Is it Vision or is it Medical?

Educating Your Patients

As most optometrists know, one of the most perplexing questions faced on a day-to-day basis is whether any particular visit is properly billed as a routine vision exam, typically to a patient's vision plan, or a medical exam that's billed to their medical insurance. Making matters worse, your patients have no idea and often don't even know the question exists. They come in with a red painful eye, or a corneal foreign body, and they want, they expect, that you'll submit that claim to their vision plan. They have no idea that there is such a thing as a "medical" visit. 

The implications are important. Co-pays, coverage, and deductibles are very different between a vision plan and a medical plan. If you bill a foreign body removal to a vision plan that patient may lose the right to a routine eyeglasses/contact lenses type exam for a year! If billed to their medical insurance, however, the plan may apply the claim to a deductible or may have a high office visit co-pay, and your patient will be upset. 

To address this ahead of time Dr. Steinberg has developed his own "Vision vs. Medical" disclosure form that every patient can be given when they check in for their visit. This gets out ahead of the problem by educating the patient about the two coverages and which is responsible for what services. 

To download the model form click HERE. 

Feel free to use this form as-is, or modify it as you wish.