I was sent a packet today from them asking my doc to join up. I dont know anything about them. Can anyone share experiences good or bad?
Thanks
Sharon
I was sent a packet today from them asking my doc to join up. I dont know anything about them. Can anyone share experiences good or bad?
Thanks
Sharon
You have just met the:
ANTI-CHRIST!!!!!
Enough said...lol I dont need anymore insurance troubles...so file 13 it goes!
FWIW, I accept Davis. Only one big local employer seems to have it. It pays about as well as VSP for an exam (60 vs 63.50). The plan that the big employer has basically covers in full anything they want in their glasses, so in that sense, it's pretty easy to deal with. Not much selling involved. Doesn't pay that great for the materials, but it's not much work either. But from I've heard from others, it's the anti-christ, like someone said. I just haven't had that experience......yet.
If you're not taking it, then don't start. It's pretty poor...you have to have a display of their cheap frames, I wouldn't recommend...
yeah, the davis tower of frames is hideous. I took all the frames off it, put them in cheap plastic trays and store them out of sight. When a Davis patient comes in I take out the trays and say "here's what your insurance covers." They always pick something out of the trays.
We accept Davis Vision....
and we also take Spectera....
our office manager says Davis is better than Spectera...
I don't know how much that actually says of Davis....
so go figure...
From an eyewear perspective only, it is extremely difficult (I'd say impossible) to make any profit on Davis Vision patients. My current office doesn't take it, and my last office dumped it.
I would say don't take it unless the only employer in your area gives Davis to its employees. And even there, I'd proceed with caution.
Andrew
"One must remember that at the end of the road, there is a path" --- Fortune Cookie
I showed the posts to my doc...he said "no way in H**L are we taking that!!!" :shiner:
Tell Doc that he/she can send my consulting check direct to me as quickly as it can be sent!
General Motors UAW employees just switched to Davis so we do take it in this area. Their plan is exactly like their old Cole/Eyemed plan which the Salaried workers still have. It pays for the basics the same prices that the old plan did and the old plan hadn't changed in the 30 years I've been in the business. We don't have a tower of frames, never did so don't really know what that is all about. In the metro Detroit area taking these plans for the auto workers is just a given. More a service than anything else and we don't see many here since this is basically a white collar mid-management area.
Davis' turnaround time is now at least 3 weeks, easily 4.
I'm stuck with it because a well paying safety account uses it for their employees. Otherwise, I'd take that spinner rack to the dumpster. The only way to have a chance to make any money on them is to get them off that Davis spinner and even then it's not much. I don't know if you can take the contacts only portion of it and not do the glasses, that might be an option.
It's not just the low payoff that you receive with these type of vision plans, it's the hidden costs like extra staff, time tracking down jobs, sending jobs back to the crummy labs when they screw them up, the complaining "I want my benefits NOW" type patients, etc. It's a false kind of busy to build your business on and I wish I didn't take several of the ones that I'm stuck with.
We take Davis.. it is a love/hate relationship.
We have several large employers, (shipping company with a couple of distribution centers in the area, Citigroup, a few unions) who utilize them. It is a large portion of our practice.
Reimbursement varies per plan. You can have one that gives you a $40 dispensing fee, and another that gives you only $14. One plan only provides $17 for a frame, and another gives a $60..
Your davis patient DO NOT have to use a davis frame. (though their quality is getting much better since Viva was purchased by them) We sell many of our Citi and other patients on OUR frames and have them pay more than $20-30 out of pocket if they choose a higher end frame. Their labs process all the materials, and you get a spiff for each option they choose. This Also varies per plan. So the reimbursements you can get can be fairly decent.. to outright pitiful depending on plan. The UAW plan was the only one we were given an option of whether to participate with or not. We chose not to on that one..
Turn-around can be one week for plain/basic items.. to 3 weeks if you have a progressive with ARC..
Love the amount of business we get from their clients.. but sometimes their reimbursements make you want to cry, and their service/turnaround can really make you scream..
However, I would rather deal with them than Spectera any day.
We also got a new tower this year. Look much better than previous incarnations, and the product mix is certainly better. However it doesn't turn well both in general and on the individual spinners.. so frames get shifted.. often... But it looks great! (so I keep telling myself)
"Some believe in destiny, and some believe in fate. But I believe that happiness is something we create."-Something More by Sugarland
If any of you that take Davis Vision want to know how badly you are getting shafted by them, go down to your local EyeMasters and check out patient allowances for the same plans you accept now... (I did this at my last place of employment) .
When I checked, a Davis patient at EM got a 76 dollar retail allowance toward frames. They paid out of pocket for anything over that amount. Where we were to give the patient a frame just slightly south of that amount in wholesale price! We were to give away a 125 buck retail, but them only 76. Real fair, especially from a company that said they would never deal with chains.....Sound familiar? ........
Cough, (V), wheeze, (S), Puke!, (P)
I don't know if this model still holds true but as I recall Davis's lab is a union shop. The work is done on an old (1980's?) Japanese work model where a team of 4 workers get a set number of jobs to do. I think it was 400 or so and their shift was done when all those jobs were finished and ready to ship.
So they recruit heavily from union shops to keep it in the union brotherhood.
As so many have said before it's a lot of work for little and often no profit IMO also!
PS- We dropped VIVA when they married Davis.
Last edited by Uncle Fester; 07-17-2008 at 02:44 PM. Reason: PS...
We have a few members who work/worked at a Davis Lab. It would be nice to get there input. Sadly, I don't think they would be able to speak *freely*!
:cheers::cheers::cheers:
Some of us that take Davis are not the ones who decide which insurance is taken. I have no control over it. We did stop doing Spectra for eyeglasses because so many of our patients were unhappy with the wait and service. It was worse then Davis.
I wonder what people that are employed by Davis think about this tread.....
I also heard that their Plainview lab is the state of the art robotic one!
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