Hse voucher for child’s glasses.

tom1ie

Hi all
We have to get a new pair of glasses for our daughter (this is the fifth pair in 2.5 years).
We are based in rathfarnham and have always received a voucher towards the total cost of new lenses plus frames, for approx €50, from the local hse office (rathfarnham office). We have always gone to opticians around the rathfarnham dundrum area.
A friend of ours told us to go to an opticians in d17 (not sure if I can name the opticians, but they are a pleasure to deal with), as the glasses were cheaper. We went and picked out the glasses/lenses and the optician told us that usually people from the area would get €150 off bifocals (which is what the little one needs) from the area hse office, but because we were from the rathfarnham area she wasn’t sure.
I thought this was strange as I presumed everyone got the same cost voucher off the cost of lenses and frames.
We went with it anyway and we received a letter from the hse stating we were entitled to €80.41.
I’m a bit confused.
How were we only getting €50 when we were going through the rathfarnham hse office, and how come we are not getting the full €150 that our optician says people from d17 area get?
We have got bifocals the last time, which we received a voucher for approx €50 from the rathfarnham office, yet I’m getting a voucher of €80.41 this time through the d17 office of the hse?
Something doesn’t add up.

tom1ie

Bump?

slongwill

tom1ie wrote: »

Bump?

The HSE doesn't do things in a centralised way unfortunately. This is extremely common. You could ring the person in optical benefit in your HSE office and query it.

tom1ie

slongwill wrote: »

The HSE doesn't do things in a centralised way unfortunately. This is extremely common. You could ring the person in optical benefit in your HSE office and query it.

Yeah we did. So apparently we got the highest voucher amount possible that our particular area (area 3 i think) gives out, which is €80.41
The girl who signed the docket said they'd never given out a voucher for €150 from this office and that other offices "might give nothing out at all."

She also said that they've being trying to get all health centres to pay the same amount for years. I presume "they" are the local clinics and they've being asking h.s.e hq to implement this.
I'm going to query this further with some of my local t.d's as i dont think its very fair the amount credited to your voucher, comes down to what local area office you are part of.
That's what it seems like anyway.

LorelaiG

We get around 150 euro each for 3 of the kids as they need the lenses to be thinner as their prescriptions are quite high. One of the kids doesn't need thin and light lenses and we only receive the standard 50 euro voucher for her. We're in the Dublin 15 area but we go to Grangegorman for the eye tests (actually, that's a lie, two of them have been discharged as they are now over 8 years old, so two go to Specsavers and two go to Grangegorman.)

tom1ie

LorelaiG wrote: »

We get around 150 euro each for 3 of the kids as they need the lenses to be thinner as their prescriptions are quite high. One of the kids doesn't need thin and light lenses and we only receive the standard 50 euro voucher for her. We're in the Dublin 15 area but we go to Grangegorman for the eye tests (actually, that's a lie, two of them have been discharged as they are now over 8 years old, so two go to Specsavers and two go to Grangegorman.)

Is that for bifocals or a “normal” prescription? I’ve sent the query to all my local tds so I’ll see what happens.
Thanks for the reply.

LorelaiG

Just a normal prescription, my kids do not need bifocals. The older two have also now fallen into a black hole where we have to pay for their eye tests until they are 12 because they have been discharged from the HSE clinic.