Consultation

So the place where most of my friends had their own Lasik done at was Clear Choice. The whole process begins with the consultation appointment. This is basically the appointment where they tell you if your a good candidate or not. It's pretty simple and took only about a half-hour. As I said before, I've been to a consultation twice. Once ten years ago, when I wasn't completely sure about doing it and another just recently when I was absolutely sure. The experience hasn't changed much...it's much better when your already leaning towards getting it done.

The consultation was pretty straightforward. It's not a full eye exam. They call you in and the associate walks your to a room with two machines. Both involve sticking your head into the device and staring at a light while it churns. The operator asks you not to blink during and after about 5 seconds or so, it stops and the operator gets a printout of the results. I guess this process is used to map out the thickness of your eye to see if there's enough to make a flap. (Make a flap? what madness is this? Read about procedure.)

After the two machines, they then walk you to a room where they show you an 11 minutes video about the procedure. In the video, they talk about the different types of procedures they have available. There are two ways of cutting the flap (one with a blade (!!!) and one with a laser). There are also multiple types of lasers. They also talked about financing plans and such. 11 minutes and your done.

Right after the video, someone called me in to meet with me. This is the sales pitch part that can be annoying or not, depending on if you were leaning toward having the procedure or not. It hasn't changed in 10 years. Basically, you sit in someone's office and they ask if you have any questions. You can tell they have been asked these questions before, since the responses always seemed pretty standardized. My main questions were around experience of the surgeons and percentage of unresolved complications after the first 6 months.

The part that I find a little off-putting is that they talk to you as if you've already made your choice. So, not too bad, if you indeed have made your choice, but back when I was on the fence about it, it felt very sales pitchy. Questions like, "So which procedure do you want to go with? We have these days available for the pre-op, which works for you?" Well, I had already did my research and decided on the bladeless flap and the custom procedure.