Why the US wears contact lenses differently to the rest of the world | Optometrist Explains
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ก.ค. 2024
- contact lens
contact lenses
contacts
Today we talk about why the United States wears contact lenses differently to the other countries
It's because they are so expensive and insurance is only worth it if you are getting glasses in the USA. My eye insurance is $120 a year this only covers eye glasses or contacts. The allowance for contacts is only $150 where the insurance for glasses covers $120-140 of the frame and then 20-30% off of the lenses. You can buy contacts cheaper out of pocket with coupons than using insurance. Also at by doctors they asked do you want bi-weekly or monthly (because I would be paying out of pocket and it was cheaper) monthly contacts were around $250 for the year where bi weekly's were close to $450 and daily's were around $1000 a year. 🥴 for someone who wears contacts daily $250 is a lot easier to come up with than $1000 especially since I need glasses to drive at night so I have both. Hope this helps.
Wow thanks for such a detailed explanation! 🙏
What are you using? I’m paying dailies out of pocket and mine are ~$450 for a year
You can find eye insurance for so cheap! I got a years worth of daily’s for $50 with $15 a month eye insurance I canceled my insurance after I got my exam/contacts
@@tmdsb2655 What company do you use for that price? Dailies for me for a year is $1100 dollars with my $179 insurance allowance. Thanks for your reply in advance!
@@pattiandersonII I just look for sales for the acuvue moist, any drugstore sells them. They go down to $50-60 per 90 pack a lot.
Vision insurance in the states normally covers maximum 2 boxes of 90 pack on a good day, and absolutely no higher end silicone hydragel 🤷♂️ whereas benefits for monthly gold standards such as biofinity tend to be more generous (2-4 boxes it depends), and most people have 0 coverage anyway. So the math just doesn't work out regardless of past wearing experiences
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Love the concise graphs!
Thanks ! Haha
Hi! Optician here from canada!! Love your video !
Thanks! I appreciate it 🙏
One huge advantage of contacts that you tangentially touched on, you can wear glasses in addition to your contacts. Need sunglasses, just throw them on. Need readers, just throw them on. No need to get expensive prescription glasses for every application.
I have chosen to wear the Daily Disposable (Acuvue Oasys for Astigmatism) I am in the US (Hello from Washington State). Along with the contacts I have to wear readers. I have told my optometrist I love to ditch glasses completely so I am going to give the Multifocal Contacts a try (they don't come in a daily so I am trying the Monthly, it might be they don't come in a daily for the astigmatism. Really liking contacts - it is sweet to have the peripheral vision back! Thank you for your Videos!
Glad you enjoyed the video! Multifocal toric lenses are hard to come across, you must be getting the Coopervision Multifocal Toric 😁
@@AntonioTheOptom I got the Bausch & Lomb ultra multifocal for astigmatism and the Monovision is Acuvue Oasys - same as my regular distance.
This is excellent. Using data to make inferences! Interesting ones too!
Thanks Shivan! haha
Great information!!! Hi from Arizona..North America 🇺🇸
I have been wearing contacts for over 30 years. 2 years ago I switched to Dailies Total 1 the most expensive ones you can get. My eye doctor warned me they were more expensive. OMG, Soooo worth it. The comfort level is amazing! Like going from a bicycle with rough tires to a Cadillac. It's a dream come true.
Acuvue Oasys with transitions are a 2 week reuseable. They have transition technology right in the lens. So contact lens sunglasses. Transitions not available in dailies. Unfortunately.
I am in Canada. I wear both, reuseable colored contacts or transitions and dailies.
Great summary
Thanks you 🤗
I didn't even know daily disposable contact lenses were a thing... idk why but no one ever offered it to me as an option and I didn't really go researching. I kinda wish I'd known about it since my eyes could get super sensitive about any type of contaminant on the reusable lenses. Especially on days where I only went to sleep (took contacts off) like 5-7 hours ago and had to put lenses back in in the morning. I don't know how long it takes for contact solutions to completely disinfect lenses but I noticed that short term dunks always resulted in my eyes burning for a bit at first when putting them back in.
Be warned, dailies are super expensive compared to monthlies. I got a year supply of my monthlies for under $250 a month ago.
