For a routine eye exam, you need your current glasses or contact lenses, a list of medications you take, your insurance cards, and a basic knowledge of your family’s eye health history. That covers the essentials, but a little extra preparation can make your appointment faster, more accurate, and less expensive.
What to Bring With You
Start with the basics: your vision insurance card and your medical insurance card. These are two separate things, and many people don’t realize both can apply. Vision insurance covers routine eye exams, prescription eyewear, and contact lenses. Medical insurance kicks in when there’s an eye problem, disease, or a condition like diabetes that affects your eyes. Vision plans will not cover anything considered “medical,” including vision loss, floaters, dry eyes, infections, or complications from diabetes. If your visit involves both a routine check and a medical issue, your provider may bill both plans on the same visit.
Bring your current glasses, even if you don’t wear them often. If you wear contact lenses, bring the box or packaging so the doctor can see the brand, power, base curve, and diameter. You’ll also want a form of photo ID and any referral paperwork if your insurance requires one.
Your Medication List Matters More Than You Think
Dozens of common medications cause changes in your eyes that your doctor needs to know about. Antihistamines for allergies can cause dry eye. Antidepressants, including SSRIs, do the same. Acne medications like isotretinoin are well known for drying out the eyes and affecting vision. Some antibiotics can cause retinal problems or eye redness. Seizure medications like topiramate can raise the pressure inside your eye. Even thyroid medication has been linked to eye complications in children.
Write down every medication you take, prescription and over-the-counter, along with the dosage. If you can’t remember them all, snap a photo of your medicine cabinet before you leave the house. Your eye doctor isn’t just being thorough when they ask. These medications directly change what they see during the exam, and knowing about them prevents misdiagnosis.
Family and Personal Health History
Your doctor will ask about eye conditions that run in your family, particularly glaucoma, macular degeneration, cataracts, and retinal detachment. They’ll also want to know about systemic conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, and autoimmune diseases. If a close relative had any childhood eye disease, that’s especially important to mention if you’re bringing a child in.
Think through your own history before the appointment: previous eye surgeries or injuries, past prescriptions, and any current symptoms. If you spend long hours on screens, pay attention in the days before your exam to whether you’re experiencing dry eyes, blurred vision after screen use, headaches, difficulty refocusing between near and far distances, or neck and shoulder pain. These are all part of digital eye strain, and reporting them specifically helps your doctor figure out whether you need a prescription change, a different lens coating, or treatment for dry eye.
What Happens During the Exam
A comprehensive eye exam includes several distinct tests. Visual acuity is the classic letter chart that measures how clearly each eye sees. Preliminary tests check your depth perception, color vision, peripheral vision, and how your eye muscles move. Refraction is the part where the doctor flips lenses in front of your eyes and asks “which is better, one or two?” to determine your exact prescription.
The doctor will also measure the curvature of your cornea, which is critical if you wear or want contact lenses. They’ll examine the internal structures of your eye using microscopes and specialized lenses, checking for signs of disease that you might not feel yet. Pressure inside the eye is measured to screen for glaucoma.
Many offices now offer digital retinal imaging as an alternative or supplement to traditional dilation. This technology captures a wide-angle photo of the back of your eye without needing drops. It’s becoming increasingly common, though some offices charge an extra fee for it since insurance doesn’t always cover the imaging.
Prepare for Dilation
In most comprehensive exams, the doctor will use drops to temporarily widen your pupils so they can get a better view of the structures inside your eye. This is one of the most important parts of the exam for detecting diseases like glaucoma, diabetic eye damage, and macular degeneration early.
After dilation, your vision will be blurry and your eyes will be sensitive to light. This typically wears off within a few hours, though your pupils may still look dilated for up to 24 hours. Bring sunglasses to wear afterward, and consider having someone else drive you home. If you absolutely need to drive yourself, ask the office when you schedule your appointment whether they can do imaging instead of dilation, or plan your visit for later in the day so you’re not driving in bright sunlight.
Contact Lens Wearers Need an Extra Step
If you wear contacts or want to start, you’ll need a contact lens fitting in addition to the standard exam. This involves measuring the curvature and diameter of your cornea, evaluating your tear film to check moisture levels, and trying on trial lenses to see how they sit on your eye. The fitting is a separate service with an additional fee because it requires specialized testing and extra time. Bring your current contact lens packaging so your doctor has a starting point for your brand, prescription, and lens specifications.
Bringing a Child to the Exam
Children need eye exams too, and parents should come prepared with a few extra details. Know whether your child was born prematurely, and be ready to share any family history of childhood eye conditions like lazy eye, crossed eyes, or congenital cataracts. If your child has a learning disability, developmental delay, or behavioral condition, mention it. These can be connected to undiagnosed vision problems.
Children often won’t tell you their eyes bother them. Instead, watch for forced blinking, eye rubbing, avoiding screens, or complaints of brief eye pain. If you’ve noticed any of these, write them down with approximate dates so you can describe the pattern to the doctor.
How Often You Need an Exam
Current guidelines from the American Academy of Ophthalmology recommend exams at the following intervals for adults without symptoms or risk factors: every 5 to 10 years if you’re under 40, every 2 to 4 years between ages 40 and 54, every 1 to 3 years between 55 and 64, and every 1 to 2 years once you’re 65 or older. If you have diabetes, the timeline is more aggressive. People with type 2 diabetes should get an eye exam at diagnosis and at least yearly after that. Those with type 1 diabetes should start annual exams five years after diagnosis. People with high myopia (strong nearsightedness) also need yearly dilated exams because of increased risk for retinal problems.
If you wear glasses or contacts, you’ll likely go more frequently than these minimums simply because your prescription needs updating. Most vision insurance plans cover one routine exam per year.