I think the practice I work for would survive, but it might not be the same. There are a lot of VSP/Eyemed patients in the practice but most of them are referred through sources other than their plan and most have been loyal to us when their plans changed to something that the owner/O.D. chose not to participate in (*ahem* Davis). It would be very naive to assume a large part of the practice would not be hurt if he decided tomorrow to cancel with both payer organizations; however, I think he'd probably retain at least 60% of those patients just by offering a 20% across the board discount to them. The good thing is that the owner/O.D. of the practice has a more medically-focused model and a large part of his revenues are derived from his ability to bill medical insurances for things like OCT, fields testing and imaging as well as other diagnostic procedures. He'd be hurt for sure, but I don't think his practice would dry up.

I dont take it now, so it would be at best a moot point.

Due to a recent change in ownership, VSP declined to continue their relationship with us. It had been a bit over 30% of our practice. We are currently booked about 30 days out, but our hardware sales took a big hit. It has been about 7 months, and they are slowly recovering.

As we all know from Econ 101, people (generally) act in their own economic best interest, which means they will follow their insurance benefits. Having said that, it appears that more and more people are losing their coverage. We also hear patients say they will take their Rx to one of two very well known national big box stores with opticals, due to their very low prices. We have brought in specially priced packages from our lab, which helps us retain those patients.

We lost VSP on July 1, 2010. Read about our journey on my SightNation blog at:

http://www.sightnation.com/blog/there-life-after-vsp-optometry-practice-...