March 23, 2020 – If you experience an eye or vision emergency during the closures of the Covid-19 pandemic, you are urged to seek care through your optometrist. Many optometry offices remain open for essential and emergency care.

Colorado’s optometrists are taking steps to remain available for care for those patients needing urgent and/or essential care.  This will also be a great benefit to Colorado’s hospital emergency rooms, who are not in a position to treat eye emergencies at this time.

Many offices are able to address the following issues via tele-health or curbside pick-up:

• Red Eye (aka: pink eye or conjunctivitis)
• Broken Glasses
• Contact Lens Refills (usually via mail)
• Other Eye Emergencies
• Other Essential Care Appointments

“We are open for emergencies and urgencies. An individual in need of eye care will call the office and we then triage to see if we can take care of them over the phone. If not, we have them come to the office, but the door is locked and we will let them in,” says Melissa Tada, OD of Mountain View Vision in Colorado Springs.

Each optometry office has different processes and circumstances so call your optometrist to see what level of care they are able to provide during this time. Try your best to stay out of the overloaded emergency care offices.

If you’re having an eye care emergency and need a new optometrist you can Find an Optometrist here.