Dr. Cutler and Loydall seem nice & personable, and they seem to be acceptable optometrists, and were kid & adult friendly, and the staff seemed friendly but unorganized, but we experienced SNEAKY, DISHONEST, and MONEY HUNGRY behavior from them!
Office staff constantly upsells, trying to make a case for "necessary" "medically significant" super important" and "highly recommended" needs - just two of many examples, eye drops that no other doctor's office has previously or ever after suggested or demanded and $30 per pair sunglasses for 1, 3, and 5 year olds, being told using anything else other than that $100 out of pocket purchase is "inadequate" and "negligent."
In our experience, they rush patients and visits as well as insurance paperwork, contact & glasses prescriptions, eye wear orders and more without working with patients and proper resources to get accurate insurance benefits, nor eye prescriptions fine tuned past the one visit or single follow up, resulting in less than thorough care and inaccurate and less than adequate eye wear. We have witnessed repeated poor communication, poor follow up, poor patient advocacy.
Because of our experiences, I suspect foul play in terms of patient diagnosis and insurance tricks to make money. Being extremely fortunate and having both Eye Plan insurance and Medical Plan insurance coverage for our whole family, I learned every detail carefully. Dr. Cutler and Dr. Loydall, both doctors came up with a huge list of eye "conditions" to document on our family's charts, so that they skipped our vision insurance and instead "needed" to bill our medical insurance for a higher $ payout for a basic eye exam. When we have been to other very competent, reputable, qualified, thorough eye doctors for the same exams the previous and following years (before and after trying Cutler Eye Care) for the exact same family members, those eye "conditions" are/were not present (respecting privacy not listing, but they are not conditions that come and go, plainly the kind either an individual has or doesn't). Comparing full evaluations, those members' eye health and eye diagnoses are not the same. We even went to other doctors to confirm this and get 3rd and 4th opinions. THESE TWO DOCTORS AND THEIR STAFF APPEAR TO BE PLAYING A HIGH PAYOUT INSURANCE GAME! This speaks volumes how money is a higher priority than true patient care. This is unacceptable when there are families, including limited income elderly patients that might have high medical insurance office visit copays that they would not face with their vision insurance plan for an office visit, and if medical billing is not truly needed, then that is unethical. In our cases, we can prove this has been the case in our patient care experience here. When they did bill vision insurance because I caught onto the game and politely insisted on it for my own visit especially due to my coverage for eye wear allowance/reimbursement, they did not know what they were doing, they did not do it correctly, and I had to explain my insurance to them, even though the policy details they pulled up were right in front of them, and even got to the point that I had them call insurance from their phone to validate the covered benefits truly existed. They were wanting to rush it through and make me pay a larger portion, when I knew I was NOT required to. 45 minutes later due to my prompting and research, I was proved correct and did NOT have to pay the amount they were demanding. I do NOT trust them. We will NOT be returning. We don't feel like they care about the right things, obviously. I want to be able to trust my doctors and their staff. I don't get that feeling here.
No matter where you choose to go for health care, I recommend getting to know your insurance plans and not handing out your medical card just because an eye doctor's office asks for it. You have to make your own care decisions based on your unique plan details/copays/etc. and unless TRUE medical conditions dictate, you may have input into your billing, again specific to your own eye condition/situation. Know your eye health, get copies of your records and charts to keep and compare. Look for changes/patterns and ask questions! Just be aware!
Also know the difference between OPTOMETRISTS and OPHTHALMOLOGIST!
OPTOMETRISTS complete college + 4 years of optometry school, not a medical doctor but provides only primary vision very limited medical care.
OPHTHALMOLOGIST complete college + 8 years of medical school +training, a full fledged medical doctor that treats eye health, vision and eye conditions.
If I am going to have my medical insurance billed for high $ services, then I'll chose to visit an OPHTHALMOLOGIST, who is a certified medical doctor of the eye, NOT an OPTOMETRIST who is looking for ways to play a game, milk the system, and squeeze pennies and dollars out of patients & insurance (which rebounds to patients anyway)! read more
