Seabolt Elizabeth OD

Best... optometrist... EVER.

Dr. Seabolt spent a solid 40 minutes with me as a new patient, discussing my eyecare needs and spending the bulk of the visit on what I consider important-- checking my prescription. I work in a vision-intensive field, and since developing astigmatism a few years ago, I get kinda freaked out about subtle differences. Dr. Seabolt used a few different methods to iron down my prescription and changed me over to a more comfortable type of disposable contacts. She had a trial pair in stock and had me put them on and examined them right then-- no waiting for a week, Totally awesome.

She also wrote me a prescription and handed it to me without me asking, mentioning that if I wanted to buy contacts from PAMF, I should call in-- no hard sell.

She's highly recommended.

Questionable Business Practices

So I just wanted to share my experience with this particular eye doctor. I have student insurance through Stanford (which is across the street). Dr. Seabolt was on a list of authorized service providers for my annual eye exam, which is supposed to be covered by my insurance. When I walked in, before seeing the doctor, the front desk checked my insurance so they knew exactly what service I came in for (an annual eye exam) and what would and would not be covered.

I go in there and the eye exam is standard, acceptable, totally fine. I left and I thought that would be the end of it. Months later, the bills start coming. Apparently this eye doctor ran a bunch of extra tests and billed my insurance, which rejected them and passed the bills on to me. I had no idea any of this was going on until my insurance sent me a bill for $600.

I called the insurance provider and I explained that this was covered under my annual eye exam. Well, they disagreed and said the doctor did extra tests that were not covered. But the doctor's office ran my insurance first and they clearly knew what tests would and would not be covered.

This is an unethical practice and any person who would engage in intentionally upselling patients on uncovered eye exam services without disclosing that the service goes above and beyond what is covered should be ashamed of themselves.

Yet another failure with Optometrist. Not sure how they get their training. All they do is press buttons and let machine decide which power is suitable for me. I did not even get to try the lens before getting the prescription and the final glasses didn't work (as expected). This was the second Optometrist which failed with my eye-check. Keeping my hopes alive with a third Optometrist who let me try a sample glass with a trial frame. I would recommend any visitor to try the glasses with a trial frame first and then order the glasses.

I saw this Optometrist at PAMF and she wrote me a prescription for contacts that were 4.0 with astigmatism when my usual contacts are around 3.0 without it. I bought contacts with this new prescription ($100) and then started to feel dizzy and get headaches, I realized it was the completely wrong prescription. I ordered some glasses with her new prescription too and couldn't even see through them because they caused so much distortion. I went back to her and she said she messed up and wrote my a prescription close to my usual one. She said she would not charge me a copay since she messed up, but my insurance charged me a copay for both visits and I could not get them to remove it. If you go to PAMF, see Dr. Shirley Yu instead, she was much better.