Reviewing Medical Insurance coverage for LASIK surgery and other alternative programs that can help you to save money.
Most insurance policies will not cover LASIK surgery because it's considered elective, in other words, it is not a medical necessity because refractive errors can be corrected with glasses or contact lenses. All insurance plans have exclusions or limitations and elective surgeries are almost always excluded.
This shouldn't come as a surprise. Many policies don't even fully cover glasses, which are a medical necessity. LASIK eye surgery can cost several thousand dollars. From the insurance company's perspective, it's likely that an individual won't spend that much money on glasses or contacts for the time they have their policy. Since most people get insurance through employers, and given the frequency with which people change jobs, insurance companies believe that people won't be on their policies long enough to make the cost worth it. Few people stay in their jobs for life these days.
Even if they did, LASIK doesn't prevent the eyes from natural aging. If someone had the procedure, he or she may still need a retouch or enhancement later in life, for which the insurance company would have to pay. So they'd essentially pay twice for the same thing? – it's simply not worth the cost.
Some policies do offer LASIK discount, but is not really true, because what they do is participate with different alternative programs such as Davis Vision, Qualsight or LASIK Benefits USA. They offer it as a value added program, which in turn helps them to increase member satisfaction and loyalty. These programs basically works with the insurance company in order to give you a big discount on top of the price, but to have this big discount, you have to expose yourself to some restrictions, one of them, and the most important one, is the selection of your doctor. You are able to select your doctor as long as the doctor is participating with one of these program. That’s mean no matter if your doctor is in network with your insurance company but if he/she doesn’t participate with one of them, you have to pay full price anyway. Obviously these LASIK programs will recommend the near surgeon according to your location, but the insurance company itself won't pay any money for it.
Regardless of how policyholders feel about it, it's simply not in the interest of insurance companies to pay for surgeries they deem unnecessary when alternatives are cheaper.
But you do not have to have a medical Insurance to get DAVIS Vision, Qualsight or LASIK Benefits USA benefits, because medical Insurance are only a channel to use one of these service, in other word you can call directly to One of them and they will treat your as good as they treat some body with Insurance, but if you go to their website, be aware that one of them it doesn't have a very professional look, however it has a lot information about LASIK surgery and the customer service is great.
Many doctors stay away from Qualsight, Davis vision and LASIK Benefits USA, because these LASIK programs, cut their fee up to 50% in a few cases, so that means you will probably pay no more than $1800 for a traditional LASIK in both eyes, with a payment plan of one year without interest.
But no everything is too bad for doctors because all these alternatives program after all are great as a referral.
Imagine that your doctor want to do as many LASIK as he/she can in order to increase their revenue, well they need to spend a few thousands in marketing in order to have patient flow.
Well, Davis Vision, Qualsight and LASIK benefits USA does all the marketing for their self, that way doctors don't have to spend any money to receive a new patient.
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