Acuvue in the News
No surprise that Johnson & Johnson's contact lens arm has been and is still the #1 seller in the U.S. with their excellent Oasys product line. Recently they made a few changes that affect their consumers: Firstly, boxes of Acuvue products are no longer sold in 6 packs. 12 packs only now. The cost did not increase, you just have to buy more at a time. Secondly, the Acuvue Oasys for Astigmatism lens now has increased parameters to include -2.75 cylinder! In English that means more astigmatism! Many of the folks who had "too much" astigmatism to wear any silicone hydrogel lens can now wear Acuvue! That's exciting because many "high cyl" cases very much need to be wearing silicone for both comfort and corneal health, but until this time could not b/c of their "high" astigmatism. Pretty cool. The best part IMO is that the new higher-astigmatism powers are the SAME COST as the lower astigmatism powers. Many high cyl patients are accustomed to paying more than 2x the price of their non-high-cyl counterparts, so they're going to be pretty happy with the news.
"The cost did not increase, you just have to buy more at a time."
ReplyDeleteFrom optometrist's perspective or consumer? For consumer, it is now a 200% markup compared to previous prices at online retailers per pair of contact lenses.
no, it's not a "markup" at all, for anyone. it's just forcing you to buy more at a time. that's not a "markup". a markup would be 1 box of 6 doubling in cost from $35 to $70. but this is making 1 box of 6 unavailable...must buy 12 lenses for $70 instead of 2 boxes of 6 for $35. it's exactly, exactly the same cost.
Deleteexactly.
this is causing much angst among patients in the contact lens community! I recently saw this post on Tumblr:
ReplyDelete"Just found out that my **** contacts went from $32.99 for a box of 6 to $67.99 for a box of 12.
The ****in manufacturer decided to discontinue the six pack, so they can now charge $70 after taxes. This ****."
Eye care and optometry - ****in highway robbery and racketeering."
This makes me laugh! Let's do the math here. That’s only like 17 CENTS more per lens!
$33 per box of 6 is $5.50 per lens (before tax)
$68 per box of 12 is $5.66 per lens (before tax)
It’s really not all that big of a deal. Johnson & Johnson just want to sell 12 at a time instead of 6. A year's supply of Acuvue Oasys is 48 lenses. So the math above that this person is cursing about is a difference of $8 A YEAR.
At our office we charged $35 for a 6 pack and now $70 for a 12 pack. There is no tax b/c this is Texas not Canada or somewhere. $35 for a 6 pack and $70 for a 12 pack is a difference of exactly $0.00 per lens. THERE IS NO CONSPRIACY, HIGHWAY ROBBERY NOR RACKETEERING HERE!