My boys both wear glasses. Not surprising, as I am severely myopic.
Both boys have been reminding me for several months that it's been over a year since they had their eyes checked. One said he couldn't see out of his glasses at all, and then, he even managed to break his glasses in half at the bridge just to prove his point! And this did, in fact, motivate me to check out my options. Buying glasses in this country, frankly, scares me. It's just so notoriously expensive, and I wasn't sure what to do...
BUT, I remembered that If you have Clalit Platinum, you can take your child (up to age 18) to any participating optician and get 600 shekels toward a new pair of glasses. In many cases, this amounts to free glasses.
I decided to go in Teverya (there are no participating opticians in Katzrin), as we had plans to be there on Friday anyhow. In the interest of saving time, I went to "Shimshon" because it was the closer of the two to where we'd parked (at my husband's workplace). We walked in, and found the store to be relatively crowded for such a small place of business.
But, to my surprise, within 5 minutes, an optician was taking down our insurance information, checking the boys' glasses for their latest prescription information, and getting testing underway. She convinced the optometrist to check them next. Then, when she saw how much the prescription for my younger son had changed, she convinced the staff to get these glasses done in time to take them home for Shabbat!
It was AMAZING. We walked in there around noon, and walked out at 12:50 pm with two new pairs of glasses, anti-reflective coatings and all, AND ZERO pressure to get upgrades, with no out of pocket payment whatsoever.
I'm thrilled, and my boys were also incredibly surprised that they got such stellar service!
For more information about joining Clalit or one of their upgraded plans, just click here to go straight to Clalit!
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Here in Jerusalem the chain I've frequented says they have to ship the prescriptions to Germany to get the glasses made, and it always takes two to four weeks. Is it because I need multifocals, or are there some opticians in Israel who can make such glasses same day (or even same week)?
ReplyDeleteI believe there are opticians in Israel who make multifocals, but they are not so common. Personally, even in the good ol' USA I could hardly find an optician who could make my lenses the same day, so the more complex it is, the less likely your glasses could be made "on the spot".
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