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I hope something comes of this. Going to an optometrist felt like going to a car dealership the last time I went. Blue light filtering was that worthless upswel
by harles 3y ago
I hope something comes of this. Going to an optometrist felt like going to a car dealership the last time I went. Blue light filtering was that worthless upswell they wanted to push on everyone. This situation reminds of Cheerios claiming to lower cholesterol[0] and I hope it similarly gets FDA scrutiny - although my amateurish interpretation of the law is that blue light blocking claims are vague enough to not run afoul of regulations.
Overall this situation is just sad because I heard it first from ads, then vision professional, and now folks I know. It seems like it’s infected our collective consciousness without any serious questions of it’s true.
Edit:
[0]: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/Cholesterol/story?id=7574156 https://abcnews.go.com/Business/Cholesterol/story?id=7574156
- nyjah 3y agoI got this same feeling a few trips ago to the vet. It was like all they cared about was trying to upsell me to put my dog out and clean her teeth. The nice assistant whispered to me “I wouldn’t do any of that to my shepherd” *wink. Inevitably I had to go back since then and the next it seemed like they cut that crap as it wasn’t like that before and hasn’t been my last 2 trips. Still leaves bad taste in your mouth because you want to do the right thing but not get ripped off.
- syntaxing 3y agoThere was a NPR episode about this (forgot the exact show, might have been planet money). Apparently a ton of vets are being bought out by private companies. Back then, vets would sell to one of the younger vets in their practice when they retire. These private companies are out competing in terms of price hence all these upsell.
- gnicholas 3y agoPrivate equity, in particular, IIRC. Very motivated by profit maximization, without regard for long term longevity of the businesses.
- cassianoleal 3y ago> without regard for long term longevity of the businesses. Or your dog.
- MSFT_Edging 3y agoA lot of these bought out vets are basically forced to close 24 emergency calls. Some cities like Rochester, NY are basically devoid of 24hr vet care. Better hope whatever emergency fido is dealing with can wait till morning, because private equity has some blood to let.
- caseyohara 3y agoFreakonomics Radio did a deep two part series on private equity firms buying up all of the local veterinarians. Definitely worth a listen if you are interested in this stuff. Should You Trust Private Equity to Take Care of Your Dog? (Episode 531) https://freakonomics.com/podcast/should-you-trust-private-equity-to-take-care-of-your-dog/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/should-you-trust-private-eq... Do You Know Who Owns Your Vet? (Episode 532) https://freakonomics.com/podcast/do-you-know-who-owns-your-vet/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/do-you-know-who-owns-your-v...
- yencabulator 3y agoFor what it's worth, the same thing is happening to human healthcare in the US.
- senectus1 3y agoeverything is is bought corporatized and then because just like Gov's big corporations are not great at dealing with bespoke situations, their focus is just making money which leads to upsell methodologies and "capture and hold" subscription models... I hate it, but I cant see a way out. I self host a lot of stuff at the moment to get away from as much as I can. but there is only so much you can do.
- seattle_spring 3y agoYou thought that routine preventative dental care was an unnecessary upsell?
- doubled112 3y agoAre you saying that we should routinely anesthetize our animals to clean their teeth?
- ajju 3y agoSincere question: my relatively non-aggressive-at-sales vet, whose office has beocome a bit more aggressive recently, said this month that my nearly 12 year old dog has had a tooth fracture for over a year - and it needs a $X,000 removal relatively soon, for which he would have to go under anaesthesia and stay the day. Pup has been eating fine, and continues to eat fine, including relatively hard stuff (no bones or bully sticks but softer dental chews). He does have an accumulation of plaque on said tooth which indicates he favors the other side, and despite the hard pitch, I doubt the vet is lying about a fracture. The literature online is very equivocal about whether tooth removal is needed and says some fractured teeth are fine and don't cause pain. Any advice / information sources you trust on how to triage this situation?
- Eisenstein 3y agoGet a second opinion?
- bombcar 3y agoI would consult with a few additional vets, perhaps some further out in the countryside and/or older. You need to balance the quality of life of your dog, the cost, the change of death or other complications, along with alternative options (such as switching food when it gets worse).
- ajju 3y agoThanks. While steep, I’ll happily pay for the procedure if the risks are minimal and the impact on his quality of life is likely to be meaningfully positive.
- barrkel 3y agoThen if you get a tooth issue later, insurance will deny coverage. It's a scam.
- syntaxing 3y agoThis. I went recently and something about my eye axis(?) or something was off a bit (which somehow most Americans have?) and mentioned how it’s causing eyestrain. There’s special lenses that correct for this that is… SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS more just for the lenses. Mind you, my glasses are usually really affordable because I have a weak prescription. I was dumbfounded when I heard the price.
- Spooky23 3y agoThat’s real - you have some astigmatism. When it’s not severe it’s hard to correct and annoying. For me, I have a hard time with night driving in the rain because of it. But I found the correction annoying in normal circumstances.
- wlesieutre 3y agoFor astigmatism they’ll add cylinder to the lens, this could also be prism which is for when your eyes like to point in different directions.
- falcolas 3y agoThat sounds, to my utterly unprofessional ass, like an astigmatism? Basically your eye is deformed slightly like a football, giving your prescription a strength, cyclical value (a cylindrical bias to the lens, as I understand it) and a rotation of that cylindrical bias for the eye. It does require small stores to order them custom (larger stores can often grind them in-house), but $600 seems... off. Perhaps if it's a high refraction material (thinner lenses) with all the various coatings? The nice thing is if you have your prescription, you can order glasses from anywhere (including online), your prescription is not tied to one provider.
- twic 3y ago"Axis" is a term used with respect to astigmatism, but correcting for astigmatism is a basic part of lensmaking, and even the cheapest pair of glasses can do it, so this is either something else, or an astoundingly bare-faced rip-off.
- viknesh 3y agoI've had the opposite experience. Despite having a pair of "computer vision" glasses included as part of my plan, the optometrists I've been to have all pretty much dismissed tinted lenses as woo-woo. They did suggest a pair of lower-power lenses for computer use, but that was it.
- powersnail 3y agoAnecdotally, every optometrist and ophthalmologist I met, who wasn't selling me something at the time of conversation, was pretty dismissive of the whole "blue light filtering" business. The attempt to block blue light has been with us so long (like a decade or so), the blue-light-filtering products so well commercialized, and yet the underlying claim that blue light affects sleep remains to be inconclusive at best, which makes me doubly wary of its validity.
- t0bia_s 3y agoI say to my optometrist that I cannot have any color filters on my glass because of work. You cannot do colour grading with random filters. No pushing nonsense bluefilter since then.