This article will give you information about prescription eyewear and what you need to know. There are also many lens options available such as designs, coatings and materials. Prescription eyewear may be for reading or for distance, single vision lenses, progressive no line, trifocal or bifocal.

A prescription eyewear is an order written by a physician or eye doctor, like an optometrist or ophthalmologist that specifies the value of the parameters necessary to dispense or construct corrective lenses that are appropriate for a patient. If the examination indicates that corrective lenses are necessary, the doctor in general will provide the patient with eyewear prescription after the exam. In the US, eyewear prescribers are required to give their patients a copy of the prescription immediately after the exam even if a patient does not ask for the copy.

The specified parameters on prescription eyewear varies, but normally includes the power to which every lens should be made to  correct a blurred vision because of refractive errors, such  as hyperopia, myopia, astigmatism and presbyopia. This is determined using a phoropter asking a patient which lens is best, through retinoscopy and computer automated refractor. A dispensing optician will take the prescription written by the optometrist or ophthalmologist and assemble or order the lenses and frames to be dispensed to the patient.