate with me about finding the best placement of the cups around my eyes, and one cup was off center. By the time I realized what happened, the cut had already been made. Rush job.
There were moments when the doctor seemed very cocky and disinterested. Post-op, he seemed annoyed to talk
any further about the procedure or follow-up, and neither he nor his assistant bothered to go into any detail.
There are supposed to be a series of follow-up examinations after a laser surgery procedure. I got one very cursory check after the operation. I reported seeing halos at night, and they brushed this off, telling me this is common and would go away over time. The halos never went away. I still experience them at night. More than once I found myself hoping that someday they come out with some corrective procedure to eliminate these halos. They are distracting and make it harder to see when I'm driving at night.
Eye laser surgery patients, once qualified, generally pay a lump sum for the consultation, tests, procedure and follow-up exams. As far as the rest of my visits, the office never scheduled any of them. They were so good about scheduling everything before the operation though. Maybe it was because after the operation they already had my money. Before surgery everything was great but from my experience during and after the operation, I got the feeling that this office could have been more concerned about their patients' welfare.
BOTTOM LINE: This is one of the most critical and precision-demanding medical procedures of your life. Seek a doctor who shows a personal level of care for each of his patients and is willing to take time with you. You are paying top dollar and deserve an extremely high level of care with a procedure like this.
Up until the day of the procedure, I was so pleased with this practice because they were efficient. But the assembly line attitude did not go over well when they got to the surgery stage, and they really dropped the ball as far as following up. Maybe other doctors at this practice do things differently.
An eye doctor really should be more generous with his time and care, especially considering the critical importance of dual-eye surgery, and the thousands of dollars spent. I didn't experience it. Slam, bam, thank you, ma'am. read more