With Medicare shaping up as a key election issue, we examine optometry and how your optometrist is incentivised to put glasses on your nose.

Have you ever walked into an outlet like OPSM, Specsavers, Bailey Nelson, or Laubman & Pank for an eye test and left feeling like you’d been gently pressured into spending $500 on a pair of glasses?

…

[B]osses impose onto optometrists a variety of targets – whether its “converting” eye tests into sales or increasing rates of certain types of tests.

This type of pressure is reportedly causing many optometrists “significant moral distress” and some are starting to fight back.

  • Strayce@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    23·
    2 months ago

    First time I ducked into a Dresden opticians for an eye test they straight up told me; “Nope, you don’t need new glasses.” Instant loyalty from me, and since then they’ve done it twice more.

    They also manufacture their frames independently from recycled plastic so they’re not beholden to Luxottica.

  • nevetsg@aussie.zoneEnglish
    8·
    2 months ago

    Twice my wife came home from OPSM with kids glasses they didnt need “to help them concentrate…”. Their sales staff talked her into it…

  • quoll@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    6·
    2 months ago

    bit of a tangent… but if you are travelling japan, it’s a great place to get glasses. super cheap, great customer service, free eye test, wide range.

    in the past ive got my basic glasses in a couple hours at jins for well under $100.

    on last trip i got multi-focals (love them) for ~$170 at megane ichiba, took about a week, but was over the nye break.

    • Quokka@mastodon.au
      1·
      2 months ago

      @quoll reminds me I’ve got an eye test soon. Pretty sure I’m more blind than last year. So that’s another $500-odd I’ll have to find

      • quoll@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        wait for a jetstar sale, fly to japan, save some coin :D

        … legit flying to bali or thailand could probs make the $$$ add up.

  • TinyBreak@aussie.zoneEnglish
    5·
    2 months ago

    I found spec savers were better recently than they used to be. Felt really pushy a few years ago but a bit more chill now. Maybe its just the store I go to?

    • Robust Mirror@aussie.zoneEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      My spec savers store has never been pushy. Me and all my kids need glasses, we go every year for a check but only get a pair roughly every 3 years because they tell us there’s no point getting another pair yet.

  • guillem@aussie.zoneEnglish
    3·
    2 months ago

    That’s worldwide, and the reason I always tell whomever offers to help that I will only get tested in that store if and when I find some frames that I want, because I don’t want to waste their time if I don’t.