Selling Benefits? Don't Forget The Eyes

Worse, some workers go for many years without any kind of vision care, doing without exams that might detect conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure or the early stages of glaucoma.

The solution: Offer a vision care discount plan as either an employer-paid or an employee-paid benefit. The typical cost of a program that includes coverage for regular eye exams is less than $12 per member per month, which is less than many employees spend on gum.

That small expenditure can improve employees general health, increase their productivity and show the employees that the employer is looking out for them.

The vision care discount programs give program members access to nationwide and regional independent optometrists who provide a substantial savings on eye exams, frames and lensesincluding contact lenses.

The discount card approach is convenient for the benefits advisor because it involves no insurance or risk transfer. Theres no underwriting, and, once the sale is made and recorded, theres no more paperwork.

Paul J. Disser is chairman of Spectrum Vision Systems Inc., Overland Park, Kan., a managed care vision care organization and preferred provider organization. He can be reached at [email protected].

Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, August 5, 2004. Copyright 2004 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.