Eyewear Protection Program VSP

[bta89]

Anyone know any additional information about this program? https://www.vsp.com/dms-inline/pdfs/...r-warranty.pdf
We don't really promote it to our patients even though I guess it's available.

[optical24/7]

Wow!! They cover VSP owned/brand frames for a whole year against breakage?! ....( Kinda an industry standard for all frames for.. ah, years..)

AND! They cover lens abuse.... For a year! Double Wow! ....But..... There’s a charge for lenses... We’ve been replacing SRC /AR lenses for years at N/C. We can charge for that?

Maybe I need to start taking insurance to reap the profit of warranty replacement. I’ll start by dispensing sandpaper cleaning clothes with acetone spray cleaner....

[GrahamEye]

While my office is not a VSP "Premier" member, it is good to know this if a patient comes in expecting us to participate or use the warranty as promoted.

[Tallboy]

I don't get it, is something changing? We are not premier. I honor all manufacturers warranties for frames and lenses. They do not cover catastrophic damage.

[ajonesgirl]

It looks like that warranty covers lens breakage. It doesn't mention anything about scratches.

[AngeHamm]

It looks like that warranty covers lens breakage. It doesn't mention anything about scratches.

I guess that's for all those times a patient comes into your office with a handful of lens pieces to replace?

[DanLiv]

Wow!! They cover VSP owned/brand frames for a whole year against breakage?! ....( Kinda an industry standard for all frames for.. ah, years..)
AND! They cover lens abuse.... For a year! Double Wow! ....But..... There’s a charge for lenses... We’ve been replacing SRC /AR lenses for years at N/C. We can charge for that?

I don't get it, is something changing? We are not premier. I honor all manufacturers warranties for frames and lenses. They do not cover catastrophic damage.

Honoring manufacturer warranties and offering our own replacement guarantees is voluntary, no insurances require us do this as a matter of course. We all do it, out of our own sense of responsibility and service to our customers, and elect not to make any profit off it. However we definitely may charge for any and all replacement or "warranty" services. We justify not charging separately by saying it's built into our prices, which is true for private sales, but with VSP, Spectera, Davis (and some Eyemed and others) which fix the customer fees, no service-after-the-sale fees are built in.

Say we charge a VSP customer $200, the same as Dr. Biz down the street would charge. However we offer manufacturer frame warranty and SRC/AR lens warranty, both often up to 2 years, while Dr. Biz charges for follow-up services. Every redo we are spending professional time resources ordering and re-dispensing, tying up $ waiting for, tracking, and reconciling reimbursements on the redo purchases, and spending more time and real $ on defective return frame shipping. Dr. Biz is covering operating expense and shipping, plus possibly turning a small profit on every redo, and assuredly does less redos because some customers with frivolous claims will decline the expense.

We of course can market our service as a valuable benefit to buying from us rather than Dr. Biz, but do we? How many people shopping among our competition will build the value of our follow-up care into the purchase? If building redo expense in at no charge, we ought to lean heavily on that benefit as a major reason to purchase from us, otherwise we're giving it away to no benefit. Alternatively, if we more heavily market the value of the purchase on our expertise and quality, we ought to embrace Dr. Biz's model and offer follow up service a la carte. Too many of us (myself included) leverage our quality and expertise without charging for it, and also give away our follow up service. And all the insurance companies are very happy to let us continue the practice.