Episode Transcript
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Corey Chapman
Welcome back to another exciting episode of The Eye on Health there. Hey, hey, hey, let me do that again.
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Corey Chapman
Come down in 54321. Welcome back to another exciting episode of The Eye on Healthcare podcast.
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Corey Chapman
And one of your hosts, Corey Chapman, excited to be back here with my cohort cohost, friend, confidante, Mr. John Bartolovich. Hello, John.
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John Bartolovich
Hello Corey. Hello audience. How is everybody doing?
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John Bartolovich
Understood. Understood.
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John Bartolovich
Right.
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Corey Chapman
Well, John, this is a podcast. It’s not interactive. Maybe they’re listening and they’re saying, John, I’m doing wonderful or John, it’s been a long year. But nonetheless, we are here.
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Corey Chapman
How?
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John Bartolovich
Rhetorical for the audience, actual for you.
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Corey Chapman
True, true story. I’m doing well. How about yourself?
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Corey Chapman
Good.
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John Bartolovich
Not too bad, not too bad coming into the end of the year.
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John Bartolovich
Our.
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John Bartolovich
Of the eve.
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Corey Chapman
Yes, recording this really on the eve of the end of the year, but this should be probably the first podcast in your pod catcher in the new year, so happy New Year. Happy 2023.
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John Bartolovich
Happy New Year everybody.
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Corey Chapman
Excellent. So John’s been a little bit since we’ve done a mail bag episode and that’s not because our mail box is empty. We always get great questions and then we just let them sit in there and and fester, it’s because we’ve had some really great content. I I think we’ve had some really great content to talk about over the last few episodes, couple nice guests, things of that nature and.
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Corey Chapman
I’m going to use this pun. We’re mailing it in here at the end of the year on a podcast. We’re mailing it in. I I gotta go. I’m sorry. This is. I’m so sorry, folks, but we are jumping into our mail bag. We do appreciate.
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Corey Chapman
Everybody who’s pinged us, typically, John, I’ll tell you because I run the mail bag it’s via LinkedIn, we get those LinkedIn messages. Hey, listen to the podcast. At some point, will you talk to us about this or that or the other?
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Corey Chapman
And so continue to do that. If you have questions or show ideas, send those to us in a direct message to John or myself on LinkedIn. And maybe we gotta create like a an e-mail address or something, John going forward, but we’ll get to. We’ll get to all that in a little bit.
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Corey Chapman
So John, a big one that’s come up.
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Corey Chapman
Especially because we are in I health.
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Corey Chapman
Is the uncertainty or the?
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Corey Chapman
Blurriness. Ohh I’m going crazy today with these puns around understanding vision versus medical insurance. OK so.
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Corey Chapman
I know I’ve had that question. I know you’ve talked about getting diabetic retinopathy screening. You’ve probably gone through that process. Can you breakdown the differences between vision and medical insurance?
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John Bartolovich
Absolutely. And that’s a fair question. We get this a lot when we are in conversation with PCP offices.
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John Bartolovich
Starts off, usually with the. The patient tells us they’ve had this done and really the challenge for the PCP office is they need to get a little bit more information. What exactly did you have done because.
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John Bartolovich
Just because a patient goes and has an eye exam reads a Snellen chart, gets their refractive error, gets their new glasses, doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve had a full comprehensive eye exam. Odds are they have. But there’s, you know, there are chances that it isn’t so.
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John Bartolovich
The the thing to keep in mind is that in the PCP office they will be billing for a medical procedure. Why is that? Because your medical insurance is to protect you from unexpected costs from eye injury, from injuries, not just your eyes, but injury illness. Whereas your vision insurance is really there to provide a Wellness benefit. Prescriptive eyewear, lenses, routine eye care.
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John Bartolovich
So the easiest way to to explain this is is if I go to my optometrist to get my eyes checked, I’m gonna get an eye exam. I’m gonna get, you know, the refractive refraction. I’m gonna read an eye chart the whole 9 yards may get a puff test that’s going to be built to my.
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John Bartolovich
Vision insurance.
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John Bartolovich
If I went to the eye doctor because I had pink eye.
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John Bartolovich
Then they would be billing my medical insurance because now they are treating a disease, not doing a routine exam.
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Corey Chapman
OK, that makes sense. But I I still feel some blurriness in not in your description of it cause that makes a lot of sense. But tell me then let’s start to break things down. What is not covered under say vision insurance?
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Corey Chapman
OK.
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John Bartolovich
If you’re going for Vision, Vision is here’s what’s covered. It’s probably easier to say what’s what’s covered and your vision exams.
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John Bartolovich
So most places are you’re going to see the eye doctor. They’re gonna do. They should be doing a comprehensive exam.
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John Bartolovich
I I believe they are. Then you’re gonna get your eyeglass frames where you know, up to a certain dollar amount will be covered over that. You pay a copay or you pay the difference. Same thing with your lenses and coatings and contact lenses.
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John Bartolovich
So probably one of the one thing to to.
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John Bartolovich
Add to this is I know when I go to my eye Docker there’s always a test or two that’s not covered on my vision insurance.
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John Bartolovich
Typically, at my physician’s office, is that that Oct exam? So they’ll say this isn’t covered by your insurance. It’ll cost $50.00 do you want to have it done?
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John Bartolovich
And that’s the point where the PCP needs to dig deeper in when they’re having a conversation with their patient, who says I already have this done at my eye doctor. The the question needs to be did they do a medical test to examine your eyes, to examine the back of your eyes?
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John Bartolovich
Uh, odds are they did take the the lens and and look in the back of your eye, but did they do an Oct? Did they take photographs? Because that then you know if you’re paying that out of pocket, that is your medical component and might be not saying it is but might be an indicator to the PCP that yes.
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John Bartolovich
They did have this done.
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John Bartolovich
But when we’re talking about the diabetic eye exam, the biggest key is you’re well aware. Corey is if the primary care physician has no record.
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John Bartolovich
Of the exam being done. Then it is safe to assume the exam has not been done.
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John Bartolovich
Now.
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John Bartolovich
Goes back to everything we always talk about. Three things happen when a patient gets referred to go to to the eye doctor. They either go and the result gets sent back.
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John Bartolovich
Is put in the chart every everybody’s happy.
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John Bartolovich
They either go and then the office is spending a lot of time chasing down that chart to try to get that result so that they can go ahead and mark that that patient has had that qualified further HEDIS measures.
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John Bartolovich
And then you know the other third is time patient just doesn’t go and there’s a lot of reasons why we can talk about them all day long. Typically they’re gonna be. I can’t find a sitter. I can’t get off work. I don’t have transportation. Something along those lines that, you know, was really a social determinant of health that is impacting their ability to go and get that done.
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John Bartolovich
So that’s why.
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John Bartolovich
Yes, they may or may not have had this done at the optometrist office, and it’s important for the the PCP office and the and their staff to just ask a couple of more key questions. But then again, the rule of thumb should be is if you don’t have the result, it didn’t happen.
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Corey Chapman
Yeah, that makes sense. So.
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Corey Chapman
Who?
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Corey Chapman
And I’ll just tell this is a is a true Side Story for myself, my optometrist and my ophthalmologist share a building. And it’s funny if if if you look at it from a sky view, they’re attached. It’s like a big rectangle and there’s just doors on either end of them. And I always go obviously and get my my glasses done and, you know, get new contacts and about a year ago, yeah, a year ago this past summer.
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Corey Chapman
They said, hey, we we’re seeing something, but no, no. HIPAA laws are being broken here. I won’t get into it. And they said this was July. They said, hey, go make an appointment with the ophthalmologist because I want them to do a little bit more battery of tests. Now all I had to do, John, was either pick up the phone or walk out that door, walk about 30 feet, walk in the next door and then physically make an appointment. And I would I I’ll do that. I’ll do that. Alright and no by the way, educated at night.
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Corey Chapman
I care, right? I mean, we work. I work in this industry with you. Do you know after that July appointment when I saw my ophthalmologist?
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Corey Chapman
December 31st of last year, and partially it was they were backed up, but the other part was I wasn’t following U and putting getting a an appointment on the books until the end of the year. And this is somebody who’s educated, who could have just walked to the other end of the building and got it done. So when we talk about you and I know you, we’ve done shows on this social determinants of health. If you can’t get that test done right there and then.
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Corey Chapman
You just broke it down. Maybe they go. Maybe they don’t get the report back. Maybe they and I, by the way, had to bring my report over to them. I had to physically carry it over to them because their systems didn’t talk to each other. So I can only imagine the frustration on your average patient that has to go from one to the other or have those conversations with the PCP when they have diabetes and say, well, you have this test done. I I don’t know. I I went there and they did this and they did that so.
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Corey Chapman
Totally. Yeah, just by own story. Totally understand. Like all those levels of frustration trying to get those reports.
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Corey Chapman
So.
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John Bartolovich
Exactly. And that’s the same thing I I it was the same way with me for a long time, where I had to do the exact same thing. And that’s why it’s just critical that, you know, eyesight everything important with your health. But eyesight is important.
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John Bartolovich
One other side note to this, I participated in a training from the American Diabetic Association, specifically around retinopathy diabetic retinopathy. And the biggest take away I mean, I’ve been in this industry 10 years, but the biggest take away I took away from that was that the optometrist who was running the training said at the very end of the training that being able to read a Snellen chart.
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John Bartolovich
Is not an indication of healthy eyes. It is an indication of vision, but it doesn’t mean that you have healthy eyes and how often do we see that the patient goes in and does get their diabetic retinopathy exam and they may have been newly diagnosed. And in that very first exam there is some sort of diabetic pathology identified.
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Corey Chapman
Right.
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Corey Chapman
Yeah.
