Optometric Eye Care - The Biggest Bargain in Health Care
		by Charles B. Brownlow, OD, FAAO Medical Records Consultant

I have been involved in optometry for a long time.  I started my post graduate studies at Illinois College of Optometry in the late 1960s and continue to be involved with the profession as an administrator and consultant nearly forty years later.  In spite of that great span of years, I’m surprisingly young.  I began at ICO at the age of 10!

Well, all right, I’m not so young, but I do continue to have the optimism and drive that I had decades ago, especially where it comes to quality eye care and the continued good health of the profession of optometry.  Sadly, too few doctors of optometry share my optimism and enthusiasm, even where their own patients and especially where their own financial well being is concerned.

As it states unequivocally in the title, I believe optometric eye care is the biggest bargain in health care.  No other group of health care providers spends much time, if any, concerned about the impact of their fees upon the patients.  For most health care providers, fees are a means to an end; financial growth and security; and anything or anyone who gets between them and their goals is itching for a fight. 

For decades MDs have waged war on insurance companies, continually raising their usual fees as the insurance companies increased their discounts. If the typical provider truly believed a service to be worth $100 and knew that the average insurance write-off was 15%, the doctor would simply charge $120 for the service so that the insurance payment would be $102.  This strange game has gone on so long because there is no counter balance to the dance...

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