But here is the thing. Any independent insurance plan I want 10 percent of. I have been pushing it for months and want credit in cash form ;)
But here is the thing. Any independent insurance plan I want 10 percent of. I have been pushing it for months and want credit in cash form ;)
The optician or optometrist is the final professional that discusses the sale, of the device called glasses with the patient/customer.Originally Posted by rep
When properly trained in sales tactics, he can steer the customer into another way of thinking about the upcoming purchase without any problem. There is always something equivalent or better than the heavily advertised product, whose advertising cost are paid by the purchaser in the price of the product.
Employers do not give a sweet hoot about the brand of a frame as long as it is inexpensive to them and has a decent quality.
And above all lets not forget that today's brand name frames, as well as lenses are made in many different places and countries by many different people working in many different companies.................have started out as a generic frame until somebody stamped the brand name on them.
Oh I agree it would not be easy, but the issue is not expense, it's as you note, getting agreement. Similiar things have been done in other industries--hardware (ACE etc), florists (FTD), mechanics (NAPA???) . I think the lab groups are the ones that could make this happen--they have size and ability to organize.
And yes, I think the independents could sell against the third party companies quite well, they would have the advantage of not having to provide profit to the third party (who adds no value!!). If you look at companies that provide a vision benefit, it is typically one of the low cost benefits to the company. At the same time, it's a highly visible and "feel good" benefit. I think there is a story that this independent plan allows employees to shop where they want, get superior vision care, and not be limited to "Glasses R Us".
Ok, CHM, thanks for your input. You got me thinking...
...do third party vision plans add value commensurate with their remuneration?
Hardly, but I have a glass-of-lemonade thought here I'd like to float:
Vision plans add value because they've pre-sold eyecare/wear to the member and they are likely to pre-sell it year after year. All we have to do is harvest said eyecare/wear.
Utilization, baby. And it doesn't make me feel as "dirty" as it used to. I have adjusted my thinking to considering these vision plans as "service contracts", like you'd get for your lawn, or your auto. There is a defined cost, and a defined benefit, which the member would be silly not to take advantage of. Maybe they do not truly need annual IOP checks, but why not, if it's covered?
Heck, even if I get some inexpensive frames for frame benefit off-years, we can alway make a pair of sunglasses, computer glasses, etc. for little cost to the member. That way they take advantage of their pre-paid benefits.
I wonder, though, if, in the long run, increased utilization leads to decreased insurer profits, therefore increased premium costs? Oh well, can't save everyone in the world...
I got a letter today recruiting NJ licensed opticians for Pearle. Maybe I'll do my part to hurt Lux by going through the hiring process, then turn them down. The cost of recruiting, the psychological profile, the drug testing, etc, is probably about $3,000. That might just push them over the edge into chapter 11. :D
Meanie :) :) :) ROFLMAO :) :) :)
Spexvet!
Maybe you can try to work for them!
It might hurt them even more!:bbg:
sorry i had to do it!
Nothing personal!
Realize this is a generalization, but think about the genesis of managed care plans. They were designed to keep medical costs down. They have failed miserably, overall health care costs are thru the roof, yet providers are getting less and less reimbursement, and employers' costs are sky-rocketing. So where do you think the money is going???? Managed care should be abolished IMO, it's made a bunch of bean counters making money by diverting cash from providers and employers into their pockets, and where is the benefit?
BINGO.
I'm not sure if insurance, in general, was developed to keep costs down. I think it was to share risk. It was traditional indemnity: patients paid the physician their U & C charges, and Blue Cross reimbursed the policyholder 80% of the charges.
Somehow, and this is where it gets out-of-whack, insurers, in a cost-cutting/profit-increasing move, decided to create select provider panels that, for the proverbial discount, would see loads of patients flowing into their practices, so as to "make it up on volume" (which never works, IMO). Hence, the discounting begins, and it's a short hop to inflating U & C fees in order to max out on the insurance reimbursement.
Couple that with Medicare's original system (before the RBRVS) that a provider's reported U & C charges would be profiled and reimbursement would be based on that. That produced immediate upward pricing of fees.
Somewhere along the way, the increasingly minority self-pay patient was left in the dust, being the sacrificial lamb that payed the (artificially high) U & C charges to keep things legal. (Although now, as I understand it, the sham is recognized even at the level of the director of HHS, who now does not object to "cash-pay discounts", which is implicitly a HUGE change in the whole system!)
What you say is true about managed care. It was designed, essentially to put controls in many, many places to keep costs down. Maybe it's worked, maybe it hasn't, and we'll never really know. It is axiomatic, though, that those who control the health care purse strings control everything, really, be it the privacy of records, the economic livelihoods of the providers, and eventually, mark it down, the lifestyles (food choices, exercise habits, mandated care, etc.) of the members.
