Staying on top of the optometric game’s changing rules can be daunting. The optical department especially has its own regulations. Vision benefit companies like VSP and Eyemed have cut reimbursements down to a dispensing fee, so it’s difficult to find the money to pay staff and keep patient care high. Most owners know that VSP and Eyemed “reward” practices financially for using their lenses and lab systems whether the practices order finished product or uncut product that they will edge themselves in office. We have decided to maintain profitability our optical department needs to edge our lenses. We also have created a system for patients depending on their vision benefits.
Consider these three rubrics:
- VSP Package – Patients with VSP have a benefit that aligns them with certain services and products for their package as a VSP member. Even though the office may prefer a HOYA lens, the product that fits into the VSP package is the Unity lens. Is it the better of the two lenses? Maybe, maybe not. Is it the lens that VSP feels is best for their members? Yes, and they reimburse providers accordingly.
- Eyemed Package – Patients who present with Eyemed have product and incentives laid out as best for their members. When you purchase Eyemed lenses and edge them in-house, the opportunity for profits is greater. Eyemed seems to operate with the attitude “use our product and way of doing business” and we will reward you.
- Everyone else – For patients who do not have one of the above, office staff have the freedom to choose the lenses that they believe are best for the patients. Without a loaded advantage of using one product over another, staff can present patients with options for best technology and performance.
Business owners have the privilege of using whichever products they would like in the dispensary, however, prices will be higher if they don’t follow the vision benefit companies’ way. Imagine if the pharmaceutical companies were allowed to give doctors an incentive for using their product. If Aetna owned shares in a pharmaceutical company and a doctor was reimbursed more for prescribing a medication that Aetna indirectly owned, wouldn’t that be a conflict of interest? So optometrists are put in a position where it seems as though there is a conflict of interest that allows vision benefit companies to reward optometric businesses for using their products. Many of us would like to go counter current, but find that doing so erodes profits to the point of “playing the vision benefit game” or dropping the vision benefit company altogether.
