Arcadia Optometry Inc

HORRIBLE! AVOID AT ALL COSTS! I had an 11:45 appointment which I scheduled days in advance, when I came to the shop at 11:30am I was told the store is closed from 11:30am-1:30 pm for lunch! Then he had the nerve to ask, «do you have an appointment?» I said, «yes I do» he replies, «oh yeah it’s 11:30 were closed» and locked the door. Honestly this is the worst customer service I’ve ever encountered. I’m so THANKFUL THEY DID NOT GO NEAR MY EYES! Just go to another store instead this place, its not worth it!

Our family has been coming to Dr. Jim Chan since he opened. We are all pleased with his manner, knowledge and caring. Easy to talk to and efficient. Prices are reasonable too. I have never had a problem, even when I was trying out contacts and they were a fail, I had no charge.

My family has been coming to Arcadia Optometry for the last 15 years! The little shop in the strip mall off Baldwin and Duarte is home to Dr. Jim Chan and his team. I’ve ordered tens of contacts/​glasses and gotten annual exams here and have never had a problem.
Dr. Chan has great bedside manner and is very educational and instructive in what he is doing during his exam and what the patient actually needs; not just to make a profit.
I definitely recommend you visit this office if you live nearby because he’s an accredited optometrist and very friendly. Chinese-​speakers are okay as well.

Dr. Chan has been our family optometrist for 10+ years (been coming here every year since I was 11 years old).
Definitely the best optometrist around, and his office is way underrated on Unilocal!
Dr. Chan is very patient and pays careful attention to details during his exams. Always open to questions, has fair prices, and makes sure you would have free extra contacts to last you until your new contacts arrives (shipping or pickup).
Such a shame that most of his loyal and satisfied customers go by word of mouth and are not the type to leave reviews on Unilocal… I’m so surprised the place didn’t have 4 – 5 star reviews throughout!

My son has been going to Dr. Chan’s place for over four years now. I was referred to him by a friend whose daughter was seen by him. Before we started my son on Ortho-​K, I did little research on the neighborhood market finding his service plan was provided at a much lower price than other optometrists offered, and he had better hours for us, although we had to travel a bit.
We have order contact lenses for my husband, glasses, sun glasses with prescription, and of course my son’s contact lenses periodically.
Now, we have moved closer to his practice, a lot more convenient. So far, we have no complains.

Dr. Chan has been our family’s optometrist for 14 years. We like his service: professional, warm, good prices. In case of emergency, he goes extra steps to help. No complaint.

I had the same experience as some of the less happy customers — I got lens which after the 2^nd exchange is not the right prescription. Prescription of eyes changing twice in a month is not believable no matter how you explain it. If the optometrist thinks the customer requires multiple exams to get the right reading he should suggest at least 2 exams prior to reordering the lenses rather than just rushing through it.
Got a test at a different place — turns out the reading I got at this shop is +75 higher than it needs to be for one eye and –25 on another. The other place used several different tests to arrive at a reading versus just one test

Stay away. i’ve never hated anyone before, but i feel a real strong dislike to this guy for all the trouble he has caused my family and me.
First of all, he kept recommending me contact lens solutions that made my eyes Blood Shot Red. he just couldn’t solve the problem. so much for knowing your material.
Second, he kept diagnosing (idk if this is the correct term) my sister with prescriptions that made her dizzy. we had to come in so many times just so he could «re-​check» her again and again.
Third, he is extremely Disrespectful, Rude, and Unreasonable. i have never met a «professional» who lacks so much in his attitude towards his customers.
Fourth, we decided to buy our contacts from another seller and they needed his, being our optometrist, verification for our prescription but he denied that we were even patients. don’t let him tell you that he «didn’t get anything» because the company emailed us a copy of what he received and faxed back.
Lastly, he’s just a Liar. avoid him at all costs. his price doesn’t even compensate for the lack of service he provides. he is one who only cares about the money rolling in rather than the sake of his patients.

I always thought highly of Dr. Chan and actually had 3 eye exams there over several years. He always seemed straightforward and down to business during the exams.
In my most recent visit, I noticed that he is not very open to personal suggestions. I asked if I could reduce the power in my lenses since I work in front of a computer all day, to reduce eye strain. He immediately snapped back, «Why wouldn’t you want to see as clearly as you can?» Uh ok… I didn’t think too much of it at the time since I’d been a long time customer.
However, most recently, after I had already purchased frames/​lenses and new contact lenses, I decided to go back to my old contact lenses since they were more comfortable. I decided to order through an online vendor (since I live in OC now), but when the vendor contacted the office for prescription verification, the office rejected the verification and claimed that I’m «not a patient at this office.» The second verification attempt was ignored.
Is that an attempt to get me to go back to the office and purchase lenses there? I think so… By reading the other reviews here, looks like I’m not the first that this has happened to… Not a good business practice and NOT a way to encourage me to go back again.
However, if you do choose to go to Dr. Chan’s, just be sure to ask for a paper copy of your prescription before you leave. I’m glad I did…

