Q & A

Yes!

Of course! We're accepting new patients and always welcome back our established patients. You can make an appointment here online anytime or by phone, email, or text message during our normal business hours! We look forward to seeing you!

We are located at 1212 Haywood Road, Suite 600, Greenville, SC 29615. This is in the Haywood Commons office park across from Faith Free Presbyterian Church.

Our office is open Monday through Friday, from 8am - 5pm.

PD stands for pupillary distance and is just one of many measurements an Optician considers when making your glasses. The pupillary distance is not a required part of any glasses prescription in South Carolina but is instead the responsibility of the person making the glasses (i.e. the Optician, Optometrist, or Ophthalmologist). Often, requests for pupillary distance are made with the intention of purchasing glasses online. When you decide to make glasses online, you are effectively acting as your optician and are thus responsible for these measurements. Unfortunately, due to the frequency with which online glasses do not meet prescription or safety requirements, we do not encourage this practice. We charge $20 to measure your PD if you choose not to purchase glasses from our office.

Of course! We can provide a paper or emailed copy through a secure email server. Email, text, or call us if you need help getting your Rx.

Nope, you can come in anytime before 4:30 Monday through Friday. You will just need to check in with the front desk and they will have an optician come and help you.

During a contact lens evaluation, your doctor will evaluate your prescription, eye health, and fit to ensure that the lenses you are wearing are indeed the healthiest and clearest for your eyes. Many contact-lens related findings during an exam can be potentially harmful to your eyes and occur without symptoms. When we evaluate your eyes for contact lenses, our doctors are looking out for current and future problems that may occur with your contacts. Ultimately, we want your eyes to stay healthy and for you to see clearly your entire life, and this extra attention and care is necessary since you’re wearing a medical device on your eyes every day!

We accept many vision insurances, discount plans, and medical insurances. For a shorter list, we do NOT accept Davis Vision, Spectera, VBA, United Healthcare Vision, Absolute Total Care, Ambetter, or Cigna Medicare Advantage. Please give us a call with your insurance information and we’d be happy to verify coverage!

Like any doctor, we bill medical insurance for medical (in our case, eye) problems. Routine vision plans are meant to be used for routine health exams only. We collect both cards when you become our patient so that if you have a medical condition, we already have that information. This makes your life easier if you end up having a medical eye condition or you need our assistance with an eye emergency at a later date. In addition, some medical plans and vision plans are linked, and we must have your medical insurance information in order to find your vision plan information.

Vision plans can be super confusing, even to us and we deal with them every day! Often, medical insurances offer a vision plan component that is outsourced to a different company. We often must do some digging to find out who your plan is through. We always need to know the primary account holder for the plan, THEIR date of birth and THEIR social, as well as your information. This is just how many plans structure their eligibility lookup systems. Calling with AS MUCH information as possible helps us greatly, as we often become detectives searching for your vision plan information!

Medicare covers a medical eye exam only. Here is a list of things Medicare does NOT cover: refraction (this is where the doctor figures out your glasses prescription), screening tests (unless the doctor orders a medical version due to a medical diagnosis), contacts lens fits, glasses, and contacts.

Medicare has determined that it is the patient’s responsibility to pay for the refraction. Unfortunately, that is Medicare’s determination and our office is just following their guidelines.

No, they do not. Medicare will contribute to a pair of glasses ONCE in your life, and that is immediately following cataract surgery.

No. There is no contact lens evaluation benefit OR any materials benefit. If you would like to wear contact lenses and have Medicaid, your contact lens fit and the contacts themselves will be completely out of pocket.

Alternately, Select Health (First Choice) covers a base level Contact Lens Evaluation.

No, Medicaid in South Carolina does not allow for upgrades.

There are a couple of reasons why this may have happened.

• We messed up and left off a copay or test or some other line item. If this happens (and it does, sometimes) we will call you as soon as we catch the mistake so you are not caught off guard with a bill you don’t expect.

• ​​​​​​​Your medical insurance/vision plan reviewed your claim and adjusted the amount you owe. This can be because you haven’t yet met your deductible, or something is unexpectedly denied.

​​​​​​​We are continually adjusting our procedures and systems to better estimate patient responsibility when you are in the office.

In terms of the exam, we are very intentional about following your insurance copays to a T. We never know what you may have been charged in the past but we follow copays and allowances exactly.

We offer some extra testing at our office, including a photo of the back of your eye (retina). It is not covered by insurances typically when done for a screening purpose, but we offer them to you because they give more information and a better record of your eye health over time. Without these tests, your examination is still very thorough and complete, but with the testing we can watch for subtle changes over time, possibly catching potentially blinding eye conditions before they do damage. With this testing, we can typically catch undiagnosed hypertension, undiagnosed diabetes, undiagnosed autoimmune conditions, sickle cell retinopathy, strokes, macular degeneration, benign as well as malignant lesions in the eye and much more!

The answer to this is *almost* always “yes.” Dilation will make you lightsensitive and makes your vision blurry at near. This resolves in 4-6 hours. For a small number of patients, the light sensitivity makes them feel uncomfortable driving. For another small subset, the dilation does affect distance vision. If you have any concerns about driving while dilated, we encourage you to bring a driver or reschedule a dilation-only appointment for a time when you have a driver or can wait-it-out in our lobby until you feel safe driving again.

Yes! Your complete eye exam includes dilation, and we can have you come back at another time for that test if it better suits your schedule to do so.

Yes, they do! Not only do we want to give them the same thorough evaluation of eye health that we give our adults, but many children’s focusing systems are also so strong that it can be difficult to determine their prescription exactly. Dilation helps relax kids’ focusing systems, ensuring we can detect the full prescription that is present.

It takes your brain (anyone’s brain!) a little time to adjust to a new prescription. This is especially true if there has been a change, if it is your first-time wearing glasses, or if you’re putting on new progressives for the first time. It often takes up to 2 weeks for patients to fully adjust to their new prescription! Don’t worry, and give it time. HOWEVER, if you’re still having trouble after a couple of weeks with adjusting, we ABSOLUTELY want to know about it!

Our warranty does not cover lost or stolen glasses, unfortunately.

Glasses lenses are custom ordered with your exact prescription and custom fit to your frame, which is custom fit to your face by our optical team. Due to the nature of glasses being such a custom purchase, we do not offer a return policy. However, if you are unhappy with your glasses, there are a number of things our optical team can do to make sure you love your glasses. We encourage our patients to let us know in the first month after they pick up their glasses if they are experiencing any vision or fit problems. This allows us to respond promptly to any issues and help guide you through the process of resolving any problems you may be experiencing.