Dilated Eye Exams

Dilation of the eyes can be performed at a visit for wellness or a problem-focused medical evaluation of your eyes. However, the reason your doctor performs this in depth evaluation matters. When a specific problem is being evaluated, eye doctors will document the presence or absence of the signs associated with the problem; when we are checking a healthy eye for the unknown, eye doctors are only looking for something outside the ordinary — the absence of findings is expected and therefore not documented to rule out progression of a condition. In the absence of a diagnosis, medical tests cannot be billed to medical insurance; and this is the best news. Most wellness eye exams end with a demonstration of vision improvement with glasses/contacts plus maybe a specialty service or two; it’s a good thing that urgent medical eye care is only rarely needed!

Indications for dilation at a wellness vision exam may include but are not limited to the following:

• pertinent family or personal history
• high minus correction
• pinhole or small pupil
• recent injury
• abnormal tests results
• Diabetes
• any other need to see more detail inside the eye at your wellness visit