Friday, March 8, 2013

New peepers

I took DH to a different optometrist today. I'm $600 poorer, but hopefully he'll have glasses he can see out of now. This doctor gave him a different prescription too! I showed them the prescription Walmart gave him and it was stronger - no wonder it was blurry and he couldn't see well.  We even had Walmart double check it too.  Now, I m really glad I just didn't take that prescription to have filled - it was worth the $75 for the new exam. I'll be going back to Walmart to also ask for a refund on the eye exam now.  When I got the full refund on the glasses the assistant had said if I wanted a refund on the exam I would have to go direct through the eye doctor as they do their billing separate from the Vision Center for the glasses part. I decided to wait and see if the prescriptions ended up different and if it was then I would ask for the refund. So, we had a bad prescription and poor quality lenses - doesn't make much for seeing correctly, does it?

Since we were cash paying customers they did give us a 20% discount on the frames and lenses - thank goodness because they were pricey! But, I guess you get what you pay for and since he needs progressive vs. single vision lenses, it's better to get the higher quality. I guess we'll find out in a couple of weeks if he can get used to them and they work better than the first pair. I am keeping all my fingers crossed.

After I got home I remembered that even though his health insurance doesn't cover vision they do offer some member discounts for non covered services. I looked up the vision and this optometrist is part of the network. I priced out the discount based on their info online and it looks like we paid a bit cheaper with our 20% discount then if I had known to use the discount program. If she hadn't given us the 20% off I certainly would have called back with his insurance info to take advantage of it. That is something for those of you with limited health insurance plans....go online and see what discount programs they might be affiliated with to save at least something on non-covered expenses.

1 comment:

  1. I hate how you get more of a discount if you pay with cash than you get with your insurance. It just doesn't seem right. I would definitely try to get a refund from WalMart. They messed up. Good luck!

    ReplyDelete