ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — Every year, Asheville Media Group asks the community what the best of Asheville is: the best restaurants, the best spots to shop, the best schools, services and salons. Our poll encompasses 200+ categories that celebrate what makes Asheville the best.
In this series, “Behind ‘Best of Asheville’,” 828newsNOW will profile a few of the 2024 Best of Asheville winners.
ASHEVILLE EYE ASSOCIATES – Eye Care/Eye Doctor, Eye Surgeon Gold Medal winner
Asheville Eye Associates has six primary locations: two in Asheville, one in Arden, one in Franklin, one in Hendersonville and one in Sylva. Considering the breadth of services the eye care provider offers, their large network makes sense.
“We’re the largest eye practice in Western North Carolina. We’ve got six permanent locations, three satellite offices, so nine total,” said Sarah Coghlin, the director of marketing and project development at Asheville Eye Associates. “What makes our practice kind of unique is that we, under the umbrella of Asheville Eye Associates, we house every sub-specialty of ophthalmology.”
This means that one Asheville Eye Associates location serves as an all-in-one shop for everything to do with eyes. The large space at 8 Medical Park Dr., for instance, houses all sorts of ops: ophthalmologists, optometrists, orthoptists and opticians. Asheville Eye Associates customers can buy glasses, undergo cataract surgery and get an eye examination all under one roof.
“You can basically come to us from the time you are an infant all the way through your senior years,” Coghlin said. “We have pediatric ophthalmologists all the way to cataract surgeons, glaucoma specialists, all that kinda stuff and everything in-between.”
In fact, Asheville Eye Associates employs 24 different eye care providers across all of their locations.
The broad spectrum of service explains the gold medal wins for Best Eye Care/Eye Doctor and Best Eye Surgeon at Asheville Eye Associates, Coghlin said. They are the only eye practice in the area that offers everything that they do.
Asheville Eye Associates has held a gold standard for themselves for over 50 years. They pride themselves on maintaining a consistent legacy with a bright future, which their surgeons are emblematic of.
“All of our surgeons are fellowship trained, so they’ve got extra training, meaning that they’re specialists in their fields. We’ve got surgeons that have been here since the 90s, which to me doesn’t sound like that long ago,” Coghlin laughed. “Then you’ve got newer surgeons that have come in in the last four years.”
The new surgeons bring new surgical techniques and new technology with them, keeping Asheville Eye Associates on the frontlines of Asheville eye care.
The “Best of Asheville” wins are a symbol of what Asheville Eye Care wants to be for Western North Carolina eye care, Coghlin said.
“It helps solidify our place in the community a little bit. I feel like it gives us just that much more credit towards what we’ve done and what we want to continue to do,” said Coghlin. “Which is basically just bringing quality eye care, trusted eye care to Western North Carolina.”
Correction, 11:50 a.m., Nov. 26, 2024: An earlier version of this article read that Asheville Eye Associates employs 23 providers. They employ 24.