Wow! We were quite surprise to see the mix bag of reviews on Unilocal for Dr. Chan. Not sure which other shady optometrist decided to hire some fake reviewers, but some of the 1 star reviews (i.e. Howard C) seriously looks automatically generated. I guess it’s part of the difficulties of running a small business in the current technological environment.
We have been going to Dr. Chan for 10+ years now. In fact, Dr. Chan was Mayin’s family optometrist first before John eventually started going to Dr. Chan. It seems like both of our extended family goes to Dr. Chan for optometry needs now, so we sort of know Dr. Chan’s practice pretty well.
As you may have gathered, Dr. Chan did graduate from UC Berkeley’s School of Optometry, so if you’re into receiving healthcare from individuals who graduated from fancy places, Dr. Chan is pretty well decorated. In terms of actual optometrist practice, Dr. Chan’s skill and knowledge is second to none in the neighborhood. He’s extremely up-​to-​date on new products for the eyes, and given how much business he does each year, we’re certain his vendors constantly supply him with newest stuff available on the market at at very competitive prices.
Speaking of business practices… yes, Dr. Chan is extremely shady or smart depending on your viewpoint. If you can’t tell by the fact that he INCORPORATED his optometry practice, obviously he’s using corporate loopholes for tax purposes. We don’t mind though, because this also means that he has lower overhead compared to other optometry practice in the area, which translates to lower prices to those who are paying out of pocket. For those who are not paying out of pocket, who cares what insurance company gets charged? You’ve already paid for the stuff in your monthly premiums…
How much lower are the prices you ask? Try 40% off retail not just on silly designer frames, but actually optical lenses. You are not going to find better prices for prescriptions even ordering online (we’ve tried, and failed). Dr. Chan gets distributor pricing and doesn’t jack up the price that much. We believe most of his profits come from commissions for large volume of sales.
Which brings us back to the biggest gripe people have with Dr. Chan. Yes, he has quite the temper, a sharp tongue, and lacks the social skill in coaxing people into getting inferior products. But this also means that he’s brutally honest, which is something we greatly appreciate over having the veil pulled over our eyes (pun intended). We actually think that his temper is quite great for someone who works so many hours a week. In other places, you may not see the same optometrist depending on the day you go to the practice. At Dr. Chan’s place, it will always be Dr. Chan.
Some superficial stuff about this place to close up this lengthy review: the parking lot sucks, make sure to make an appointment because Dr. Chan has funny hours (it seems to constantly change depending on his mood), and we suspect that his front desk girls were hired for eye candy purposes rather than for competence.

Dr. Chan is Great. The receptionist is a B***h though… She doesn’t seem to care too much about messing up… and has a very poor attitude/​manner toward the doctor’s customer.

Dr. Chan also gives recommendations for contact lens cleaning. A year ago he told me about this preservative free saline solution that you can use to rinse your contacts right before you put them on, but I was unsuccessful finding them online myself. During my last visit in February, he went out of his way to search for it on the internet for me and print out some of the brands that were selling it online (you can only purchase it online).
I’ve been using the preservative free saline for the past week and it really helps reduce the amount of dirt on the lenses — I see way crisper now! Thanks Dr. Chan!

