VSP owned labs that do quality work and don't take forever......do they exist?

[SailorEd]

How about an indy lab that processes UNITY in-house? Would that work?

Why would he want to use a lab in Indianapolis? Well, I'll tell you, when I am forced to use VSP One labs and they are, like any corporate labs, ok, but not great. When I have to, I use VSP Columbus. They do a pretty good job. But, when I have a chance, my Only choice is Luzerne Optical when I am not forced to use one of their labs. And, Judy, I knew what you meant (smile).

[racethe1320]

This was one of a series of orders that got screwed up through Columbus back in the fall/winter of 2013. All were Unity lenses and coating as we were trying to play the game.

Last spring was definitely not a good spring for them. This year has been night and day though. Thankfully.

Having ran a wholesale lab in the past, I am quite familiar with the occasional problem job. However when the number of issues exceed the number of successes, I could not in good conscious continue to use their lab if given a choice.

we've seen bad jobs from every lab. they've been pretty consistent for us though and we send them thousands of jobs per year just for choice alone.

Before I found a lab that was not VSPOne but could do Unity in house, I switched many of those folks from Unity to another (Shamir or Seiko ) PAL. I find it interesting that many of my patients had that "wow!" reaction after switching from Unity PLx or PLxpression to a Surmount or InTouch lens.

The new UNITY mobile lens is very much like InTouch. I wear it most of the day in the office.

The few orders I have to send them take longer on the whole compared to my preferred lab. The turn time, service and quality do not wow me. Nor does pricing on Private pay.

your mileage will vary...

I am sure it's just a matter of time till Eyemed will reimburse more for a Lux frame and they already do for Essilor lenses. Soon we will be like the Pizza joints or Gas Stations on the corners branded for our main supplier and very little differentiating us in terms of products and pricing. Completely interchangeable making the VCPs the only clear winners in terms of branding.

I don't see Lux or EyeMed doing anything different on frames. They will continue to push their members into their stores. There too, no reason whatsoever for them to send them to a non Lux branded ECP. Lens wise they don't care and never have been fans of big E. That whole partnership was Big E driven because they lack a managed care co. The market will no doubt become franchised. Consolidation is already happening.

[rdcoach5]

It has nothing to do with NOT providing what's best for your patient....it's called properly setting expectations regardless. Know your products and turn times based on their source and act accordingly.



You need to pay them a visit. Completely untrue. Been there many times myself.

I don't have to pay them a visit. I just know that they are completely overwhelmed by the rapid increase in their job numbers especially around year's end. This lead to their hiring too many inexperienced people and very bad turn around and even utter inability to answer phone calls.

[racethe1320]

I don't have to pay them a visit. I just know that they are completely overwhelmed by the rapid increase in their job numbers especially around year's end. This lead to their hiring too many inexperienced people and very bad turn around and even utter inability to answer phone calls.

They aren't overwhelmed. I was just there on a visit and know the directors well. They have added more full time people and are approaching 300+ and not all newbies. Also your comment on phone calls is about 12 months old. I've seen the new additions to their call center. 12 additional folks from their vision care team have been added to the 14 or so at the lab. They have an entirely new approach and are building on it quite well. My understanding is they are going to the same class of service in customer service for members. That's a huge investment. If you need a contact there to help walk you through it, let me know.

[rdcoach5]

They aren't overwhelmed. I was just there on a visit and know the directors well. They have added more full time people and are approaching 300+ and not all newbies. Also your comment on phone calls is about 12 months old. I've seen the new additions to their call center. 12 additional folks from their vision care team have been added to the 14 or so at the lab. They have an entirely new approach and are building on it quite well. My understanding is they are going to the same class of service in customer service for members. That's a huge investment. If you need a contact there to help walk you through it, let me know.

Last December through Jan they were so busy they weren't even answering the phone. We did a warranty re-make for a pt's suns and the lenses came in too big so we sent his frame in with the lenses to be cut to fit and shipped to him in Florida.For 2 weeks we kept getting told they should ship the next day. Finally the pt called us yelling and swearing and finally we told him to call VSP to complain.

[racethe1320]

Last December through Jan they were so busy they weren't even answering the phone. We did a warranty re-make for a pt's suns and the lenses came in too big so we sent his frame in with the lenses to be cut to fit and shipped to him in Florida.For 2 weeks we kept getting told they should ship the next day. Finally the pt called us yelling and swearing and finally we told him to call VSP to complain.

