Although it is certainly important to have good vision, it may or may not be imperative to have vision insurance. Many who are looking for insurance overvalue this protection and overpay.

To know whether you get what you paid for when you buy optical insurance, it is imperative to know what vision insurance covers and what it doesn’t cover. Having a good understanding of the limitations of eye or vision insurance is necessary to determine whether you should pay extra for the coverage.

You will want to know what the extra insurance will include. Optical insurance covers expenses that are associated with contact lenses or glasses. Typically vision insurance will cover an eye exam. It may also cover part of the cost of contact lenses or prescription glasses.

You should also know what it doesn’t include. eye or vision insurance does not cover the medical fees associated with eye trauma or diseases that impact the eye. Medical insurance will usually cover these medical expenses.

Your optical insurance nor your medical coverage is likely to include coverage for laser eye surgery. Surgery to improve vision is usually specifically excluded by medical coverage policies. This is different from surgery to restore sight.

The typical health insurance policy will not include coverage for corrective lenses. Typical health coverage policies don’t cover for the eye exams necessary to get corrective lenses. Corrective lenses can be either prescription contacts or prescription standard glasses.

Medical expenses associated with eye injuries and eye diseases are still paid for as part of the health care benefit. A separate eye or vision coverage rider is not necessary to have eye injuries covered. Many people pay extra for vision coverage because they believe that their health insurance policy will not cover anything associated with vision.

When looking at health care coverage policies that include vision coverage, be sure to see how extensive their coverage is. Since some insurance policies will only cover the cost of the exam, those insurance policies are less valuable than vision plans that will not only cover the examination but will also pay towards glasses.

Another issue to consider is the availability of eye care professionals. Most insurance policies will limit the places you can go to have your eye examination to network providers. You should make sure that there are opticians or optometrists near you and that you will feel comfortable using those eye care professionals.

Don’t pay for eye or vision coverage only to find that none of the network providers are ones you can or want to visit. Often consumers will automatically check to make sure that their doctors are in the network, but will forget to check for dentists and opticians.

Knowing the value of the additional coverage is essential if you are going to make the right choice. If the eye or vision coverage only includes an annual exam, you should call an optometrist and see what they charge. If the policy also pays something toward eye glasses you should add that to the cost of the exam. Multiply the cost by the number of family members that will be covered. Then divide that cost by 12 of your policy premiums are being paid monthly. This will allow you to properly compare the added cost of having optical coverage with the extra expenses for the coverage.

Eye coverage is often worth the additional costs, but sometimes this is not the case. Sometimes those shopping for health insurance will compare different plans that are otherwise the same and select the one that has eye coverage without the proper thought process. Now you know how to compare policies and select the right one.

Author Bio: You can find prices for dental and vision insurance plans or read the author, Alston J. Balkcom’s recent post about dental and vision insurance on his site.

Category: Medical Business
Keywords: vision insurance, eye coverage, vision coverage, vision plans