Northern Virginia Doctors of Optometry of Clarendon
2521 Wilson Blvd,
Arlington, VA

I’ve been a patient for maybe two years now. I usually have a pleasant experience. However, I was quite disappointed in the communication that I had with the office recently. I was trying to have my glasses prescription emailed to me so that I could purchase frames elsewhere. The first email they attempted to send to me was never delivered to me. Then, I asked them to try sending it to my other email address to see if that would work. I received the second email, but it was empty. There was nothing in the email - no subject line, no content in the body, no attachment, no links. The only thing in the email was the company’s business signature. I called again and was told that they were quite busy at the moment and would call me back before closing. No one called…. So, the next day, I called for a third time. I was told that I needed to access my patient portal. I’ve never set up a portal with this eye doctor, so I informed them of that and they were able to email a portal link to the newest email address that I provided them. I clicked the link and attempted to login, but received an error message stating that my credentials were incorrect. The receptionist told me to try resetting my password. I attempted to do so, but unfortunately I received the same error message. I tried to troubleshoot this issue myself while on the phone with the receptionist and I realized that my email address was spelled incorrectly on the portal credentials that they sent to me. Which is why I couldn’t login nor successfully reset the login information - the reset email was going to an email address that doesn’t exist because it was spelled incorrectly. I tried to explain this to the receptionist, but she seemed annoyed and talked over me a few times. I understood her frustration because this was frustrating and time consuming for me as well. Nonetheless, I remained respectful as I explained to her that I was in desperate need of the prescription because I had a very short timeframe to purchase new glasses before the end of the month. She ending up successfully emailing me an attachment of the prescription to the newest email address that I provided them since the portal was inaccessible to me. She made it clear that this was not standard protocol, which I absolutely understand so I expressed my gratitude to her for making this work but she still seemed annoyed or upset. I also asked her to please confirm that they would update my email address in the portal so that this confusion wouldn’t happen again and that I could gain access to the portal at some point. She still didn’t seem to understand what I was saying and simply said she would contact customer service. All in all, I got what I needed, but it shouldn’t have taken two business days, several rounds of undelivered emails, and three phone calls. I was quite disappointed because prior to this experience, I had nothing but great things to say about this business. I am happy that I finally received what I needed, but I’m disappointed that it took this long and had so much confusion. I hope the receptionist is able to contact customer service and update my information on file, so that this does not happen again. I also wish that she had been a bit more patient in assisting me. I understand that it was a tough and confusing situation. However, I think the office as a whole could’ve handled it better. Considering this most recent experience, I will give this business a three star rating.

I’ve seen Dr Look and Dr Sparrenberger, both of whom I’d recommend without reservation. They are excellent & caring practitioners. The office is compact, clean, and efficient. They have all the best equipment and a FANTASTIC collection of frames, if you happen to need glasses. If you’re serious about eye care, check them out. The location is super convenient and a few steps from the courthouse metro. Lots of parallel parking out front and walking distance for anyone in courthouse or Clarendon.

I didn’t have a great experience here. I had two different doctors over two years give me different prescriptions that didn’t work very well for me. They also forgot to finalize my contact prescriptions when I ordered a 6 month supply after using my trial lenses, and then when I went to buy more I had no active prescription. It had been less than a year since my appointment so I can’t get another full exam at a new place and I have moved so I can’t get back to them easily for an addition contact prescription appointment. Very disappointed that they didn’t own up to the mistake of forgetting to finalize my prescription after I ordered lenses since the contacts I purchased from them are not from my expired prescription. They’re nice here but I’ve just had a poor experience. This may be a fluke and I wouldn’t warn others away but I also wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone.