Getting regular check-ups and eye exams is a necessary part of good visual health. Your eyes can weaken over time, develop problems, or change, and regular exams helps you to correct and repair vision problems before they get worse by detecting them early on. However, for many, the potentially high costs of regular eye examinations and prescription eyewear can be of real concern, especially for large families. Thus, regular checkups are avoided to defray costs, and the results are not the most idealistic.

One way to defray costs is to get vision insurance, or look into the vision insurance you already have and take full advantage of what it has to offer. Let's take a look at vision insurance, what most plans offer, where you can get it, and more.

Vision insurance is not put in place in order to pay you a benefit if you lose your vision and can't work, or something similar. Instead it is a wellness benefit designed to provide routine, preventive eye care such as eye exams, eyewear, and other services at a reduced cost, so that you can protect and take care of your vision in an affordable manner.

How do you get vision insurance?

Where you get vision insurance depends on your needs. For example, if you can, group vision insurance is the best kind. Group vision insurance can be obtained through your company, association, school district, or through a government program such as Medicare or Medicaid. However, if you are self employed, or do not qualify to get on a group vision insurance plan, you can get your own individual vision benefit plan by going through a private provider. In other words you buy your own insurance. Generally individual insurance is going to cost you more because your work is not supplementing the cost, and the coverage is not going to be as good, but it is still better than no insurance at all.

In many cases, it is hard to get vision insurance on its own. Most of the time you purchase it as a benefit linked to another type of insurance, such as dental or health insurance. When you get it this way you will usually be provided with a list of preferred provider organizations, or vision care centers that the insurance company prefers you get your eye care service through because they have contracted with them.

If you choose to get your vision care done somewhere that is not one of their preferred providers you will end up paying more, even if you still get a slight discount. The benefits of choosing a provider is their network, or a PPO is that a PPO network of healthcare providers is set up in order to provide healthcare services to health plan members at a fixed rate well below retail prices. So, it usually means less cost to you.

So what does vision insurance typically do for you?

When you buy vision insurance, you receive the following benefits:

1.     First, you get access to a network of providers at a discounted rate. This typically includes optometrists and ophthalmologists, eyewear stores, optical laboratories, and LASIK/PRK surgeons. So no matter what your eye care needs, you can usually pay less for them, and in some cases, you get things for really cheap or free.
2.     Second, you get access to routine, preventive eye care services at reduced rates. In other words, you can go in for your yearly eye exam and pay next to nothing, whereas without insurance even routine things can be really expensive.

Generally, unlike health insurance it is not set up where you have a deductible and pay a percentage of the cost, instead it is set up where if you visit the in network providers you have a set list of fees you pay, and those fees are reduced rates, making it more affordable to get eye care. Some insurance plans will have preventative care be totally free of charge, others just have a numerical value for everything.

Let's take a closer look at the different vision insurance plans you can get:

Vision insurance typically comes in the form of either a vision benefits package or a discount vision plan. Let's look at the differences.

A vision benefits package is the kind you would generally only find through a group policy, and in this case it does work similarly to health insurance where the insurance provides enrollees eye care services in exchange for an annual premium or membership fee, a yearly deductible for each enrolled member, and a co-pay each time a member accesses a service. So in other words, preventative care costs the co-pay amount, and if you have anything else done you meet your deductible before you get help from the insurance company.

A discount vision plan on the other hand, also may have a deductible, but instead of co-pays, you pay a fixed discounted rate once your deductible is met, of course only if you pay your annual premiums.

No matter what type of insurance you have for your vision benefit, it is going to have coverage for the following basic services, and then it will offer variations for other services.

•     Annual eye examinations, including dilation
•     Eyeglass frames
•     Eyeglass lenses
•     Contact lenses
•     LASIK and PRK vision correction at discounted rates

No matter what type of insurance you have, you will find that services done inside the network or through a network provider are cheaper than services from out-of-network providers.

Okay, so people get insurance to save money, but that lends the question, what does vision insurance cost? Obviously if it is not affordable, it is not a viable option. However, unlike many other forms of insurance that cost hundreds of dollars a month, visual insurance is very inexpensive and affordable. Of course your vision insurance costs vary, depending upon how the program is designed, but you really will see some average costs that fit within the range shown below.

With a vision benefits package, you can expect to pay:

A monthly premium or membership fee: This is usually very inexpensive, it usually is $1 a person to $12. For an average family of four you can plan to pay $5 a month.
 
A deductible of $0 to $35. Because of the low amount many people get confused about what a deductible is. A deductible is an amount that must be paid by a vision plan member before the vision plan begins to pay its share. The larger the deductible, the smaller the premium or membership fee, but in the case of vision insurance, they are both relatively low.

A co-pay of $10 to $15 for each network service. This means that once you have paid out your $35 a person, you then pay just $10-$15 a visit.
 
If you choose to go to an out of network eye care practitioner, you will be responsible for expenses for out-of-network services, although some plans have allowances for that. If you go above and beyond plan allowances you are responsible for those costs. 

With a vision discount plan, you can expect to pay:

A monthly premium or membership fee ranging from $0 to $12, it is usually somewhat less than a vision benefits package, but it is still going to fall in that range.
 
A deductible of $0 to $35 for the year.

A fixed discount price for each service you receive from a network provider. In other words, no matter what service you get done, you can know what the cost is before the service is provided, and you will get a discounted rate.

Expenses for out-of-network services above and beyond plan allowances will be up to you.

So, if you already have vision benefits, then you should review the insurance you have, and see if you could be doing more to take advantage of the plan and get better eye health. If you do not have current vision insurance, check with your place of employment to see if they offer any sort of vision benefit, and if they do not, then look into getting individual vision insurance.

When choosing a vision insurance plan ask yourself the following questions:

1.     Which vision plan provides services that best meet my needs? If you currently wear glasses or corrective lenses, it might be wise to choose a plan with really good deals on eye-wear, etc. If you do not have vision problems, one with low or no cost eye exams and preventative care might be a better option for you.
2.     Which vision plan saves me the most money? Again, this is going to depend on the afore mentioned scenarios. What saves one person the most may not save another person anything, so evaluate it carefully.
3.     Are quality assurance mechanisms and easy-to-follow grievance procedures in place? If you were to have a problem with your coverage, how easy is it going to be to get it taken care of? If you choose a good insurance provider they will likely have assurance mechanisms in place to help you know if the vision center is a quality one.

To analyze different vision plans for coverage as an individual, you first need to estimate your present and future eye care needs. Then determine if your family history indicates you may have vision problems in the future, etc. You should know if  you need basic services or if you should try and get more specialized services, such as progressive lenses, high-index lenses, polarized lenses, polycarbonate lenses, plastic photosensitive lenses, blended segment lenses, ultraviolet coating, and scratch-resistant coating. Once you have estimated your future eye care needs and whether you need basic or more complex services, it is good to then analyze the services offered by a variety of vision plans, and choose the best one.