"Health care reform", if you believe we need such a thing for "our health care crisis" if you believe in such a thing, will either go (of course) towards centralized control or free-market control. My feeling is the market could work, again, if the interruption between the supply and demand (the insurers!) was racheted down greatly.
Here's my idea: pass legislation (most probably illegal, oh well) that limits the amount employers can pass along to employees in terms of premiums. In other words, have the increases in premiums adversely affect the bottom line performance of corporate America. Do you know how quick these guys would figure out a way to keep costs down, and how quickly they would figure out a way to get the third party folks out of the mix?I think we have had this discussion before (know we have!) but my problem with "letting the market handle it" is that quality health care should be affordable/available to all and a free market won't do that, no incentive to offer "product" to people at the lower end of the financial spectrum or people at high risk due to pre-existing conditions etc.
MAnaged Care is a misnomer- it should be called managed cost.
Drk, I think you are correct, we are no longer dealing with vision or medical insurance. It is just prepaid health care. I've been saying that for years.
:cheers: Life is too short to drink cheap beer.
I think the opposite. If we could pass the health care costs more to the consumer, then they would scream more and effect change. The employer is just going to take it out of the employees hide elsewhere, or drop the coverage altogether.
As a model, look how successful the low-rent 1-800-SAFE-AUTO's have been for providing minimal coverage to those unable to afford it. I think the market does respond.
More legislative burden for American business is no good for anyone! It hurts the small businesses too much. Fortune 500 companies may be able to shoulder more burden, but numerically, they are in the vast minority. I read that if you lined up each small business as a bar graph one foot square (or something like that) from San Francisco to NYC, and each foot was $10,000 in sales (or something like that), you would not have a structure over 10 feet until you reached Columbus, Ohio (or something like that), and you wouldn't have skyscrapers until you reached NYC city limits (or something like that). All that to say that small and medium-sized business are the vast majority of businesses that we paint with a broad brush when we think of legislating demands on the few big businesses, like GM (oops, bad example). Sorry so political!:cheers:
Then you're years ahead of me!
Just another name for socialized medicine!
That's a thought! I could start dispensing like I was from Brooklyn! ;)
Good shot!
I liked it!!!
Are we realy known for this!?
Not that I know of - I was joking (that's what ;) means). BTW, someone gave me negative reputation for joking with you, after you got me good. I guess it's like hockey refereeing - I got nailed for the retaliation!:finger:
And whoever it was didn't have the courtesy to identify him/herself!
God help us if that happens.
:cheers: Life is too short to drink cheap beer.
Not me!
BTW how do you check your reputation?
I bet you mine is PERFECT!!!:D
Click on "user CP" at the top of every page.
I have the perfect way to hurt this company.
I'll buy their stock! My track record is so dismal that companies don't just lose market share and their stock price drops, they go into bankruptcy, are delisted and vanish from the earth.... usually within months of the time I buy.
I must admit that I admire the DelVecchios. They have singlehandedly changed the face of optical worldwide, publicized our industry about 1000-fold and made Lenscrafters almost a generic term (which, like "Kenmore" may not be such a good thing). To drive business to them, they have entered and dominated markets unthinkable a decade ago. Certainly "out of the box" entrepreneurs who now own the box!
....if I'd only bought their stock when they went public, none of this would have ever happened!
Could not have changes anything..........................
But you did not............................and if you would have you would have watched it go up, like with any other stock you own, and would have waited to make the killing when selling.
OK..so I re-read this thread now that I am in the independent arena...
Some of the things that got to me...
Mention was made several times in the beginning about the $10 for filing claims online.. NO ONE mentioned that to qualify at years end you have had to spend $100 with luxoticca for each Eyemed claim for the past year. If you filed 200 claims, that is $20,000 in Lux product..
Two, on comparing manufacturers, I actually get better pricing from Safilo than I do from Lux on comparable lines.. such as Claiborne compared to Anne Klein, and the Armani lines compared to Versace and Versus..
We have been debating about working with Eyemed since about 15% of our patient base will be switched to it at the beginning of the year. Some things that concern us is this the manipulation that is being played out with these incentives.. and the way the chains Lux owns are plastered all over the Eyemed website, the materials sent to the members, etc.. We doubt that we would get much new business from the deal..but would like to be able to continue to serve the same people we have been seeing for the past 15years.
Tough decision...
Cassandra
"Some believe in destiny, and some believe in fate. But I believe that happiness is something we create."-Something More by Sugarland
Please
Last edited by rep; 10-22-2005 at 10:19 PM.
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