If you go, make sure you personally verify your insurance benefits, and ask for a detailed breakdown of cost from their optical shop.
After being ushered into the optical shop after my eye appointment like being ushered into the gift shop after a cheesy theme park experience, I was pressured to buy glasses from there less than an enthusiastic staff, who based on their presentation didn’t really want to be there that day.
Their approach to selling glasses is much like the approach of a slimy used car salesman. They reference multiple documents, including your insurance benefits under the cover of a laminated sheet of paper where they try to apply simple math to show you what a great deal you’re getting.
I had previously bought a pair of frames from their optical shop and only wanted to replace my lenses. The optician presented me with a form saying I recognized they were not responsible for my frames should damage occur during the inset of new lenses, because I did not buy the frames from them. I informed her that was not the case and that I did buy them from Mann Eye and I would not be signing the form. She brushed it off and said “well, you know what we mean… It just means that you didn’t buy them from us this year… I’m sure everything will be OK. “ She would not proceed with the order unless I signed the form which was not only inaccurate, but did not represent my previous purchase from their business.
They also use an online portal to communicate with you, and I informed the staff that the year prior my glasses sat in their shop for almost 3 weeks because they’re portal did not reach out to me via email text nor phone call. She promised this had been fixed. Again, this year, my glasses sat there for over a week until I called myself to find out if they were ready.
Most disturbingly, when I went to pick up my glasses, I found I owed more money, which they could not immediately explain to me. Once again, out of my sight and behind the scenes, the opticians chatted with each other and tapped on their keyboards to then write on a sticky note “co-pay”. This is despite me having already paid almost $200 as a co-pay for my lenses.
When they gave me the receipt, I went home and reviewed it with my VSP explanation of benefits. It was at this point I realized the optical shop had misrepresented what they received from VSP and had added additional fees to my responsibility. I contacted VSP who confirmed the version which I was presented by the optical shop was not the version that they had on file and was not how the optical shop was paid out. VSP tried multiple times to get in touch with management, who gave them the runaround and everyone put responsibility on someone else, finally responding “we will reach out to the patient and refund something“.I raised this concern with local optical shop management, who brushed it aside, trying to downplay the incident as my lack of understanding, belittled me by suggesting I didn’t understand how to read insurance benefits, and they would walk me through it line by line if necessary, but more so claimed to have refunded me the amount which was “misunderstood”. It should be noted that this amount was not the amount identified by VSP as wrong, and was not the amount which I was charged in their semi itemized bill
This business is here to turn out patients like an assembly line and charge you more than a theme park and more unscrupulously than a used car sales person