Under the new prescription safety eyewear program, BCIT employees, who are required to wear safety eyewear at work, will be eligible to claim coverage of up to $275 for prescription safety eyewear every two years. Any expenses incurred over $275 must be paid by the employee. This program operates through a collaboration with Eyesafe BC—a non-profit prescription eyewear program administered by the BC Association of Optometrists. All prescription safety eyewear is compliant with WorkSafeBC 8.14(3)C(i) and CAN/CSA Z94.3. There are over 350 Doctors of Optometry in more than 85 communities in BC participating in this program. View the participating optometrists.
Steps to request a prescription safety eyewear:
- Employee to contact their departmental program User Administrator, who will create and approve an online job ticket (pdf.) in the Eyesafe online portal. Find your department’s user administrator by referring to the Eyesafe Department User Administrator document found in the Eyesafe Program SharePoint library.
- Your manager will be responsible for approving the requests for safety eyewear by signing the job ticket, digitally or written.
- The employee then takes the signed job ticket, which includes the safety eyewear criteria, to a participating optometrist, along with a current prescription – one that has been issued within two years. The signed job ticket can be presented at the clinic via smart phone devices. A printed-out copy is not required.
- When the safety glasses are ready, the employee will get a call to return to the Optometrist’s office for a full spectacle frame fitting and make any adjustments to ensure that the fit is right. It will normally take the lab 2-3 weeks to get the glasses ready.
Benefits of the program:
- Prevents workplace injuries which can result in significant human and financial costs
- Provides fitted safety eyewear best suited for the employees’ work environment
- Secure online administration
- Provides annual utilization reports and monthly billing statements
Resources for Eyesafe program user administrator:
As the User Administrator for your department, a short video training on how to navigate the EyeSafe Portal is available to you on BCIT’s Employee Learning Center. To request access to this video training, please contact BCIT Health, Safety and Environment.