Your Visit to Medical Eye Center
What to Expect
To provide you with the best eye care possible, we need information about your overall health and medical history. To save time, you’re invited to download our patient forms and fill them out in advance.
What to Bring
For your first visit to Medical Eye Center, please bring the following items:
- Patient forms filled out.
- All of your prescription eye wear.
- A list of all the medications you are currently taking.
- A list of any allergies you may have to medications.
- Your medical insurance card (if you have one).
- A list of questions. We want you to have all the information you need.
Typical Appointments
The average total time for a new visit is about 90 minutes. A typical first-time appointment has four steps:
- Fill out paperwork (if you haven’t already done so).
- Your scheduled appointment time begins with the review of your medical history and other completed patient forms.
- Our technicians will perform several diagnostic tests that your doctor will use to arrive at a diagnosis and treatment plan. Gathering this data takes the majority of your appointment time and involves moving to several stations in our clinic to access the appropriate technology.
- Your doctor arrives to examine your eyes.
For example, if your appointment is at 10:00 am, you can expect to see the doctor 30 to 45 minutes later for your examination. Most of your doctor’s time is spent reviewing the results of various tests, then planning and documenting your care. Often, this work doesn’t occur while your doctor is in the room with you. Depending on the nature of your visit, your doctor’s time with you may be relatively brief, especially if everything is straightforward and you have few questions.
Dilation and Driving
Most first-time comprehensive exams involve the dilation of your eyes. If so, you may be very sensitive to direct sunlight and your vision can be quite blurry. This condition may interfere with your ability to drive safely. If your eyes have been dilated, we highly recommend that you have someone drive you home or back to work afterwards. We want you to arrive safely!
Subsequent Visits
Post-operative visits are usually much shorter. Depending on the procedure, your doctor often just needs to examine your eyes to make sure you’re healing appropriately and then answer any questions you may have. Testing is usually minimal for these visits. Follow-up exams and other sorts of treatment visits may also be quite short.
Retina Appointments
If your visit is for a retina issue, please be aware that retina exams require even more extensive testing. It’s not unusual for retina appointments to be 2 to 3 hours in length.
Emergencies
Everyone at Medical Eye Center works hard to keep our schedule running on time. Please understand that patients who need eye care have a variety of issues. Some people are here for a routine exam to get a prescription for new glasses. These visits generally proceed as planned. Another patient might be seeing us because of an emergency that threatens their vision and needs immediate attention.