stay. away.
don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I came to Dr. Chan because my old optometrist was just too far a drive, and this guy is down the street. I used to wear gas permeable lenses to control my near sightedness (i’m basically blind –_​-​), and unlike soft lenses, as long as your prescription stays the same, and you take good care of your lenses, you can keep the hard lenses for a year or two before replacing them. I’ve worn them since the 4^th grade, and that’s always been the case.
Anyway, I went in to the clinic before going to study abroad to make sure that everything is okay with my eyes before I left the country for half a year, and after checking out my eyes, he wanted me to get new hard lenses. I was reluctant, since it’s pretty expensive to replace (~$ 300?) and I was seeing just fine with my old lenses. In his efforts to convince me to order new lenses, Dr. Chan proceeded to basically tell me, in a very rude and mean manner, that if I didn’t get new lenses my eyes would rot and fall out and I would go blind. Maybe it was about time to replace my lenses, but seriously, does he need to be so damn pushy about it? «okay» was all I could mutter to keep from crying.
so i come back a while later to pick up my lenses. they seem to fit okay and everything is a go. I then tell him that I’m worried about losing my lenses while traveling, and could he prescribe me soft lenses as backup? Sure, he says, and goes to the back for a while, returning with a few packs of biweeklies.
«don’t I need to get an exam? or try them on?»
No, he said. I know your prescription, these are fine.
«okay…»
But they were not fine, I tried them on at home and my vision was blurry. I didn’t even feel safe driving in the soft lenses. So, I go back to ask Dr. Chan about this.
«My vision is really blurry when I wear the soft lenses, do you think maybe the prescription is off? can you double check for me?»
No, he said. that’s just how soft lenses are. you can’t expect crisp vision like hard lenses.
«so I’m supposed to see blurry??? o_​O»
that’s just how soft lenses are, he says.
Before I left, he also asked me to pick out a pair of frames from the dinky, faded display of acrylic glasses frames they had at the door. I was confused.
«but I don’t need frames???»
pick one, you might as well, because I will be billing your insurance for it regardless, is basically what he was saying. He knew I wasn’t going to get glasses any time before my insurance for the year expires, and he was trying to cash in on whatever he could.
SHADY.
After my horrid experience here, I eventually went to a new optometrist. I got an exam for new soft lenses, and it turns out the soft lenses Dr. Chan gave me were like TWO HUNDRED degrees off. no freakin wonder I couldn’t see.
Bottom line is, skill wise, I don’t think one optometrist is much different from another, especially if you’re just going for a regular check up or even to get glasses/​contacts. So, the only way to distinguish one doctor from another is really based on their customer service skills. Dr. Chan is NOT personable and cares more about getting your money than anything else. With the myriad of optometrists in the area, I say look elsewhere.

Dr. Chan is great. You can either walk in or make appointment. I suggest making appointment because if you go in the wrong day or time, you might have to wait for hours. But he will still see you after his office hours. Very nice, know his stuff. He speaks fluent in English, and Cantonese as well. But his staff speaks other languages as well. I go there yearly :)
The price is good, negotiable! If he doesn’t carry the style you want, you can order it from him with no extra cost. I usually go to the mall and check out new sunglasses and write down the model number and then give it to him to order for like 40% off.

What happened to my previous review? Got deleted it looks like…
Just say No to Arcadia Optometry. Here’s the shortlist:
— Rude to customers
— My contact lens supplier can never find me as a patient even though I’ve gone through the same hullabaloo 3 times with Arcadia Optometry
— Claimed I wasn’t a patient because I never paid for the exam! Retracted his statement later when he discovered his mistake but still wasn’t able to verify prescription!
Now months later I still have to deal with the headache of not being a «patient» even though I’ve dealt with this many times.

Worst optometrist experience ever, he was very short and not friendly at all. During my first appointment with him, he sent me home and refused to see me until I came back wearing a fresh new pair of contacts. The whole experience was awful, he was not informative or helpful and his receptionists are high school students who have no clue what they are doing. I tried to avoid seeing him and just ordering contacts through
and listed him as my optometrist. The following day i received a message from 1800 contacts informing me that he has stated my prescription has expired even though it’s within a year since I last saw him, I am absolutely certain he just wants me to go in to his office, schedule an appointment for his own financial gain.

GO SOMEWHERE ELSE FOR EYE EXAM!!! When I had my contact lens vendor contact them to verify my prescription, the doctor purposefully lie to them and give them wrong information. At first, they told them my prescription has expired (which was not the case). After calling them to clarify, the doctor said it was their mistake (wow!!!). I then reqeust for the prescription to be faxed to me directly. What they did is sending me a prescription with different reading then before (off by a 100). Not sure if I can sue him for mis-​kept medical record.
I guess Dr Chan is seriously lacking business and trying to use this trick to force his patient come back more often for eye exam.

I guess it’s standard operating procedure, but Dr. Chan ran a test where, after my pupils were dilated, he shone a bright light into each eye for a long duration. To me, it’s the optometry equivalent to water boarding. I was perspiring and tearing up like I was in labor.
Other than that, his eye exam is pretty basic. He gently pushed a few times for laser eye surgery or contacts, which I really don’t need and cannot afford. I politely declined. Replacement lenses start from $ 30. His selection of frames is nothing to cry about.

Dr. Jim Chan has been my main local optometrist and has helped me see for the past few years. He has been very helpful and friendly. He’s a Cal Alumni GO BEARS WOOT WOOT!!! He keeps up with the cutting edge of design and technology in the field. He’ll recommend eye-​care products to try out and ones to stay away from. Unfortunately, there are some eye-​care products under litigation, but Dr. Chan will let you know what is safe and what is not safe. He’s fluent in both English and Chinese. Go SEE him for yourself. Har Har Har.