Navigating vision care during open enrollment against the COVID-19 backdrop
Vision insurance is an overlooked vehicle to proactively address overall health, positively contributing to workplace productivity.
The health care industry has been revolutionized by COVID-19, accelerating telemedicine’s adoption and changing the fundamental way people access care. While many people have already started to adapt to care in the time of a pandemic, workplace open enrollment season during COVID-19 is new ground, with many unsure how they could be impacted by changes in reimbursement policies and health coverage stemming from the pandemic.
Brokers and benefit managers have always played the lead role in advising employees on often-overlooked benefits during the open enrollment process, in particular vision insurance. In a non-pandemic environment, employees often require education on the value of yearly eye exams, which are typically covered by vision insurance and can provide early detection of systemic diseases and other health issues, such as high blood pressure, glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy, in addition to glasses and contacts. Regardless of whether patients struggle with vision problems, this education reinforces the importance of vision insurance as a vehicle to proactively address overall health, positively contributing to workplace productivity.
Related: Telemedicine and vision benefits: What you need to know
With the value of eye care juxtaposed with signing up for workplace benefits in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, brokers and benefit managers must navigate conversations around maximizing open enrollment season while adhering to safety protocols.
Why employees need vision benefits during a pandemic
Ocular telemedicine, or telemedicine for eye care and vision health, has grown exponentially and is likely to continue impacting how members access vision care post-pandemic. Technology advancements allow communication between eye care professionals and patients that can comprise a host of different care scenarios, including comprehensive, in-office eye exams that are remotely supervised by an optometrist or ophthalmologist; smartphone apps that allow for virtual consultations with eye care professionals; and artificial intelligence technology that helps monitor for and diagnose eye issues.
These advances in vision care enable virtual assessment, communication and, if necessary, intervention, while maintaining a safe distance for both patient and doctor. Essentially, ocular telemedicine allows employees to still receive the full value of their vision benefits—one of the least expensive workplace insurance offerings—on their eye health and overall health while avoiding unnecessary exposure. This reinforces telemedicine’s importance not as a Band-Aid solution to stay safe, but rather, a method to increase access to care and broaden service coverage through virtual methods moving forward.
Keep in mind that ocular telemedicine is not meant to replace in-office visits in totality, but rather, strengthen the patient-provider relationship and support ongoing care and monitoring. Most health care practices have already taken extra precautions to keep patients safe when visiting for in-person appointments during the pandemic. In most cases, visits are by appointment only, which can limit the number of patients in offices and ensure those can properly socially distance when waiting to see their respective doctors.
Commonly, patients are getting screened and temperature checked before they’re able to see the doctor and asked to come alone to limit the amount of people in the office. Without question, patients seeking in-person care are not allowed in the building unless they’re wearing a mask or other protective covering.
Increased access to care via telemedicine capabilities and new safety protocols to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission during office visits are must-knows for employees when making decisions about their vision benefits this open enrollment season. Benefit managers and brokers should advise employees that while this combination of virtual and in-person care is essential when navigating health through the pandemic, it’s likely to remain the standard for the future—and vision insurance is rising to meet that need.
Communicating vision value
When communicating vision benefits to employees, it’s essential to present a flexible plan that is not a one-size-all approach. Rather, it needs to be digestible and individualized to match the needs of each employee. For example, benefit managers and brokers can educate employees on the types of ocular telemedicine covered through their vision care plans, which can include synchronous, asynchronous and home monitoring care. They can also look for ways to get specific with employees on the kinds of care covered by the different types of telemedicine—for example, synchronous care would be most appropriate for an emergency eye exam, whereas home monitoring would be the best option for family members with degenerative diseases.
By personalizing the understanding of ocular telemedicine, brokers and benefit managers help employees see themselves in their vision benefits and build a more specific understanding of the long-term health outcomes that can be improved.
While advising employees on the different options available to them, it’s imperative to also listen and understand their employees’ concerns, one of the top concerns being costs. Finding a balance between demonstrating how vision benefits lower out-of-pocket costs and reduce overall care costs to their families through early intervention, all while maintaining a high quality of care, is a must to ensure employees are having their concerns met when presenting information about vision options.
Lastly, to ease the stress around open enrollment, keeping convenience at the forefront of employees’ minds is critical. By choosing a vision plan that offers convenient options such as large networks of eye care professionals and exceptional customer service centers, employees are more likely to opt into and take advantage of their benefits. The good news is that social distancing measures do not limit the convenience factor made possible by the internet, which provides electronic access and information about vision care at the click of a button.
Open enrollment is already tense for employees and the pandemic’s onset forces a new level of responsibility for benefit managers and brokers to educate and advise members of their available vision benefits and ocular telemedicine offerings, not only to maximize the opportunity but to also improve employee access to eye care and overall health.
Elizabeth Klunk is the senior vice president of medical management at Versant Health, a managed vision care company focused on creating an integrated and seamless experience for health plans, members and eye care professionals across the total eye health value chain.
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