Originally Posted by
hawaiioptician
yeah, i cant even wrap my mind around how this crap is legal. luxottica is doing the same thing with its 'hidden' monopoly. vsp is seeming to make inroads as well. I have now contacted them 3 times about getting more info on becoming a contract or partner lab, and they're ignoring me.
I have no problem with a company making money, thats what were all here to do. but subverting and controlling the market, using tactics that i had thought were reserved for thugs and mafiosos, all the while portraying a public front that they give a damn about helping people..... its very disheartening.
when a patient pays X amount of money for the coverage to begin with, they should have a choice as to where they go to recieve services, just like the person providing the service should have a choice on who performs the labor, or where they source the parts from. I can propbably think of other industries where the company reserves the right to approve the charges and the PRIVATE vendors, and I may be uninformed, but im not aware of many other industries where a private company gets to control all aspects of services performed for one of their clients.
So VSP, (just like LUX) can continue to keep a handful of token private labs around (whos numbers are apparently dwindling) all the while pushing more agressively their own labels, now having been extended to lenses and frames. how this is not a conflict of interest, i havent the slightest idea. but as is usual with our industry, nobody but us really seems to care.
so give it around 15 years, and between vsp, eyemed, and maybe spectera and davis vision, ALL of our dispensaries will be 'convenience centers' where patients can sit in, enter their insurance information, and select from their respective companies privately held frame selections. sit down, take a digital measurement image, which prints a ticket at one of their respective companies closest district processing hub, and then can pick up the glasses a week or two later, or have them mailed direct to their home.
Last time i checked, opticians are needed to take measurements and fabricate the glasses. I dont see either being done here, in a market controlled by luxottica, vsp, and whatever other giant insurance company comes along to get their piece of the pie.
just think of when vsp starts agressivley going after the retail side... maybe then them and lux can make it so theirs are the only retail locations that can offer their members 1 hour service, and everyone else can just kick rocks. seems just as legal as all the other underhanded tactics they do. OR they can make their biggest opthalmic brands exclusive to their own retail locations? what are we going to do when all the big name brands are exclusive to lenscrafters and whatever the VSP equivalent is called?
I dont think their story will end any worse than luxotticas, until people are willing to do something about it, and it doesnt seem like that will happen any time soon.
PS. in a less abstract (and certainly less pessimistic manner) if anybody has the phone number of their local (friendly) VSP rep, can they forward it to me? I'm not going to give up until i get a hard NO from these guys, and thus far, all the cowards have done is ignore my requests.
thanks as always
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