That sounds, to my utterly unprofessional ass, like an astigmatism? Basically your eye is deformed slightly like a football, giving your prescription a strength, cyclical value (a cylindrical bias to the lens, as I understand it) and a rotation of that cylindrical bias for the eye.
It does require small stores to order them custom (larger stores can often grind them in-house), but $600 seems... off. Perhaps if it's a high refraction material (thinner lenses) with all the various coatings?
The nice thing is if you have your prescription, you can order glasses from anywhere (including online), your prescription is not tied to one provider.
"Axis" is a term used with respect to astigmatism, but correcting for astigmatism is a basic part of lensmaking, and even the cheapest pair of glasses can do it, so this is either something else, or an astoundingly bare-faced rip-off.
It does require small stores to order them custom (larger stores can often grind them in-house), but $600 seems... off. Perhaps if it's a high refraction material (thinner lenses) with all the various coatings?
The nice thing is if you have your prescription, you can order glasses from anywhere (including online), your prescription is not tied to one provider.