Deleted.
Deleted.
Last edited by kcount; 11-03-2013 at 07:02 PM.
- Optician
- Frame Maker/Designer
- Teacher of the art of crafting handmade eyewear.
Doc this guy is a great example of why I don't accept being lumped into his "optician" we. A great point was brought up by Dan and because he's not the proprietor of his work place he's not allowed to chime in on the WE discussion. Yet the these companies are hurting US, and WE need to do something about it is just thinly veiled verbiage for I don't know what to do about this change and the effects to my business and I need help.Originally Posted by wmcdonald
Dan and race make very good points make choices that support your business. In the end I think my offices survival is going to be better served by not being part of this particular "WE".
I agree with you. It is more profitable "supporting the other guys".
Can you please share?
Well gentlmen, I am very heartened with your responses, regarding not feeding the beast that are on a mission to compete for our retail buisness.
After this recent ,I dropped essilor product 100% and did a heavy volume with them. Luxottica the same.
kcount there is certainly no whining going on, it just seems to me there are far too many folk that just go with the flow in accepting these changes.
And Makeoptics....I just was responding to the personal swipes that seems to be common when there is disagreement. also pointing out if that particular buisness continues to share revenues with their vendors eventually their buisness will suffer as well as his pay and benefits.
Mac started a legit thread and was going well until the personal, self rightous comments started appearing.
I think all of your comments were great, the the back sniping etc should be directed at the vendors that are out to compete head to head with independent retail.
Dont think for a min luxottica would not suffer if we all collectively dropped luxottica from our product line.
I for one never said once about how unfair anything was, my whole point ,and the point of this thread was to advocate uping the game and dropping all essilor and lux product.
btw kcount, how do you make eyemed work for you.
I find it insulting at best how you think the disussion was a big belly aching over the changes.
all i was suggesting was ,we have to not support these 2 vendors, and up our game, as well as reponding to folks that seem to want to just accept it and live with it and not respond.
Danliv - thank you for some of the most practical and intelligent comments on Optiboard.
I've been away from Optiboard the last few days (way too busy to just hang out on this board) I'm disappointed to see that this thread deteriorated into personal attacks
Last edited by mrmac; 11-05-2013 at 06:35 PM.
Most of the advocates here for dropping the big boys have, I'd say, a mean age of 35-40 yo. All the boys have to do is be patient.
i predict they'll wait it out.
B
I don't understand what that means? ECPs?
delete
And to add to the fun, called my eyemed lab about a lens only job to be told that eyemed only allows frame or complete jobs, no more lens only jobs.
And anyone else a bit worried about the fact that both eyemed and vsp are now very essilor-centric? I can still get my Hoya stuff through vsp but for how long....... Soon vsp, essilor and lux/eyemed will rule the world. With Ikea of course.......
I'm scared to see the IKEA frame can you imagine how many different allen wrenches that's going to use?
We can't do lenses only, but over at lenscrafters where they can edge in house they can. Added to the fact that they are sending out exam reminders to OUR patients that list their local retail locations that carry the insuance. Where do you think they will go??? And no... it's no surprise that every thing is the big E. They own everything. Everything! When they own the labs, and are partners with the insurance...they are going to push their own products to pad their pockets.
I called the new lab that is doing our eyemad jobs, and voiced my issue with no lenses only. they called back after checking on it and said they should have no issue with doing lenses only with eyemad.
we shall see...
If I get that pt that cant give up the frames as its their only pair, they will have to pay cash I guess, or eyemad can handle the law suit when they get in a accident because they cant see.
Barry, could you explain what you mean in your post? Wait what out......
I mean those Big Boy companies only have to wait about 20 years for all the upstarts who say to lose their products to age out and retire.
They're patient. They'll wait.
B
I have been an optician for over 30 years and I would like to chime in on this Eyemed mess
1. This has been a well calculated plan by LensCrafters to take YOUR customers from you. They did not get into business to be your partner. If you believed the b s line that Luxottica bought LensCrafters to help our industry, then well, you are a fool.
2. If the rumor is true, and Eyemed is sending exam reminder cards to customers and referring them to LensCrafters, this would be a hippa violation and law suits should be brought forth.
3. WAKE UP... We ALL must stop doing business with ALL Luxottica product (i sell 12/18 Raybans a month) I have stopped reordering and will be completely free of Luxottica product by months end.
Thanks Barry for that reply, however i still dont know what you mean by upstarts.
remember Libia fell with all of their upstart citizens using face book and twitter!!!
Has anyone else noticed a drop off in Eyemed clients since the roll out began?
a fair amount in the last month Joe
I'm willing to bet that the Eyemed client contract (the one the employer sees and is probably also in the benefit packet that the member receives but almost never looks at) has language in it (if it's even necessary because I know our HIPPA releases have that we're allowed to release data to the patient's insurance company as related to their treatment) that allows Eyemed to get all the necessary data from the client Doctor for continuation of care.
As you said this probably has been a long campaign by Luxottica to draw patients out of private practices and into their locations (we haven't seen that large of a drop off but that's probably because our nearest LC is 15 miles away (about a 30 minute drive) and while we do have a Sears and JCPenney 3 miles away I can't remember the last person that indicated they went to either location for their last eye exam, I figure there's a perceived stigma that makes going to a mall location seem worse than going to Wally World). That's just good business sense and as much as we vilify them, I don't think anyone can deny that they have a solid business model and aggressively find ways to maximize their profits and those of us who works with some arm of them are the ones that are being targeted. I expect it's not going to be too much longer till there's an announcement that Davis Vision is doing the same thing and trying to send every patient to Visionworks (whether there's going to be as many complaints is yet to be seen but I'm sure that it will be discussed here when it happens).
For private practices with an optometrist it is a necessary evil for many of us, we can admire from afar the completely independent optician (or the rarer independent optometric practice especially if they're a single office practice) who can avoid being in network for these plans. But there's going to have to be a major shift in either public attitude or the ability for managed care vision plans to sell their plans to employers or directly to the consumer (though is anyone really surprised that they're managing to push their way into the exchanges through the pediatric vision care benefit) before we can go back to the golden days, before I started, where almost no one had vision plans. But since I think it's more likely for the government to start bringing antitrust lawsuits against the major ophthalmic conglomerates then for vision plans to disappear, I think we're going to keep seeing many threads like this for many years to come.
Last edited by jpways; 11-11-2013 at 09:19 PM.
I was wondering if people on this board would like to share ideas on how to make back some of the money Eyemed will be taking from us?
Example.... There was a line in the new Eyemed proposal stating " some brands do not qualify for discounts" ( paraphrasing). I took this to mean that they don't want us discounting RayBan or Oakley. I suggest that we take that a step further and not allow discounts on other premium brands like Kate Spade or Silhouette.
Start charging Eyemed clients for cases. I know, I know, this is nickel and dimming customers but we need to start someplace.
Open for any and all suggestions
The key is that they are the salespeople that pre-sell hordes of Americans vision care before you even get a chance.
As long as Americans believe that insurance and especially "vision insurance" is an absolute must, we have a parasite problem.
What do VCPs offer in way of value to the delivery of vision care? We have to think very carefully about that, and then exploit it. It's not "nothing". (I'm not Race the 1320, making "tons of cash" with VSP, either.)
Another approach: Start today as if you don't take any insurance at all, and figure out how you would make clients want to patronize you. Some of us do this every day. Not an easy path. But...I'm not living in fear of what would happen to my practice if I dropped insurance either.
B
^^^Well said!^^^
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks