What Does Vision Insurance Pay For?

Whether your employer is offering vision insurance, or if you are interested in vision insurance on an individual basis, you are probably wondering if you need Vision Insurance or not. To answer that, there are a few questions we need to address. The questions we want to ask today is, What Does Vision Insurance Pay For, or What Types of Services Fall under Vision Insurance?

First, lets discuss what Vision Insurance does pay for: Vision Insurance will cover a routine eye exam annually. A routine eye exam can be defined as an exam of a normal, healthy pair of eyes with no issues or abnormalities. A routine eye exam includes eyes with routine issues such as nearsightedness(myopia), farsightedness(hyperopia), people that are having issues seeing at intermediate distances(presbyopia) and astigmatism(which is when the cornea is not perfectly round).

Vision Insurance usually provides benefits for glasses, contacts lenses and also may help pay for the services required to fit a person for contacts, and evaluate their qualifications to wear contacts annually. The benefits for glasses are either a combined benefit with a maximum dollar amount, or there are separate benefits for frame and lenses. A Vision Plan may also discount lens treatments such as Transitions, anti-glare coatings, polarization(sunglass lenses that cut glare), or alternate lens materials to make lenses thinner and lighter. Vision Insurances rarely cover both contact lenses and glasses within the same benefit period; rather it is an "either, or" situation.

Now, Vision Insurance does not cover the following situations: medical eye exams, which includes, but is not limited to conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, glaucoma, macular degeneration and cataracts. If you are diagnosed with any of these diseases, vision insurance may not cover your annual eye exam. The cost will instead be applied to your medical insurance, because they are medical conditions that affect your eyes. Another more common reason to file an eye exam on your medical insurance is dry eye syndrome.

Any tests that are done to further examine your eyes due to the possibility of medical eye issues are not covered under Vision Insurance. Examples of these tests are fundus photos(photos of the inside of the eye), OCTs(Ocular Coherence Tomography, which scans the inside of the eye and produces very detailed read-outs), Visual Fields(testing your vision in different quadrants), and pachymetry(which measures corneal thickness).

Vision Insurance is also not meant for surgeries like Lasik, or surgery to remove cataracts. Cataract surgery will fall under medical insurance. Another important thing to know is that, if you go to an eye doctor for treatment for pink eye, a feeling like there is something in your eye, or any other eye injury, these services will also fall under your medical insurance.

In conclusion, Vision Insurance will cover an eye exam if you do not have any underlying medical conditions that affect your eyes. A Vision Plan will help cover the cost of glasses or contact lenses, whether you have healthy eyes or not. Even if you can't file your eye exam on your Vision Plan, you will still be able to file the cost of your eyewear, so do not write off the idea of purchasing Vision Insurance just because you are a diabetic. It can still save you hundreds of dollars on eyewear. In a future article, we will address how the cost of Vision Insurance compares to the cost of covered services.

If you have questions about vision insurance, please contact us at KeepYourEyesCovered.com

Why Young People Should Think About Life Insurance

Most of Generation Y and Z(Millennial and post-millennial) are not thinking about the end of their lives. Their lives are just beginning, and frankly, Life Insurance is not high on the priority list of products to spend money on. However, these young people are missing out on a very important, unique opportunity!

Young people that really need to consider life insurance can be divided into two groups. Those that are young and married and those that are young and single.Today I will address those that are Young and Single.

There is a saying that people buy Life Insurance, not for themselves, but for those people that they care about. The same saying applies for young singles as well. They should buy life insurance so that, in the event of their death, they do not leave current unpaid debts (credit cards, education, auto/home etc) for their families to sort out. There are also funeral costs and uncovered copayments/deductibles from health issues, that inevitably fall to their family or others. None of us want to add a burden financially to an already upsetting emotional event at the loss of a loved one.

Some of the other reasons for buying life insurance while you are young and healthy is that is easy to obtain, more affordable than it will probably ever be and it often locks in your ability to secure an affordable life insurance program when you are older, even if your health deteriorates.

Young people should purchase their life insurance in advance of needs. They should purchase a policy anticipating the possibilities of their own future family, or a mortgage or other debts, including possible business debts such as purchasing a building or franchise.

There are two key types of Life Insurance that Generation X-Y should be aware of: Permanent, and Term.

Permanent life policies, or Whole Life policies, are policies that can be kept in force for the duration of a person's life. They build cash value over time, and can be borrowed from in some instances, and the rate is fixed for the life of the policy.Permanent life policies, in this age of extremely low returns on safe investments, look more attractive than they have in the past century and they lock in a cost that will never rise. There are tax advantages to many of these products that make them more valuable than ever before.

Term life policies are temporary polices covering for a set amount of time. Most policies are written for 10, 15, 20, or 30 year chunks of time, and cover death benefits only. There is no cash value to the policy. Term life policy rates are lower and do not change for the duration of the policy. These policies can last long enough to get past debts or to provide for children until they reach adulthood.

The new generation of young singles are educated and financially aware. They are also conscious and concerned about their loved ones. Young people need to be engaged in preparing for the future now, rather than waiting for the sun to start setting on their lives before contemplating providing for their family. It is important for young people to know how these life insurance products will meet their desires to ensure their family will be protected no matter how their life unfolds.

by Dan Zeller, edited and revised by Adrienne Terrell

Three Reasons to Get Your Annual Eye Exam

For people that aren't already wearing glasses or contact lenses, and don't notice any problems with their vision, there is no reason to get your eyes checked-right?WRONG! The list is long, but here are just three reasons you should get your eyes checked every year, whether you think you have a vision problem or not.

#1 You may actually need glasses. How do you know that you are seeing what you are supposed to see? I, myself didn't realize I could be seeing any clearer until I had my eyes checked (and I only had them checked because I was working for an optometrist, and we were bored one day). Do you have headaches? Does your child struggle with reading and schoolwork? When you get done with a long day of staring at computer screens, do your eyes feel tired and overworked? Do you have trouble driving at night? Are you seeing halos around lights?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, an eye exam should be in your near future. Though you may not need to wear glasses all the time, you may be someone that needs them for night driving, or for schoolwork, or to help relax your eyes while staring at a computer screen all day.

#2 Early detection of eye diseases. There are eye diseases that can creep up on you, and by the time you have noticed the symptoms, you have lost vision that you cannot get back. With glaucoma, for instance, you start to lose your peripheral vision first. It may take you a long time to realize that you can't see things off on the outskirts of your vision like you used to...and by then, you have already lost vision. Eye exams are not just for glasses, they are to help prevent blindness.

#3 Your Eyes are a Window into the health of your entire body. From my time working for an optometrist, I can remember times that an optometrist discovered that their patient was having, or had recently had a stroke. I can remember times that we sent a patient to be checked for diabetes, based on symptoms we discovered in the eyes. Hypertension and diabetes both can present themselves in the eyes.

A comprehensive eye exam should be part of your efforts to stay healthy, just like your annual physical. Whether you need correction or not, your eye health is important. Get your eyes checked every year by a private, comprehensive optometrist (preferably not at Wal-Mart, Costco, Lenscrafters etc).

If you don't have a vision plan, then go to KeepYourEyesCovered.com and check out the best vision plans available.