FAQ

For nearly every eye exam we will check your vision, eye pressure, and look at your eyes. For most routine exams, we will offer dilation to do a full retinal exam. For patients who want glasses or contacts, we will refract you to determine that prescription. If you have other medical concerns, additional testing can be done, such as OCT imaging, corneal measurements, and visual field testing.

Dilation of the eyes can cause some blurriness. Most of the blurry vision will be for near (reading) vision and most people are still legal to drive while dilated. The lights will be much brighter, so we recommend bringing a pair of good sunglasses with you. Even with sunglasses, some people don’t feel comfortable driving while dilated and will bring a driver.
For most patients, the dilation will last 4-6 hours. We do have shorter acting drops that only partially dilate that we will use if appropriate. For pediatrics, those drops are stronger and can last 12 hours.

Please bring an ID and insurance cards, including any secondary insurance that you have. We like to have both your medical and vision insurance (if you have it) on file. If you want to come 15-30 minutes early, you can fill out your paperwork at our office. To speed up your appointment, you can fill out all paperwork on our portal or print out and complete the forms from the Patient Information page.

No. In fact, most of our patients use their medical insurance for their exams. If you have completely healthy eyes and just need a glasses prescription, then you can use vision insurance or pay out of pocket for the exam. For our older patients, Medicare and similar plans will pay for an annual exam to screen for diseases like glaucoma and macular degeneration. If you have any symptoms like dry eye, allergies, eye pain, or floaters, this would be considered a medical issue and be filed through your medical insurance.
It depends. For young healthy patients with no need for glasses, every few years is fine. As you get older, we do recommend an annual exam to screen for diseases. For patients with medical eye conditions, we may even see more often than once a year.
Yes we do!
We accept almost all medical insurance plans, including Medicare, Indiana Medicaid, Anthem, United Health Care, Cigna, Humana, Aetna, Deaconess OneCare, Ascension SmartHealth and many more, including Marketplace plans. Please call us or send us a message to ask about your specific plans. For patients with vision insurance, we currently accept VSP. We are working on adding additional plans.

Unfortunately, most medical insurances will not pay for the “Refraction”, which is the test used to determine your glasses prescription (The “which is better, one or two?” test). We do not require patients to get this test, but if you want new glasses OR if you want to know if your prescription has changed, we will perform and charge you for this service. We ask every patient at check-in if they want this test so you are not surprised with a bill at the end.