FAQs
Listed below are some frequently asked questions. If you can’t find an answer, feel free to contact us.
At Raleigh Contact Lens Institute, you spend 100% of your time directly with a doctor who specializes in specialty contact lenses. From the time you walk in the door to the time you leave, you will interact with the doctor, and no one else. Typically, 90-120 minutes are set aside for a new patient exam, which gives ample time to ensure you are receiving the best possible care and getting in depth answers to any questions you have.
While a traditional optometry office may schedule a doctor to see patients every 15-20 minutes, at Raleigh Contact Lens Institute there’s enough time to truly understand each patient’s needs, and determine the best treatment option for their unique situation. In addition, after they leave, patients have direct access to text/call our doctors, which is clearly unique from a traditional patient experience.
Our goal is to help patients who need custom contact lenses, regardless of where they live. It is extremely common for patients to travel several hours to our office, and in certain cases patients may even fly into Raleigh for a consultation. Our doctors have recently seen patients from West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia.
Our doctors are extremely passionate about specialty contact lenses, and about providing the best experience for their patients. However, the business and operating model of most practices doesn’t allow for the best possible custom contact lens experience. After working in traditional optometry settings, our founder knew there was potential for a reimagined custom contact lens experience, and this was her goal when opening the Raleigh Contact Lens Institute.
The best technology possible, combined with doctors that specialize and see contact lens patients all day, every day, allows our office to provide a truly exceptional custom contact lens experience.
A prerequisite for doctors who work at our office is compassion, patience, and being highly skilled at designing advanced contact lenses. Our doctors enjoy getting to know patients outside of caring for just their eyeballs – what they do for fun, work, getting to know their family, etc. Knowing these things also help our doctors customize patient’s visual needs to their life, which can be very important in finding the best option for their needs and lifestyle.
Here’s the best part…because Raleigh Contact Lens Institute offers in-depth exams and one-on-one time with the doctors, we are able to customize the exam for each patient, instead of rushing from patient to patient.
Our doctors specialize in custom contact lenses, and so over the years they have had firsthand knowledge on the truly life changing impact the right contact lens can have on a patient’s life.
Our doctors understand the challenges that our patients face, and also understand that for many patients, this isn’t their first-time trying contact lenses. It is common for patients to cry HAPPY tears in the office when the patient sees that theyhave options for improving their vision, regardless of their condition or history with traditional optometry offices.
There are few things more precious to people than their vision, and our doctors are honored to be able to allow patients to see to the best of their ability.
Some of the conditions that we treat at Raleigh Contact Lens Institute are below, but in general we are specialists in treating conditions and diseases where specialty contact lenses are treatment options.
- Keratoconus
- Myopia Management / Myopia Control
- Pediatric contact lenses
- Dry Eye Syndrome
- Corneal transplants
- Radial Keratectomy
- Post-LASIK ectasia
- High astigmatism
- High myopia/hyperopia
- Double vision
- Migraines/light sensitivity
- Trauma
- Scarred corneas
- Sjogren’s Syndrome
- Graft vs. Host Disease
- Steven’s Johnson Syndrome
One of the more common treatment options are scleral lenses, and Raleigh Contact Lens Institute specializes in traditional, free-form, and impression-based scleral lenses, such as EyePrintPRO. See below for a list of some of themore common treatment options available at our office:
- Traditional scleral lenses
- EyePrintPRO custom scleral lenses
- Ortho-k contact lenses (for children or adults)
- Gas Permeable (GP) lenses
- Prosthetic contact lenses
- Bandage contact lenses
- Hybrids contact lenses
- Custom soft contact lenses
- Yearly supplies of traditional daily/monthly contact lenses
- Custom tinted contact lenses
We partner with the top contact lens manufacturers in the country in order to offer the best customized specialty care for each patient. Specific manufactures who we work with include, but are not limited to the following:
- EyePrintPRO scleral contact lenses
- BostonSight scleral contact lenses
- Wave contact lenses
- Blanchard (OneFitMed scleral contact lenses)
- Valley Contax (Custom Stable Elite, Gaudi scleral lenses)
- Paragon (CRT orthokeratology lenses)
- Bausch & Lomb (ZenLens scleral lens, Novakone custom soft lens, Revive custom soft lens)
- Synergeyes (ScanFitPro, Synergeyes VS)
- Orion prosthetic lenses (BioColors, bioMed therapeutic lenses)
- Adventures in Color prosthetic lenses
Typically, the initial comprehensive exam is 90 to 120 minutes of 1-on-1 time with the doctor. Included is dilation, a glasses prescription, a contact lens prescription, contact lens fitting, dry eye imaging, corneal topography, scleral topography, and an eye pressure test.