I agree, Dec 2013 they were slammed. I actually met and toured the lab in Mid January. They sent out notices, etc....they even contacted clients HR Depts to notify members. They addressed every single concern too. They added and trained people, more than doubled their customer service team on the phones and added several new pieces of equipment to address turn-times. They even have two more labs in the area to use, one in NY and one in Baltimore. We use their Unity product and have it broken down to minimize if not eliminate delays. Single Vision digital: We edge a lot in house, we send high end frames to their MN Lab as their quality is outstanding, we send any Marchon order to their NY Lab via the direct program and any other unity progressive to their Baltimore lab as the turn time is much faster. Any misc. Essilor or Hoya go to their Columbus lab and we just are sure to set patients expectations based on what we see turn times are. This year we've had maybe 2-3 people complain but that's typical as not everyone is reasonable.

Look, in the end, knowing what you do, you set expectations for patients appropriately. Life isn't perfect, every lab last year that had any amount of customer base was busy / slammed. We had 9 of 11 offices booked 2 months out too. Even now, we're 6 weeks out. Utilization is high. Great problem to have.

Last summer-fall we sent out over 9,500 call back cards suggesting patients come before the December rush. In December, our round two of mailers offered various gifts/discount coupons on a number of different options for appointments booked in Feb-April. It's worked like gangbusters and the beautiful thing is we did so leveraging special promotions through VSP! Didn't cost me a dime. Win-win-win for the patient, my staff and the lab.

[rdcoach5]

I agree, Dec 2013 they were slammed. I actually met and toured the lab in Mid January. They sent out notices, etc....they even contacted clients HR Depts to notify members. They addressed every single concern too. They added and trained people, more than doubled their customer service team on the phones and added several new pieces of equipment to address turn-times. They even have two more labs in the area to use, one in NY and one in Baltimore. We use their Unity product and have it broken down to minimize if not eliminate delays. Single Vision digital: We edge a lot in house, we send high end frames to their MN Lab as their quality is outstanding, we send any Marchon order to their NY Lab via the direct program and any other unity progressive to their Baltimore lab as the turn time is much faster. Any misc. Essilor or Hoya go to their Columbus lab and we just are sure to set patients expectations based on what we see turn times are. This year we've had maybe 2-3 people complain but that's typical as not everyone is reasonable.

Look, in the end, knowing what you do, you set expectations for patients appropriately. Life isn't perfect, every lab last year that had any amount of customer base was busy / slammed. We had 9 of 11 offices booked 2 months out too. Even now, we're 6 weeks out. Utilization is high. Great problem to have.

Last summer-fall we sent out over 9,500 call back cards suggesting patients come before the December rush. In December, our round two of mailers offered various gifts/discount coupons on a number of different options for appointments booked in Feb-April. It's worked like gangbusters and the beautiful thing is we did so leveraging special promotions through VSP! Didn't cost me a dime. Win-win-win for the patient, my staff and the lab.

This was Dec 2014 and Jan 2015. We also had them reject a sunglass job because it had to be notched. Toledo Optical could easily do this but are not a Choice VSP Lab. We had another pt get so mad that he called VSP and VSP actually allowed us to send to Toledo Optical for quick service.

[racethe1320]

This was Dec 2014 and Jan 2015. We also had them reject a sunglass job because it had to be notched. Toledo Optical could easily do this but are not a Choice VSP Lab. We had another pt get so mad that he called VSP and VSP actually allowed us to send to Toledo Optical for quick service.

I would find the not answering of phones hard to believe. Again, they have nearly 30 people answering lines now. Again, about a dozen or so a the lab and the rest at the call center about 20 minutes away. The new group at the call center at the corporate office is staffed well and none of them are new employees. They are right there with Hundreds of others taking member calls.

Also, on the notched jobs, I don't know why they would reject the job. They have several large MEI machines that do nearly every type of job there is. Inclined bevels, T-Bevel, inclined steps, their machines can do all of them. I think if memory serves they have 3-4 of the very large machines, two of which can do these. the 641 and Bisphera are two that I saw there just recently.

Not saying it didn't happen Bob, just saying that it's Odd. I've toured both labs and the VSP Lab has far more capabilities in-house than Toldeo.

[optilady1]

Not to beat a dead horse, but we've been rejecting jobs left and right from our choice lab. One of the latest was a computer progressive that came in the full reading rx on the top of the lens with a decrease of -.75 on the bottom of the lens, with the axis off by 30 degrees in the "reading" portion of one lens and 50! in the other. I'm not sure how that's even possible.

[Judy Canty]

Deleted.

[cassyg95]

We use Dallas also and has been pretty good.. getting to talk to someone for a redo takes a million years but good quality.. what's everyone's opinion on this UNITY product?