Monday, May 12, 2014

Annual eye doctor checkups

Our family takes annual eye doctor visits seriously. Ram and his brothers started wearing glasses as children. As we homeschool our Lambs don't get annual checkups from the school nurse, nor would they notice if they can't see the blackboard whiteboard. Plus Ram has bad enough vision that we don't want to miss it if it gets worse.
On Friday we had some eye doctor checkups scheduled. Ram had called earlier in the week and asked if they had 3 appointments together and they did just a few days later. We always schedule appointments like this together and go get all eyes checked at once and cross that task off our to do list for another year. This time Lamb 2 did not need to be seen for a regular checkup because he gets his eyes checked by the doctor every two months at vision therapy. Back when Ewe had our Lambs, she got off schedule for regular checkups from the boys of our family when she needed her vision to return to normal after pregnancy.
Ram and Lamb 1 were fine. Lamb 3 was also fine, but the doctor expects he may need glasses in the next few years.
Lamb 2 had a fit that he wasn't also having his eyes checked. Part of the reason was our eye doctor moved to a new bigger office so he was curious. Mainly he felt left out to be the only male not having a checkup. The doctor said that was the first time someone cried because they were NOT seen by the doctor! While I was talking to him and trying to calm him down, Ram went and paid. We have good eye insurance and last year we just paid $10 copay for a regular checkup.
The Lambs were impatient to go so I didn't look at the receipt until later that night. I was shocked how little Ram paid, he only paid for himself. This morning I had Ram call to ask about the bill. It turns out that there is no copay for children effective January 1 of this year.
This was the first time that something helpful came out of the Affordable Care Act for me. It only saved me $20 this year, but that was $20. Parts like this should be kept as part of the Affordable Care Act. This would have been very helpful when I was teaching in the classroom. There were a couple of students every year that didn't pass the basic eye chart test given by the school nurse. When we told their parents that they should be seen by an eye doctor just to check it out, often the parents admitted they had no eye doctor insurance and couldn't afford an eye doctor visit. Then those students sat in my classroom every day probably needing glasses. This small part of this Act will help those kinds of students.

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