Santa Fe New Mexican: Seizing an Opportunity Right Before Our Eyes
By Brent Wilkes and
Access to vision care is one of the biggest challenges facing lawmakers and consumers today, especially in the Hispanic community. But thanks to new technological innovations, you can now get your contact lens or eyeglass prescription renewed and your vision checked online from the convenience of your own home or place of work.
Here’s how it works. You must have an existing contact lens or eyeglass prescription from your provider to use these services. You go online, take the vision test, answer some important health screening questions, and your online prescription renewals are reviewed and approved by ophthalmologists — medical eye doctors specifically licensed to practice medicine in the state where you take your exam. They send back your prescription renewal and you can use it wherever you want to get your prescription fulfilled.
These new innovations have the potential to help improve the vision of millions of Hispanics, because while we are one of the fastest growing demographics in the marketplace, we are also a community who has traditionally put off getting important preventative procedures due to high costs, language barriers and lack of access to doctors. According to an April 2017 study on Hispanic Health by the Kaiser Family Foundation, among non-elderly adults, 30 percent of Hispanics did not visit a doctor in the last 12 months, a quarter of Hispanics have no usual source of care, and 22 percent of Hispanics delayed care due to cost.