Maybe alternate two pairs? You can order daily contacts from Scotland delivered to the us for fractions of what we generally pay
@@larsonfamilyhouse well, happily, I got Visian (ICL surgery) done so I'm done with glasses and contacts! Woo!
But I was afraid opening multiple packs of contacts would have them degrade simultaneously which is why I didn't do that. I didn't wear contacts often enough to justify having two pairs out of their sterile packaging. But yeah, your suggestion is a good one!
UK resident here. I use monthlies year round, but I use dailies when I scuba dive because of the higher risk of contamination.
Fierce lobbyists in the US of A, have made soft contact lens prohibitively expensive. Luxottica owns the insurance companies and eyeglasses then dupe customers into thinking they're getting discounts. Gas Perm Lens are the Cadillac of lens (especially for astigmatism) and cheapest at just $70 per lens (Costco) for all year. Soft contact lenses wearers if they're smart don't bother with insurance and just purchase overseas.
Actually, Costco in the US sells Dailies for less than you can get over seas. Still around 1,000 for a years supply. I know my eye doctor would freak out but I actually use the disposables 2 or 3 times before I toss them. It cuts down the cost to about 500 a year. It's not like they self destruct after one day, you just have to be very careful cleaning them as they tear much easier than monthly type.
UK here, monthly silicone hydrogel! Just a thought, but if were the percentage of daily lenses is higher, would that not technically mean there are more occasional use wearers as compared to full time contact lens wearers?
Yes technically but you could be a full time daily disposable wearer too! And I’ve seen many people do that as well!
@@AntonioTheOptom You already know the answer as to why I am not. I mean you mentioned it in your video - my prescription does not allow for daily lenses :)
🥲 hopefully one day manufacturers come out with a daily option for high prescriptions 😿
@@AntonioTheOptom Yeah, I’m one of those people wearing DD SiHy full-time. 😄
Great video! I’d love to wear daily disposable silicone hydrogel contacts. Due to age and astigmatism I can only wear Toric Multifocal lenses. In the UK at any rate they are not available for me.
You may have the option of using Biofinity Multifocal Torics. We have to custom make them from the UK anyway so getting them there should be a piece of cake 😂
@@AntonioTheOptom I have been wearing Mark’ennovy Saphir RX from Spain they are monthly lenses but not sure if you have them in Australia. Thanks for the tip. I am waiting for my Optomerist to get back to me about the Biofinity.
@@mrwilliamhope 👍👍
I have been i fitted for contact lenses before, but I never got into using them, I am perfectly happy with my glasses, the only time I ever use my contacts is when I am refereeing Ice Hockey(glasses do not fit well in a visor, which I am forced to wear.)
Yeah I only wear them during sport mainly too 😂
You won’t believe this , but in Mexico some “optometrists “ prescribe monthly disposable hydrogel lenses for up to three months of wear ☹️
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Hello from Philippines! 🇵🇭
Hello from Australia! 🇦🇺
What does "graveyard" in your graphs mean?
canadian here who's been wearing the same pair of rigid gas permeable for four and half years. this number scares me now i say it, but rgp lenses last forever right? i wish to visit australia one day too!
Unfortunately not for EVER ever 😂 it’s still recommended you see an optometrist to make sure the lenses are still in wearable condition
Yeah, here in the US my vision insurance covers either a new pair of glasses, or new contacts each year. Never both. If I did get both, one would be entirely out-of-pocket. Currently, my vision insurance also only covers 6 months worth of contacts; which makes no sense to me bc we only (typically) go to the Optometry clinics once a year; whereas with dental it’s every 6 months.
I’ve worn contacts daily since I was a young 10 yr old. I’ve had monthly lenses, 2 week lenses, and dailies. My favorite by far and large is the silicon hydrogel dailies, but those are also the most expensive ones to get. While insurance does cover the majority of it, I still have to come out of pocket to get a whole years worth. At my last job, my vision insurance only covered for 3 months worth of dailies. It genuinely makes no sense to me.
But, insurance covers more than what it does for the dailies if I get the 2 week contacts, and even more so if I get the monthlies.
I bet you that most of why that data is so different from the US to other countries comes down to insurance coverage, and not the patients actual preference.
