Happy New Year!
Did you know that at VIDA we are able to direct-bill to your extended medical insurance providers? You’re probably already used to direct-billing at your dentist or pharmacy, but there have been excellent advances in the past few years for eye care professionals. Early last year, we were thrilled to get started with a new online service by Telus Health. Extended medical providers sign up to be part of the service, and if yours happens to be one of them, direct billing for your eye exam fee and eye-wear orders is really efficient! Later in 2015, a couple other providers actually launched their own online systems as well. We love being able to offer this convenient service to our patients. When you come for your next visit, just bring in your extended medical card with the appropriate numbers that we will need.
Now that it’s 2016, a lot of extended medical plans have reset and you may have new amounts available to you depending on your last submission date and how many years you are required to wait between claims.
Your particular plan coverage is confidential to you and we usually do not have access to any of the specific details, so have a look at what you’re eligible for in advance. However, certain companies allow us to do what is called a ‘predetermination’, where we can basically
pretend to submit a claim for you and see what you will be covered for. Right now, we can do this for Chamber of Commerce, Great-West Life, and Standard Life. For all other companies, we only find out what you’re covered for once we make an actual claim on your behalf.
For those of you with more than one insurance policy, certain companies will allow us to coordinate with the secondary insurance provider as well, so bring that card with you too! Some companies only allow secondary coverage to be submitted manually by the plan member. If this is the case, we will give you an extra receipt for you to submit.
If you’re not sure if your policy allows direct-billing, or if you don’t know what your coverage is when you come in, I tell patients, “we can always try”. It only takes a few minutes to complete the submission on your behalf, and if it works out – bonus!
Here are the extended medical providers that we can currently direct-bill to (we hope the list will grow in 2016!):
Manulife Financial
Industrial Alliance
Great-West Life
Maximum Benefit
Sun Life
Standard Life
Chamber of Commerce
Johnson Inc.
Cowan
Pacific Blue Cross
Desjardins
Green Shield
So, don’t forget about your extended medical insurance this year! If it has been 1-2 years since your last eye exam, give us a call or send an email to make an appointment with one of our amazing eye doctors. Be sure to mention that you have extended medical insurance, and we can even take down your plan numbers at the time of booking.
Best wishes to you all for 2016!
Lindsay
p.s. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.