OPINION:
Daniel Behn, O.D., is listed as Staff Optometrist on the updegraffvision.com website.
LASIK mills (high volume LASIK providers) employ optometrists to perform pre- and post-op exams. This business model of using optometrists to do the work of LASIK surgeons is more profitable, but not in the patient’s best interest.
In my opinion, optometrists are not qualified to determine a patient’s candidacy for LASIK eye surgery. Many LASIK patients have suffered life-altering permanent complications due to the incompetence of an optometrist working for a LASIK surgeon. A surgeon who delegates the LASIK consultation and pre-operative exam to an optometrist, technician, or other employee is reckless and greedy.
I do not know if Daniel J. Behn, O.D. is performing pre- and post-op LASIK exams for Dr. Stephen Updegraff. If he is, it is my opinion that Daniel J. Behn, O.D. should be doing the work that an optometrist is trained to do — that is, dispensing glasses and contact lenses. Glasses and contacts are, afterall, a safer alternative to risky, irreversible LASIK eye surgery.
Anyone who says that LASIK is safer than contact lenses is, frankly, drinking the LASIK-industry Kool-Aid.