Monthly. Bimonthly. NOT THE SAME THING!

Last year at around this same time, I went to a new eye doctor. I went to someone new because I moved (not far, but across a high-traffic bridge; it's not terrible to cross it, just inconvenient.) My old eye doctor was okay. She was neither warm nor friendly nor personable. She was just... fine.
The new eye doctor wowed me with a higher level of attention and a more comfortable contact lens. I didn't like her staff, who called me about four times to confirm my appointment or the person who examined my eyes, not the correction part, but the peripheral vision thing and the glaucoma thing. He had a very flat personality and seemed kind of snotty and bored. Snotty and Bored is not the sort of person I want shooting a puff of air at my eyeball as I trustingly "hold still" and "look riiiight at the hot air balloon". But after all was said and done, I was happy with my new contacts, which the doctor told me are to be changed bimonthly.

This year, a few days ago, she changed my contact lenses yet again. "These are monthly, like your old ones," she said, casually. "My old ones are once every two weeks," I replied. "They're once a month," she said. "You only have to change them once a month. These are the same."

She told me last year that I was supposed to throw the lenses away once every two weeks, so I did. Contact lenses = money. Contact lenses thrown away two weeks too early for an entire year = SHOES, HANDBAGS, MAKEUP, hell, quite possibly even mini vacations. I hate her. Sure, it's nothing to her. She's a doctor, this is the United States, what's a difference of three hundred dollars to her?

As I was leaving the office, one of the oh-so-delightful staff tells me, "That'll be... $165 blah blah and how would you like to pay for that blah blah?"
"I would like my insurance to pay for it, except for my $25 deductible, which I will pay with my credit card," I replied cheerfully.

She corrects me. Apparently my insurance covers the EXAM. But not the "contact lens fitting assessment". Which I assume was the part where the doctor said, "How do they feel?" and I replied, "Fine."

I love it! I will be looking for a new optometrist, or return to the un-exciting optometrist across the Bay who includes "How do they feel?" in the price of the exam!