Cash kickbacks from contact lens manufacturers? I doubt it. I haven't heard
of any practitioners getting cash back.

They're pretty liberal with rebates to end-users. For the dispensers, they
do co-op advertising, they sponsor dinner for local CE meetings and they
take the staff out to lunch.

Frame manufacturers and their reps are probably more aggressive with this
sort of marketing but I haven't had much experience with them.

-MT

I'm sure he was being facetious.  No, the manufacturers do NOT offer
rebates to the doc.  The only consideration we ever get is an occasional
lunch or some extra trial lenses.  Any payment from a manufacturer to a
doc would be suicide for both of them.  Perpetuating urban myths does
not make them true...  What IS true, is that some manufacturers offer
significant discounts for volume buying.  Most docs don't come close to
the quantities necessary to make this a significant factor. What's also
true is that most docs get comfortable with certain lenses, and tend to
use those more than others.  Even more true is that most of us like to
select what we think will work the best.  That's what I do and have been
burned recently doing it (by the Si lenses, which are the best lenses
when they work and terrible ones when they don't.).

w.stacy, o.d.