How long to get new glasses?
November 22, 2019 7:54 AM Subscribe
I recently bought new glasses from my optometrist. They ordered them and said they would take about 2 weeks. Two weeks came and went. I called to ask about status and they said that it may take longer since it is the end of the year.
I nicely asked why some places advertise glasses the same day or in an hour but it takes more then two weeks for them. The person on the other end was kind of snooty and said that isn't a thing anymore.
I have gotten glasses the same day before and it has worked more or less as advertised. Is it normal now to take two weeks to get new glasses?
I nicely asked why some places advertise glasses the same day or in an hour but it takes more then two weeks for them. The person on the other end was kind of snooty and said that isn't a thing anymore.
I have gotten glasses the same day before and it has worked more or less as advertised. Is it normal now to take two weeks to get new glasses?
Some prescriptions are simple enough that stock lenses off the shelf can just be cut to your frame size within the hour and be done. (Lenses start out in the shape of a hockey puck) There are some retail stores that still do this, but not many doctors' offices have the equipment or inventory.
Some prescriptions are not that simple, and require to be sent to an optical lab to be ground out to your specific prescription and material requirements, coated, and then cut to your frame size, and shipped back to your doctor's office. (there's some cool videos about optical lab manufacturing here.)
The optical lab could be down the street, in another state, in an adjoining country, or across the ocean. There are a lot of lenses getting ground in Texas, Mexico, Thailand and China these days. Some facilities do the grinding and then ship the lenses to another facility to do the coating, and then ship the lenses to another facility to do the cutting, and somewhere in there the frame needs to meet up with the lenses, depending on where the frame warehouse is.
And a lot of this supply chain depends on cost to the customer, where a cheaper cost to the customer may have longer wait times, because they depend on cheaper labor and material costs that are overseas.
Plus, it is the end of the year. A lot of folks are trying to use up their health benefits before the year ends, and that often includes getting new glasses. The busiest times of the year are back-to-school and end-of-year.
More than likely, your doctor has the ability to see what the actual status is of your glasses, and if you press them, they could give you a better ETA.
posted by jillithd at 8:13 AM on November 22, 2019 [6 favorites]
Some prescriptions are not that simple, and require to be sent to an optical lab to be ground out to your specific prescription and material requirements, coated, and then cut to your frame size, and shipped back to your doctor's office. (there's some cool videos about optical lab manufacturing here.)
The optical lab could be down the street, in another state, in an adjoining country, or across the ocean. There are a lot of lenses getting ground in Texas, Mexico, Thailand and China these days. Some facilities do the grinding and then ship the lenses to another facility to do the coating, and then ship the lenses to another facility to do the cutting, and somewhere in there the frame needs to meet up with the lenses, depending on where the frame warehouse is.
And a lot of this supply chain depends on cost to the customer, where a cheaper cost to the customer may have longer wait times, because they depend on cheaper labor and material costs that are overseas.
Plus, it is the end of the year. A lot of folks are trying to use up their health benefits before the year ends, and that often includes getting new glasses. The busiest times of the year are back-to-school and end-of-year.
More than likely, your doctor has the ability to see what the actual status is of your glasses, and if you press them, they could give you a better ETA.
posted by jillithd at 8:13 AM on November 22, 2019 [6 favorites]
Lens Crafters has the damn machine in their store!
But I can see where the situation of millions of people trying to burn up the money in their Flexible Spending Account will clog up the system with orders. If a single component in the just-in-time chain is late, the whole thing falls apart.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:32 AM on November 22, 2019
But I can see where the situation of millions of people trying to burn up the money in their Flexible Spending Account will clog up the system with orders. If a single component in the just-in-time chain is late, the whole thing falls apart.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:32 AM on November 22, 2019
A lot of places no longer do them in store. When my child broke his glasses and needed a quick replacement I had to find an independent store with in-house lab; the major chains in our area no longer have labs.
posted by typecloud at 11:25 AM on November 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by typecloud at 11:25 AM on November 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
I used to work at a wholesale optical lab. Optometrists who promise one day or same day have the lab in-store to grind the lenses. Other places without the machinery in the store have to send them out to an optical lab, who will service hundreds of offices. Typically they will wait until they have enough orders to transmit, if it is a smaller office. Then they'll transmit the scripts electronically and mail the frames and prescriptions to the lab, which typically takes two business days. Then the optical lab gets the packages and queues them up, there are only so many lenses they can make in a day but it's a lot. End of year there's always a huge backlog because of the FSA issue. The lab grinds the lenses in a day, and then it goes to optical techs who to QA, fit the lenses into the frames, QA again, and send back to your optician's office. That's typically on day two of three. The process takes longer if you're sending your old frames for new lenses because then we have to trace the frames with the lensometer (!) instead of using the measurements provided by the frame manufacturer which is transmitted with the RX. Add another day or two. It takes even longer if you need a coating on your lenses that's not built into the lenses. Some coatings are already applied to blanks, but others must be dipped; the dipping machine is finicky and a bear to clean so many optical labs will save up all their dips for one day a week, that's a delay as well. If anything fails QA they have to start the process over.
Optical lab workers work day in and day out with dangerous chemicals and machinery, usually without the benefit of a union, to provide you glasses so you can see and live a normal life. When contemplating a gratitude list of those to thank this Thanksgiving, think about these hardworking men and women who make seeing possible!
Hopefully this is illuminating.
posted by juniperesque at 11:51 AM on November 22, 2019 [11 favorites]
Optical lab workers work day in and day out with dangerous chemicals and machinery, usually without the benefit of a union, to provide you glasses so you can see and live a normal life. When contemplating a gratitude list of those to thank this Thanksgiving, think about these hardworking men and women who make seeing possible!
Hopefully this is illuminating.
posted by juniperesque at 11:51 AM on November 22, 2019 [11 favorites]
We know that almost all the retail optical store chains (Lenscrafters, Pearl Vision, Sears and Target Optical, etc.) are owned by Luxottica. Does it also own any of the optical labs that make lenses for independent opticians?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 1:54 PM on November 22, 2019
posted by Kirth Gerson at 1:54 PM on November 22, 2019
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I know the receptionist did make some comment about how I was smart to get in before the year-end rush (ie, everyone spending flex dollars/insurance), but 2 weeks seems very reasonable.
posted by writermcwriterson at 8:09 AM on November 22, 2019 [1 favorite]