W Van Smith OD

Horrible service and bad optometry. Took my oldest child for an annual eye exam. He spent less than two minutes on the exam (He seemed impatient and raised his voice to my son twice asking him if a lens was better or worse). He proceeded to spent the next 10 minutes trying to sell me on $600 contacts that I could only order through his office. When I asked for the prescription he got rude and told me that's not how he does business. I got the glasses prescription and I left the his office. I made an appointment with my son's normal optometrist. The prescription Dr. Smith prescribed in his hurried exam was incorrect and he failed to mention my son's worsening stigmatism (which can be cause for alarm). Like everything else available at Wal-mart his practice is inferior.

after my boyfriend goes over a year with no glasses or contacts we go to see dr. w. van smith in our local wa-mart. that should have been the first indication of "cheap" service we would be encountering. first off, the receptionist has no idea what's going on and hasn't for years now that I've read the other reviews. she told us so. in fact multiple times she let us know she didn't know things and would need to privately speak with the doctor. prices should not be secrets! we then pre-paid for contacts and the appointment also. The doctor told my boyfriend the trial pair they were giving him weren't exactly the same as the contacts she would be ordering for him..".but they would still work." so he puts the trials in and wears the with no problem. vision at last! then the boxes come in so we go and pick them up right away, he replaces his lenses only to find out the prescription is wrong in one eye. one blurry eye is not acceptable. so we did what we had to do to get another appointment (without paying for the entire works again as she recommended us to do) and we bring the box in with us, what good is the wrong prescription to us? but because we had opened one of the little packs (only one) they really couldn't do anything with it either. then made us pay half price for a new box because they mistakenly ordered the wrong ones. so the man was very rude the entire appointment, over their mistakes, then when talking with us in his room asked "if you couldn't see before for so long isn't anything better at this point. i mean really? you can see better...get over it. seriously. just deal with it." Are you kidding me? what kind of professional actually says something like that?? we honestly were so mad leaving there we thought about getting a total refund but....those people won't come off a dime. even when it's yours. so much for vision, now we have to wait a week for his "right" contacts to come in. thanks Dr. w. van Webb, my boyfriend is sick with headaches and vomiting from the contacts prescription.

Don't bother going there. My brother and I went in person to make an appt. for the following week. We showed the receptionist our insurance cards and she verified them and told me that my co-pay would be $10.00 (through Delta Vision). My brother is on Medicaid and his co-payment was to be $2.00. We went in the next week for our appt. and when we arrived the receptionist had us complete some medical information. Then she told me that my co-payment was going to be $36.00. I reminded her that she was the one who checked my coverage and that it was only $10.00. She said that Dr. Van Smith had given her a paper stating that she is supposed to collect the additional money because the insurance company does not pay him enough. She said that I could think about it or go to another Dr. I told her I was not going to pay the $36.00. My brother decided to go ahead and see the Dr. and I went into the exam room with him. The Dr. was very condensending and not sympathetic to my brother. My brother had asked him to refer him to an ophthalmologist so he could find out about having surgery on one eye that had suffered an accident years ago. The Dr. told him that the only surgery he could have was to remove the eye and that all he needed was glasses. He told him that he did have a cataract on the bad eye too, He said that there was no Dr. that could remove scar tissue. My brother told him that he knew there was because our mother had had that type of surgery on her eye. He brushed him off and tried to convince him to just order the glasses. I then spoke up and told the Dr. that I too was going to have an exam but that now you don't honor my insurance and are trying to collect more money. He told me that I could go to another Dr. if I wanted to. He didn't care and would not honor what I was told only a few days prior. We went into the eyeglass fitting room and decided not to order any glasses and asked for my brother's prescription. The receptionist said she didn't think she could give it to us. I told her that all Drs. give you the prescription if you ask for it. She said she would have to ask him about it. We decided to pay the $69.00 for the exam and not use his Medicaid coverage so that he could go and see another Dr. When we paid for the exam, then she gave him his prescription. I am going to further explore this experience with my insurance company. If he has a contract with Deltal Vision he cannot legally overcharge patients. I do not recommend this office to anyone unless you want to be "ripped off" and treated poorly. We both left there upset and felt we had been "screwed".

I would not recommed Dr. Van Smith and his practice to anyone after the experience I had. Although I feel Dr. Smith was a decent eye doctor, his staff is incompetent. Firstly, Dr. Smith prescribed me contacts that did not come in my prescription strength. He or his staff did not bother to call and discuss this with me, or make any attempt to make me aware of this so that I may choose a different lense. Instead, his staff ordered me a different type of contact, that was a different price, and didn't bother to tell me even when I picked them up. I would like to note that because of the price difference, I was actually owed money back - which they failed to mention or refund.

When I called to discuss this with them, they said "oh I guess the girl just ordered what she thought you'd want". This is unacceptable because I had made no notion of what I would like ordered had what Dr. Smith prescribed me been unavailable. Now it is two months later, and I have contacts that I need to return, and they can not return them until the doctor is back in from vacation. I would also like to mention I paid CASH for these as well. I am VERY displeased with Dr. Smith's office and staff and will be filing a formal complaint against them.