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Press Release

Only One Per Customer

According to the Texas Optometry Board, "the Contact Lens Prescription Act only requires the doctor to issue one prescription." Therefore, if a consumer gets an original prescription and loses it, he or she may be forced to get a new exam or buy lenses only from the examining optometrist.

Ms. H. of Kemper got a contact lens prescription from her eye doctor in September 1999 and took it to WalMart. WalMart staff entered her information into their computer and gave her back the original prescription. When she returned to WalMart for a refill in November, the clerk told her they could not give her more contact lenses unless she brought the original prescription in each time. But she couldn't find it. WalMart recommended that she go back to her eye doctor and get another one written out.

Her eye doctor refused, even though her prescription was still good for another nine months. According to Ms. H., the eye doctor told her "if she issued one it would only be for one refill, but the original one was good until September 2000. So instead she gave me a copy of the first, which doesn't do WalMart any good. She said it was my responsibility to hold on to my first copy."

When she wrote to the Optometry Board, the Board told her, "since a prescription is required to obtain contact lenses, you should assume that it is your responsibility to maintain possession of the document."

TOB complaint #00047, December 3, 1999.