• Questions to ask your Doctor
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Q and A for Your Eye Doctor

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Your vision is extremely important to your quality of life. Thankfully, vision and eye care procedures, like LASIK, are linked to some of the most highly satisfactory patient outcome rates.  If you are savvy about your  health access to preserve your vision, you may want to know how to make an informed decision. After all, your eyes are YOUR eyes. Your access to vision care depends, in part, on the decisions you make to preserve you quality of life.  So, you may want to perform the following tasks to make informed decision about your eye care.  First, you may want to select your eye doctor with the aid of research, including:

• Check out the website of your eye doctor and several other physician websites.

• Scan information about eye conditions and treatment.

• Learn that every eye doctor has their own armory of tools to treat patients. Every advanced eye specialist determines the optimal approach based on their education and experience.

• View each eye doctors’ focus, such as, specific areas of expertise and procedures, listings of published papers or presented lectures to professional and public audiences, as well as, credentials whether it be graduating with an MD or PhD from a specific school or even holding a prominent position in a medical organization.

Interested in a Vision Procedure?

If you’re planning on having a vision procedure, you’ll want to know about alternatives to the proposed procedure, recovery requirements, complication risks and coping skills required should there be a complication.

While at your eye doctor’s office, you’ll probably peer through retro style lenses, describe the appearance of visual props, learn about sophisticated eye models, and go through a series of Q and A’s. Not to mention possible DVD’s or audio tapes. Too, your eye doctor will evaluate the stability of your eyes’ refraction, any high or low refractive error, pupil size, corneal thickness, tear production and much more.  Eye doctors are MD’s and PhD.’s that want to help you set reasonable expectations about your eyes and eye care, as well as, find out if you need treatment and if you qualify for it.

Just before you leave the office, you’ll want to have the following questions answered in your mind and on paper.

•  What is wrong with your eyes, if anything?

•  What is the objective of any proposed procedure?

•  What will the procedure not be able to resolve?

•  What will happen if you do not have the procedure?

•  What are the coping skills required to manage a complication from a procedure, if complication arises?

•  What alternatives are available?

•  What type of recovery support will you need following the procedure?

If you are not feeling your best, bring a family member, caregiver or friend for a second set of eyes and ears that may be able to absorb more information that your eye doctor provides. It is statistically proven that people may forget critical details about medical procedures they are interested in. In reality, there’s typically  nothing to fear and much knowledge to gain by visiting your eye doctor. There’s the great availability of state-of-the-art technology that may enhance your life in several ways to support your vision needs.

Your Documents

More than likely, you’ll receive a number of documents from your eye doctor. These documents demonstrate an oral discussion and an oral agreement between you and your doctor about your eyes. To take it a step further, two or more practice visits with documentation may enhance your understanding of surgical treatments to set reasonable expectations for the outcome of your eye care.

Next,Visit: How to Choose Your Eye Doctor

It is important to recognize that medications and medical procedures are associated with benefits and risks that should be discussed with your physician. It is important to recognize that all information contained on this website cannot be considered to be specific medical diagnosis, medical treatment, or medical advice. As always, you should consult with a physician regarding any medical condition. Your Health Access disclaims any liability for the decisions you make based on this information.

 

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