In order to lower our costs for our patients for medical visits, routine exams, glasses and contact lenses, as well as allowing our doctor and staff to spend more quality time to best serve patients, Eye Center of West Jordan has chosen to be a cash-only practice. For patients with insurance, we do offer forms from major insurance companies for reimbursement based on the individual plans.
Am I better off going to a provider that takes my insurance?
The common misperception with vision insurance is that the patient is able to save on the costs of an eye exam and eyeglasses or contacts, but many don’t consider the actual costs associated with using insurance, including reduced quality of service, out-of-pocket costs, less transparency, and wasted time. We believe our patients receive the following benefits by our not taking insurance:
- More time with patients.
We invite you to compare how much time our doctor spends with each patient compared to other clinics. Our doctor has had more than one patient say (15-20 minutes into an eye exam with him), “this is the most thorough eye exam I’ve ever had.” While capable of completing a superficial eye exam in 10-15 minutes, we don’t believe most people want a limit on the care they receive from a healthcare provider. Our aim is to provide quality work, explain options to patients, and help answer questions to help our patients make informed choices for themselves about their eye health and vision correction choices. With reduced payments from insurance companies, doctors are compelled to spend less time with patients to cover their expenses, which ultimately affects patients.
- Reduced cost for glasses.
By not taking insurances, we can reduce patients’ cost for glasses. See Clear Prices for Clear Vision. Since vision plans and medical insurance add a third party to be paid, optical shops often artificially raise their prices to make up for the lost income. We would prefer to keep costs low on glasses for everyone. Sometimes people pay $200+ for their glasses out of pocket, even with vision insurance, not including the monthly premium people pay for their insurance. We work to find low prices from our suppliers and pass on the deals to patients.
- Transparency.
Maybe you’ve had a visit to a hospital and didn’t receive your insurance company’s explanation of benefits for a full year. Wouldn’t it be nice to call a hospital or doctor and know before you receive the services how much you should budget for your visit? We hope to be different in this regard, believing that most (hopefully all) customers want to know what they are getting into financially before they commit to doing business with someone. If you don’t find a price for a service or product you need on our website, feel free to call us, and we will do all we can to help you know the price before you come to visit our office.
- Efficiency.
Face it—using insurance for simple matters (like eye exams) can be a hassle. It often involves your Social Security number, which can lead to data breaches, income loss, and other time wasted. Insurance typically involves waiting for verification of benefits. It entails comparing plans to find one that offers the most reasonable prices. It requires registration for the plan and likely means one more dreaded password will be added to your list. Then, when at the doctor’s office, you have to waste more time waiting to know how much you have to pay out of pocket, hoping that the website isn’t down or that the staff can actually find you in the insurance company database. Then you can wait more as an optician does the math while you try to figure out which glasses you can afford. When this math is done, you may get to start all over when you learn the glasses you liked are now out of your budget. Once a visit to a doctor is done, it may include more mail or emails that tell of the explanation of benefits and/or payments you have yet to make. What is your time worth?
- Affordable medical care.
Contrary to what some people think, vision insurance is not really insurance for your eyes. Vision insurance typically does not cover most medical expenses for eye care.
Besides reduced costs for glasses and contacts, we also aim to keep medical care for eyes affordable. A recent poll of nearby eye clinics showed that multiple offices charge 30-100% more than our costs for a routine eye exam with a contact lens fitting. In setting our fees for medical visits, we recognize that many people’s health insurance policies have very high deductibles, so medical expenses are left to a patient to foot the bill. By not taking any insurance, it reduces our staff costs and lets us keep our prices lower for our patients. A person could visit a walk-in clinic for a pink eye evaluation and pay $200+ (which clinics often do not have eye microscopes/slit lamps) or come see an eye doctor (trained specifically to treat eye conditions) at our clinic and often pay half that amount.
The question of whether you would save money by using your insurance somewhere else will vary based on your insurance company. We have evaluated multiple plans from two major insurance companies and found that, while sometimes an insurance company can save a patient about $50 versus our prices, other times our prices are lower, despite the use of “insurance benefits.” Although you may pay a little more at Eye Center of West Jordan, depending on your insurance plan, we invite you to come see the difference in quality and personalized care. We believe you’ll find it’s worth it!
