Beginning in version 7.52, there are new options to identify, price, and handle balance lenses. The easiest way to explain it to illustrate with an example.
Consider an Rx order for a Flat Top 28 in both eyes, the right eye is a balance lens.
In Rx-Universe, we will set up a lens style for the balance design for a ST28, let’s call it ST28BL, and indicate this is a balance lens design. In the future, this checkbox could be used to lighten validation rules of powers, for example.
Since there are no actual blanks with a lens style of ST28BL, we want to set up a rule so that Rx-Universe will select a ST28 blank when the ST28BL design is used; this is done using the Alias table, and an entry similar to:
Now, we can manually create an Rx order for a ST28 job with one eye as a balance lens, in the following example, the right eye is the balance eye:
The lens design will clearly show that one eye is a balance lens, which will print on the work ticket and invoice, but the system selects the ST28 physical blank for the job.
Pricing a Balance Lens
This lens style can be priced differently, if desired; in this example, the ST28BL lens style has been set up with a different pricing group, and a different price specified for it:
Looking at the pricing for the sample job above, the balance eye will price at the 30.00 level, and the other eye at the normal 65.00 level (both prices are per pair):
Remote Orders and Balance Lenses
When sending an Rx order electronically from another system, that system can certainly specify the balance lens style, if desired. In this case, it might send, to identify the right eye as a balance lens, something like:
_LSTYLE=ST28BL;ST28
However, many external systems would find that problematic. Therefore, there is a new tag that can be sent with an order, _BALANCE, to indicate that one eye is a balance eye. The valid values are R (for right eye), L (for left eye) or blank for no balance lens (which is the same as omitting the tag).
In this case, to specified the right eye as the balance lens, the file might send:
_LSTYLE=ST28;ST28
_BALANCE=R