cost of lenses not on nhs

[imernater]

Hi , new on here and although similar post has already been put on here, im just curious how much these kerasoft ic cost and other brands, next week i start all my meetings and appointments to try and sort my eyes out but be good to have some of your wisdom so as not to go into the meetings blind ( like my play with words !!) .

so far im booked into an opticians 25 pound eye test and 25 pound contact consultation total 50 pound, to me thats ridiculous!!

thursday accuvision consultation 150 ( although advertised free consultation)

just noticed vision express do half price eye test for 11 pound so might just waver the first opticians and go to vision express for eye test. but i want contact lens info too.

its a bit weird how these companys advertise and say the c3-r is a quick and simple process but it costs thousands to get done.
money money money but end of the day its our eyes? SO HOW MUCH SHOULD I BE LOOKING TO SHELL OUT FOR CONTACTS

[Andrew MacLean]

If you are seeing an optometrist in a hospital, or one to whom the hospital has referred you, I'd have expected the consultation to be free and the lenses dispensed at the standard NHS rate of £52.50 per lens (or thereabouts).

I know that in Scotland all eye tests are free, but I had already heard that in other UK jurisdictions this is not the case.

Still, £50 for the consultation seems steep.

Andrew

[imernater]

Some good info thanks but im not using nhs as i have been down that poor quality and time consuming route so looking for costs private opt's do for contacts.

[Lia Williams]

Imernater,

When looking for an optician to fit you with contact lenses do check that they are prepared/able to fit someone with KC (there is a list of KC friendly opticians on this site).

The nhs/private decision is not straightforward. It's really a case of finding someone who has the lenses who that work for you. I have used private opticians and have great success and complete failure due to a lack of fitting sets. More recently I was looking for a new protein remover and I got chatting to a local optom (who did fit KC patients) who assured me that I was better off at a regional eye hospital (even if it is 2 hours away) as they would have the time to fit me.

Good luck in your search for lenses that work for you,

Lia

[imernater]

where can i find the list, have looked and can't find , i accept i am useless lol

[Lia Williams]

imernater,

The list can be found at:

http://www.keratoconus-group.org.uk/optoms/index.php


Lia

[Lynn White]

Hi There

Cost of lenses and consultations varies from practice to practice and actually the pricing you quote looks more related to normal contact lens practice than a specialist one. Fitting contact lenses for KC is vastly different to fitting mass produced disposable lenses on the High Street.

Most normal private eye examinations that are properly priced up (not discounted to get you in the door) would cost between £20 - £45 and contact lens consultation would be more. Most private practitioners who are expert in the field of KC would charge more than that.

I also have to say that, because in the UK most KC contact lens fitting is done in hospitals, you are unlikely to get sorted just by turning up at any High Street practice. KC is not a common enough problem for every practice to cater for it. That is precisely why the "Optom Friendly" list was compiled, to help you avoid traipsing round countless opticians trying to find someone who is willing to fit people with KC.

At the risk of being a little controversial, I would say you are trying to get something for nothing here. The NHS provides an excellent service free of charge as far as fitting goes and the £52.90 per lens is heavily discounted as far as CL supply is concerned. The "price" you pay for that is longer waiting times and maybe (depending where you are) less time to spend with the professional. In the private sector, normal market forces prevail and you pay for expertise and convenience. You seem to want the best of both worlds....

You will probably think that,even so, the prices are a "rip off". However, I know a lot of practitioners in the field of fitting KC and, even with prices that are currently charged, I would say the majority of them make a loss seeing KC patients because of the time involved. Most feel they simply cannot turn their back on "problem " patients and go several extra miles to help them simply because no-one else will do it.

As for a simple procedure costing "thousands", a lot of the cost involved goes towards theatre time and staff. CXL is simple but very time consuming and I know some private clinics that will not do the procedure because they cannot realistically charge for the time involved. Also, as KC is not exactly a common health problem, there is not the "volume throughput" in the private sector to drive down the price. If you look at private dental charges, you will see the sort of real costs that are involved in private health. The optical market, as far as consultations are concerned, is subsidised by spectacle sales.

So, I am afraid to say, if you want a cheap option, you are only going to find it in the NHS.

Lynn

[Lia Williams]

Lynn,

I agree with you completely.

Anyone who deals with a KC patient on the High Street has to have a passion to deal with challenging contact lens fittings. Certainly in the early 90’s when I had success on the High Street 1 was aware that I was one of the optician’s challenges. I was also aware of the number and length of consultations I had; not to mention the number of lenses that were prescribed or sent to back to the lab for modification. There was no way that having me as a patient made economic sense as I only paid the normal price for the consultations and lenses.

When I moved to different area I thought I had found someone else who could fit me. He couldn’t. He didn’t have the fitting sets – from a business point of view I can understand that a High Street practice; even one prepared to fit KC cannot possibly have all the fitting sets that a specialist eye hospital can.

Hence I attend a specialist regional eye hospital. Yes, it takes two hours to get there; the waiting times are unpredictable and even thinking about changing an appointment is a no-no, but at the end of it, and this is important, I can see. Or at least one eye is sorted the other has been undergoing a refit for the last couple of years. As Anne would say ‘work in progress’.

Lia

[dalbeath]

I don't want to sound like I'm gloating - I just want to reassure you that there are some fab opticians out there that don't rip you off. My opt is a private one on a high st, nothing to do with a hospital but he has years of KC experience and all the fitting sets and specialist kit etc. He has never charged me a consultation fee. I pay a very modest fee for my lenses. RGP lenses are about £70 each, but if I lose one he gets a new on with in 5 days. I never wait more than 4 or 5 days for a appointment.

Yes, he could not make a living if all his patients were KC patients and I'm sure 99% of the time he does it for the interest in KC and not the money.

But don't give up on finding a good high st opt - they do exist - good luck

[Lynn White]

Hi Dalbeath,

I am very glad that you have found a really good practitioner but I do have to take issue with your statement "there are some fab opticians out there that don't rip you off". Your post implies that any optometrist that charges an economic rate for seeing a patient is somehow being less than honest. Your "free consultation" also may not be THAT free.....

Let me ask you - do you sign an NHS form when you see your optometrist? If you do, that may be because your spectacle prescription is high enough to be exempt charges under the NHS or you may be on low income or be eligible for free NHS eye tests for some other reason. If so, your consultation is being paid for by the NHS. If you do NOT sign a form and your optometrist is truly seeing you for absolutely no charge at all, then he or she is doing this purely out of selflessness - which is the point I was making. As food for thought, though, if your optom is being really that generous, he simply could not survive if all his patients had KC, could he? In fact, would you work for absolutely no pay?

However, not all people who have KC also have a high prescription or are on a low enough income to be exempt from charges. It is only in Scotland where all eye examinations are automatically free of charge,

The amount you pay for your lenses is quite low so I am assuming they are RGPs? I say that because that amount is less than the cost price of many of the specialist lenses out there. Not everyone can wear straightforward RGP lenses and because of the relatively low number of people with KC, specialised lenses and treatments tend to be more expensive to cover developmental costs - rather like the development of new drugs for rare conditions.

Due to most people with KC being seen by the NHS, most normal Hight Street practices maybe have a handful of patients with KC, or even less. Therefore, if they are interested and sympathetic, they can afford not to charge you the full economic price for your eye examination. If you go to a practice that is either more dedicated to specialist contact lenses or is associated with a laser clinic, that only sees either refractive surgery cases or people with KC,then they HAVE to charge an economic price, as this not subsidised by the NHS. They simply could not afford to exist if they gave everyone free consultations.

Also, you may be interested to know, the eye examination you receive under the NHS is strictly controlled by legislation as to what is included and the steps the optometrist has to go through to produce a spectacle prescription. It is quite limited in its scope and if, say, you need more advanced tests for glaucoma or diabetes (such as fundus photographs) this is not costed into a normal NHS eye examination and attracts extra fees from the NHS. There are no "extra fees" for someone with keratoconus. Any work done for KC has to be either claimed back from the hospital system (and such High Street optoms generally have to have a contract with a hospital) or has to be done within hospital. Thus, the High Street optoms with no contract with a hospital has these choices:

Not to charge you anything If you are eligible for an NHS eye exam on prescription or income grounds. Any extra tests related to your KC are done for no charge and therefore the practice loses money.

Ditto but charge you for extra tests such as topography and pachymetry and fitting specialist contact lenses

If you are not eligible for NHS eye examinations, charge you the normal private fee which again, in itself, does not cover you for the more specialised work that needs to be done if you have KC. Private contact lens charges are based on normal eye fitted with disposable contact lenses.The decision then has to be made whether or not to charge you for every visit to tweak your contact lenses - not everyone can be fitted in one appointment.

Charge you an economic fee taking into account equipment and practice costs.

The eye care system in the UK is extremely complex. Even within the NHS, the system now varies wildly between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The NHS eye test system that works in the High Street does not recognise keratoconus at all (as it does cataract, glaucoma, diabetes and macular degeneration)

This is one of the reasons I have been trying to get KC recognised by registration or some other means. Until the unique issues around Keratoconus are recognised by the health system, there will be no national policy as to how KC should be treated. Currently, professionals and Government assume all needs are adequately met by the hospital system. Eye exams are free and contact lenses subsidised (£52.90 per lens) when you visit hospital, so why would you want more? Why should High Street exams be subsidised/free?

The reason is, as many of you know, that being reliant on contact lenses can mean hours wait at A&E if you have an abrasion, months delay in getting a refit appointment and limited treatment/management options compared to the private sector. But this is where we are and it is a Government policy issue.

Lynn