And I bet that most of us wear our contacts daily vs wearing glasses. After 5 or so hours in the day, my glasses always give me the worst headache, so I much prefer my contacts. At night when I take them out is pretty much the only time I wear my glasses. I’ve heard the same said by at least a handful of friends.
It might also help, if I offer that I have different prescriptions for toric lenses in both eyes; and I do know that if I didn’t have lenses for my astigmatism that they’d be nearly 1/2 to 1/3 cheaper. My ophthalmologist told me that non-toric dailies would be fully covered by insurance for a full years worth of lenses, where as my toric lenses I can only get 6 months worth.
So, that’s fun ::sarcasm::
Ordering online is soooo much cheaper. I feel like this has to be discrimination right?
@@larsonfamilyhouse I’ve not had that experience, and I pretty much always use 1-800-Contacts but through their online service. They’re the cheapest, but it’s still the same issue with getting a full years worth of contacts for toric dailies/2-weeks/monthly contacts. So I think it’s more of an insurance coverage thing. And at my job I can choose different levels of health insurance. As in, what my deductible and coverage is; but dental & vision is only 1 option (i.e. you either have dental & vision converse or you don’t). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Are the disposable ones better than the monthly ones?
Depends on the intended use:
- full time wearers usually like monthlies
- part time wearers usually like dailies.
Quality wise there isn’t really much difference, they are both incredibly good
I still love to use my eyeglasses for daily. And only wear daily disposable when i really really need to. Well it's more comfy to wear contact lenses while wear mask to go outside in this pandemic. But i will spend moreeee money if i choose daily disposable. So i still choose my glasses lol. And hi from Bali
Hello @is2seungho! That’s a good point, CLs will definitely be a wiser option with masks!
I have air optix colors by Alcon the pwr is -1.25 BC 8.6 DIA 14.2 but idk if it’s for astigmatism because I don’t see clear 🤦♀️
From my knowledge in Australia the air optix colours don’t come in Toric shapes (astigmatism)
@@AntonioTheOptom wow I believe I paid $85 for 6 lenses smh I don’t know why they would allow me to purchase regular if I have astigmatism. I would think they would let me know at the time of purchasing
I’m from the USA... Texas to be exact
@@Houstontx225 😢 that’s unlucky.. I guess you could come close to your prescription even without Toric designs but it still won’t be perfect
@@AntonioTheOptom Do they have color contacts for astigmatism? - Love to get purple as it is my favorite color . . . purple in brown eyes . . . . I think it would look cool.
Something I've noticed too is that at least in my experience, optometrists are a little more hesitant to give monthlies vs dailies. When I did my eye exam recently, I was approved for dailies but needed the Dr signoff to get monthlies even though I've worn monthlies for over 15 years.
I think they're worried about liability. Wearing monthlies requires disinfecting every night in new solution and some people are probably not that good at doing that and it can lead to very serious eye infections and lawsuits.
Nope in the US the price for Daily Are way too expensive! Also the Dr will push the reusable as they do get a kick back for selling more. Bad practice here in US.
I would never not be wearing DD when I’m wearing contacts. And I only wear contacts. DD are just better by a LOT
Is it safe wearing glasses one day and the other day contact lenses
Yes
Not a Dr, but I think it's good to give your eyes a break from contacts every so often and at night. Mine feel better when I do.
There’s Waldo!
I disagree that it is more economical to have fornight/Monthly lenses. You don’t have to pay for new contact cases and solution which adds up in the long run
Fair point but using daily disposables everyday can be an expensive decision 😂
I’ve heard this argument and the people that make it are either being disingenuous or are just really bad at math. 12x16oz bottles of solution costs only $40 (Kirkland brand generic BioTrue) while Acuvue Oasys costs almost 4x ($640) for a years supply than Acuvue Vita ($170) at least in the US. Even with solution you’re going to spend 3x as much for dailies vs monthly lenses.
glass acuvue contact user here...
canadian here who wears reusable silicone hydrogels!
Hello from Australia! 😄
hard contact lenses for keratoconus!!
Yeapp but some can do without RGPs, the Biofinity XR Torics account for a high cyl range!
Here in America we are switching to daily’s they are cleaner
fortnite lenses
Hahahahah