Are you overdue for your annual or biennial comprehensive eye exam? You know scheduling a regular exam is important, but the inconvenience of having your eyes dilated may be holding you back. While it can be a nuisance, dilation is one of the most important parts of a comprehensive exam because it allows the doctor to fully evaluate the retina to look for signs of damage and other eye problems.
At Key-Whitman Eye Center, we provide eligible patients with the option to go through a comprehensive eye exam without full dilation with our Optomap® retinal imaging technology. The Optomap®, developed by Optos®, digitally scans the retina with a low-powered laser allowing doctors to immediately view a digital image of the retina. This digital image can then be stored in the patient’s electronic health record, which can be accessed anytime, anywhere by their ophthalmologist and used for future comparisons.
Optomap® imaging is quick and efficient; the average time taken to image patients is only 2.34 minutes and each eye scan is 0.3 seconds. As you probably know, when fully dilated, a person will experience sensitivity to light and some blurring of near vision for 4-6 hours.
While the Optomap® retinal exam is a great way to avoid dilation, not every patient is eligible. Because the imaging only captures 85 percent of the retina, those with pathologic eye conditions must be fully dilated. Full dilation is the only way for the ophthalmologist to examine 100 percent of the retina. In this circumstance, our doctors may recommend an Optomap® retinal exam in addition to full dilation for an extensive evaluation of certain eye conditions. At Key-Whitman, we also require all first time patients to go through a comprehensive eye exam with full dilation. If there are no visible problems after the first exam, patients may elect to have the Optomap® retinal exam at subsequent visits rather than full dilation.
An annual Optomap® retinal exam is recommended by our doctors. The fee for this exam at Key-Whitman Eye Center is $20.00 and is not covered by most insurance plans. However if a problem is discovered during the Optomap® screening, full dilation will be required. In this case, the Optomap® retinal exam might be eligible for insurance coverage if the doctor uses the Optomap® technology to capture high-resolution images of the retina.
To schedule your Optomap® retinal exam at Key-Whitman Eye Center visit our patient easy access or call (214) 225-2577.
.jpg)