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John Bartolovich
So very important that PCP’s work with the eye care community to get results when patients are going. But really we are tagging and and really trying to get the patient that’s not going to that eye care professional. The we want to catch that patient and catch any disease. So that if there is an issue they can go and get that taken care of.
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Corey Chapman
Anything we did, we miss on on this. I mean, I wanna get to our next question.
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Corey Chapman
If, if there’s anything you want to add.
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Corey Chapman
OK.
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Corey Chapman
Yeah.
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John Bartolovich
We we could, we could talk about this. We could do an hour show on this. I mean we we we you know earlier this year we did a training with the sales team and what was meant to be a 1520 minute training turned out to be a 45 minute training and we still didn’t cover everything so.
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Corey Chapman
One, OK.
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John Bartolovich
The the key take away is get those eye exams done.
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Corey Chapman
100 OK. And great stuff, there are John. Alright question #2. We’ll we’ll limit it to two on this episode. I think that’s our theme. Anyway we like to do short shows and quick questions here. So Jamma turned this one to you.
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Corey Chapman
Umm, what do we have in store for the eye on healthcare podcast in 2023?
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John Bartolovich
Well, we’ve got a lot of interesting things taking place, Corey. First and foremost, we are submitting an abstract to our vote to talk to about the pathology data that has been acquired through topcon screen and and how we find more than just diabetic retinopathy. Hopefully it will be accepted and and somebody from the Topcon team will get to go to New Orleans and present the abstract. We also have a webinar coming up that I want to tag that we’ll be talking about the new.
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John Bartolovich
CMS reach model social determinants of health and how the diabetic eye exam will help to.
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John Bartolovich
Achieve some of those aspects, but then.
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Corey Chapman
Ohh no.
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John Bartolovich
You know, I also heard that you have some news for us, Corey and and and I’ve got and I’ve got to say from a personal standpoint, I’m disappointed, but I’ll let you announce.
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Corey Chapman
Ohh we turning it over to me for disappointment. Yeah, John, this is.
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Corey Chapman
This is not easy to announce.
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Corey Chapman
But this is going to be my last episode of the Ian Healthcare podcast, turning the reins over to you 100% going forward.
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Corey Chapman
By the time this episode.
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Corey Chapman
Hits all the podcatchers I will have moved on from from Topcon Healthcare Solutions after four really fantastic years. I I I got an opportunity that I couldn’t turn down staying in healthcare which is is very important to me.
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Corey Chapman
And for a show that.
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Corey Chapman
I helped build a couple years back. I’m gonna miss it. I love podcasting. I love sharing and and learning knowledge. Right and and working with you. John has been fantastic because quite frankly, I can just show up.
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Corey Chapman
And ask the questions and and you deliver all the the fantastic knowledge to the audience. But.
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Corey Chapman
You know, I’m excited for the future. I’m excited for where you’re gonna take this show. You know, this has been like a back and forth show. And I wonder if they’ll be more guests. I wonder if you’ll take it in new directions. And I mean, I don’t know. Do you have a preview of what’s what’s to come in the New Year?
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Corey Chapman
Ohh.
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John Bartolovich
Yeah, I think uh, while we are in, I say this while we are DISH auditioning cohost I play, I play it to work with the individuals within topcon to see if we can replace the person who really is not replaceable. My my partner in crime.
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John Bartolovich
But in the interim I while we’re doing that having some cohosts guest guest hosts, if you will also plan to bring in some guests, there’s a lot of exciting things going on, not only in the diabetic retinopathy eye space, but in the eye space in general that we can bring in some partners and hopefully future partners to come in and discuss what they’re up to when it comes to diseases in the eye.
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Corey Chapman
Ooh.
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John Bartolovich
I and you know, as I said, we’ll be auditioning some cohosts probably have a sales Rep or two on the podcast that tell us the day in the life of a top con diabetic retinopathy screening representative.
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John Bartolovich
But you know, so that’s that’s where we’re headed. And again it’s it’s been an honor and a pleasure to podcast with you. You introduced me to podcasting. I’ve gotten the bug. I do full do fully intend to keep up with this this podcast because I think it is an added value and an added service that we bring not only to our our clients but to the marketplace in general.
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John Bartolovich
So with that, I am gonna let you sign off for one final time. As the Cohas cohost of the eye on Healthcare podcast. So I’m turning it right back over to you partner.
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Corey Chapman
Alright, John. Uh again, same right back at you. It’s been an honor and a pleasure. I will continue. I haven’t subscribed.
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Corey Chapman
And I will continue to listen, looking forward to the future of the podcast, The future of topcon screen, the work that’s being done here is fantastic. There’s there’s no doubt about it, and I’m I’ve just been, you know, honored to be a part of this process the last four years, so.
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Corey Chapman
Let’s close it out for one last time with me anyway. 4 John bartolovich. I’m Corey Chapman. This has been another wonderful addition of the eye on Healthcare podcast. We’ll see you next time.
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John Bartolovich
Thanks everybody.
