Consumer Confidential: How vision plans rig the eyewear market while keeping consumers in the dark
LOS ANGELES - People tend to think of the vision plans offered by employers as being like any other health insurance. They're not.
The reality is that vision plans, headed by market leaders VSP and EyeMed, are primarily discount programs intended at least in part to promote sales of eyewear affiliated with each company.
"The vision plans expect you to get patients in, get them out, sell them glasses," said Myles Zakheim, an optometrist with offices in Brentwood, Beverly Hills and Hollywood. "Their goal is to push as much product as they possibly can."
Other health insurers may steer patients to specific drugs, say, but that's because they have sweetheart deals with the drugmakers, not because the insurers themselves manufacture the drugs.
"It's an incredible conflict of interest," said E. Dean Butler, who founded both EyeMed and LensCrafters but is no longer
