Christopher G Schanel, OD

my wife and I have been going to Dr. Schanel for over twenty years. We have always had great service from him and his staff. I have always been able to stop in and get a repair while i waited, or order in a selection of sunglass frames just so i could find exactly what i wanted. the other day i came in for an exam and to get new lenses and a couple of new frames. I picked out this one frame but wasn’t quite sure if they were the ones, so he said take them home and wear them around just to make sure. then bring them back next week. If you like them, great and if you don’t we will find you a pair that will work. They always have treated me like a friend. I will always go there and recommend there services.

Dr. Schanel was friendly, informative and efficient with my eye exam. I am very happy with the prescription he wrote for my progressive lenses. The front desk person was also friendly and helpful. The only reason I’m not giving 5 stars is that the front desk is often understaffed when I’ve been in; it is difficult for one guy to juggle the demands of 3 or more customers at once. Bonus: the lenses and frames are extremely reasonable in price, much cheaper than other places I’ve been, including a couple other places on State Street.

I loved Dr Schanel because I got the best eye prescription there each year and he is a nice gentleman but I have had nothing but bad experiences with the guy who works the front desk. After 3 years of going there and purchasing several pairs of glasses, I’m done with this place! He is condescending, sometimes rude, and not accommodating at all. Very sour, know-​it all, bossy personality and not even helpful when it comes to deciding on frames.

I had a really bad experience here where I was grilled about my health insurance when trying to get a simple eye exam. My insurance company does not print new cards each year, and since my card had last year’s printed date on it I was almost refused service by the person at the front desk. I had to call my insurance company myself and put them on the phone with the front desk person in order to verify that my insurance was current. It is frankly not the customer’s job to verify their insurance, and even the insurance person I called was surprised and mentioned that they have an online system for businesses to verify coverage online. The excuse I was given is that lately they have given eye exams to people who did not have current insurance coverage. As I stated before, this is not my problem as a customer and most other places simply verify coverage themselves before providing services.
I would have just left but I made the appointment ahead of time and didn’t want to bother rescheduling. I will certainty never come back since I was treated extremely rudely.

You know, Dr. Schanel is one of the nicest gentlemen I have met. I’m diggin’ his brown loafers, and his eye exam was fun. And I told him that. And he laughed at me and gave me the thumbs up.
I’ve never in my life worn contacts. I’m the kind of person who can’t even put eye drops in my eyes without making it into a drama, so contacts? Psshhhh… no way. So for 4 years I avoided the thought, and for 4 years I was skippin’ along with my cute lil purple eye glasses. Until a while back when a co-​worker of mine was punched in the face on a home visit and his eye glasses shattered and conveniently located shrapnel in his eye in a bloody mess.
Everyone on my team who wore (WORE being the key word here) glasses made eye exam appointments that day.
So there’s the background on how I ended up sitting in Dr. Schanel’s office on my 10^th failed attempt at getting these stupid contacts into my ever blinking eyes. Dr. Schanel’s wife runs the front of the store, and Dr. Schanel takes care of the back. After a bit of encouragement and yet another failed attempt that left me sighing and feeling like a loser, Dr. Schanel sent in his wife, and she told me exactly how to keep my eye from blinking and get that damn contact in place. And it worked! I was so excited to tell Dr. Schanel! He walked into the room and did a fist pump after seeing the huge grin on my face.
And now I wear contacts to work everyday.

I’m genuinely obsessed with this optometrist. The selection of frames is incredible and so much cheaper than you can find at lens crafters. Designer frames are always on discount and the service staff are probably some of the nicest people in Madison. They bent over backwards to get me the discontinued frame I was looking for. I couldn’t be happier.