We do not accept vision or medical insurance. Insurance plan reimbursements result in limited time that a doctor can spend with you. In addition, the materials and technology that is “on formulary” frequently limits doctors from prescribing the best solution for patients before jumping through insurance politics and hurdles.
Our doctors will work one-on-one with patients to provide thorough, personalized vision solutions. No wait times. No seeing the doctor for 5-10 minutes. No feeling like you are “just a number”.
At Raleigh Contact Lens Institute, patients feel that they are heard, that they have the doctor’s full, undivided attention, and that the doctor is not concerned with getting to the next patient as soon as possible. During your exam, the doctor will meet one-on-one with you, to determine the best solution for your goals at each visit, with no wait times, and certainly no rushing.
Yes! We will provide you with the resources to use your “out-of-network” benefits. The doctor will provide you with signed paperwork and a stamped envelope to mail off to your insurance company, so your insurance company can they reimburse you directly.
Our favorite device is the Pentacam AXL Wave. Only a dozen or so practitioners in the country have this advanced technology!
For patients with corneal irregularities like keratoconus, corneal transplants, and other types of post-surgical corneas, it measures the shape and thickness of the cornea, helps monitor for disease progression, and determines candidacy for various specialty contact lens options. In addition, the Pentacam provides a topography of the white part of the eye to customize scleral contact lens fitting to the highest degree.
For patients requiring myopia management, the Pentacam measures the axial length of the eye, which is an important measure to monitor the efficacy of the selected treatment option.
Each of these functions allows for an extremely customized contact lens that was made just for you, based on hundreds of thousands of data points on the eye.
We do not. When opening the office, we decided to focus on our specific passion and specialty of specialty contact lenses. For your optical needs, the doctor will be sure to connect you with a local provider that best fits your style and visual needs for eyewear.
We will schedule an initial consultation, in order to determine your vision goals and to assess your condition. This initial consultation is 90-120 minutes of time one-on-one with the doctor, and is extremely comprehensive and thorough. The charge is $275 for this initial exam. The consultation payment can be applied towards your plan once we determined how to best meet your goals.
See services below for more details on payment structure.
With the advanced technology offered at Raleigh Contact Lens Institute, it is likely that the comfort and vision of scleral lenses may be improved, depending on what type of lens you were prescribed.
Most scleral lenses are designed based on a general “fit set”. A fit set has 9-15 lenses. One of these lenses is placed on the eye and the doctor adjusts curves on the lens.
With scleral-based topography (the Pentacam AXL Wave), a scleral lens is designed based on 240,000 data points. This type of advanced technology results in superior comfort and the best vision a scleral contact lens can offer. These are called scan-based scleral lenses.
For some patients, a custom molded lens may be necessary. This is called the EyePrintPRO. With this technology, a mold impression is created of your eye. From that mold, a custom contact lens is made. EyePrintPRO is a great solution for patients with advanced conditions.
There are many potential ways to answer this question, but first, modern day technology has offered many improvements to contact lens design that weren’t possible even a few years ago. Raleigh Contact Lens Institute possesses equipment such as the Pentacam AXL Wave which only a dozen or so offices in the entire country have.
In addition, Raleigh Contact Lens Institute dedicates as much possible time and energy to ensuring patient success and happiness because they allow the time to truly understand the situation and all available options. Our doctors are experienced specialists in what they do, and are nationally renowned speakers and trainers on the topics of specialty control lenses and myopia management.
After your treatment plan is established, the doctor will determine what type of solution is best for you. The payments are arranged as either one package for the year or a monthly fee, both options including advanced diagnostics and unlimited follow ups for the first year. Monthly fees range from $165-275 per month. After the first year, annual visits are lower priced, and based on an established treatment plan.
Specialty contact lenses are typically around $750/lens for the actual contact lens, but there’s a range, and some contact lenses such as EyePrintPRO lenses can cost much more than $750/lens.