Any company that says "Don't you care about (your) X person/thing/place" you immediately do not do business with anymore.

@Jonbo298: Here, here! And when I hear that sort of line, I reply (as I'm walking out) "I care much more about that than your profit margin." Anyone who questions my comittment to my child's health and well being in order to get me to use their service is an A-1 putz and can pound sand.

If the point isn't that vision therapy works or doesn't, I'm curious why so much of the post was a critique of it. In fact, we did use vision therapy to treat my step-son's reading problem. It turns out that he did have a physical eye problem that was amenable to this sort of therapy. By the end of treatment, he was able to read much better and reported much less eye strain.

A good Vision Therapist will be recommended by a physician (optomologist, maybe?). They will agree to payment as you go (and some medical plans may cover the service although ours did not). We paid maybe for a month's service at a time, but the amount was entirely reasonable. I never felt a hard sell with the therapist we used, and he had an excellent rapport with the children he treated.

I wonder if the OP in this story ever agreed to pay a no-show fee. I think you have to agree to it somewhere. Some of my physicians have a sign in the waiting room, for example.

@Jonbo298:

That treatment from not only the Optometrist (I've come to expect such behavior from medical professionals around here, sadly...it seems to be the Ultimate Way to get what they want) but the "therapist" as well put me on the defensive. If someone tries to convince me of anything by fear/guilt tactics I'm immediately UN-sold.

That goes doubly for people who prey on parental fears. They don't just lose a sale, they also gain my hatred.

That picture is hilarious! Is that really a picture of a device used for strabismus or is it a joke?

@Jonbo298: 100%

I must admit though when the last Veterans association called asking for donations and used the same line, I felt a little guilty yelling

'NO, I COULDN'T GIVE A SH!T AT THE MOMENT, I JUST MADE A F'N DONATION TO THE SHERIFFS DEPARTMENT YESTERDAY'

I own an after school tutoring center and I see this practiced in my field all the time. There are several big names Sylvan being one of the biggest that will push the up sell and pull the Don't you care about your kid's education? I am not mentioning my center's name so you understand that I'm not selling here but warning.

You need think about what you are getting into. If your child's secondary education, vision care or whatever is being done by a company that puts GOBS of money into national advertising, think about where it comes from... YOU! And they are pulling heartstrings to get it.

Is this office run by a licensed professional of some sort? An optometrist or otherwise? I would try to find out the state licensing body that issued the license to whomever runs the office and see about filing a complaint with them as well. If other people have had similar experiences, and they have also filed complaints, then you could get the licensing body on your side in getting this resolved as well.

I am an optometrist (though I don't specialize in VT) and I'll say that it does work for the right patients. I've never heard of it advocated as a cure for ADHD or dylexia (though that someone might suggest such a thing doesn't surprise me). Despite the scammy feel of the story here (and that gets no argument from me) VT itself is not quackery.

VT covers a lot of different conditions, and can be used effectively in cases of strabismus or amblyopia. But in both cases, there are limits to what the therapy can do.

It also tends to be very expensive because it's time consuming. I don't know any VT specialists that would think they could get anything really accomplished with a single visit. You need several to make sure you're making progress, and even then it can literally take years to correct an issue.

I'm honestly not sure why the AAPS is completely against VT. It is true that not all cases can be treated with VT, it often has to be done surgically, but some can. I know several ophthalmologists that won't work on some cases until VT has at least been attempted (unless the eye turn is simply obviously too severe). Typically, you don't lose anything by trying VT for a few months, and I have seen the results of botched strab surgeries. It's rare, but it happens.

@erratapage:

hooray for my mad double-posting skills!

The No-Show fee was included in the documentation that I took home unsigned, ergo, I had not legally agreed to be bound financially to any treatment or missing of treatment on my part.

I have no doubts that VT has it's place in treating vision problems, as Chris Walters said, it can even be effective in strabismus in case of Convergence Insufficiency (which is not the case for my daughter). But, to go as far as to claim it can treat neurological or behavioral issues is enough to raise the Snake Oil warning to me. And then to ask for all monies up front? Methinks not.

"What the heck do I do now?"

Ummm....don't pay?

What a sleazy operation. Did they also ask you if you needed some cooking knives or if you were pleased with your long-distance?

Better Business Bureau would seem like a place to contact as well, considering the coercive sales tactics and the deception about the cost of treatment.

If you do contact your State Attorney General, he might also be interested in your "no, but Medicaid pays for it" conversation - States foot half the bill for Medicaid, and if this company's selling expensive unnecessary services and then charging Medicaid, it might be something he'd like to look into.

@GiselleBeardchen:
It's not a VT device, it looks like the front projection tube off a pair of eye chart projectors.

@Dr. Eirik: The point is not whether it works. The point is that they refused to take her "no" for an answer and billed her for a sales pitch, then tried to bill her again for something she never agreed to buy.

As I live nearby, I feel it important to point out that yes, the locals do pronounce it Vuh-Sales. I think this explains alot.

@lockdog:

Quite! When I moved up here I had the odd notion that it was pronounced Ver-Sai, just as Athens was pronounced Ath-ens. How wrong I was.

Ver-say-yuls, Ay-thens. No wonder I had problems blending in. ;-)

@Jonbo298: Absolutely sound advice. In fact, I'm going to take it one step further and tell anyone who tries it on me that it is that sales tactic in specific that sealed the deal, and I am absolutely never going to purchase their product or service now.

They'll keep doing it until we let them know that it won't work.

My wife briefly worked in the Vision Therapy field. It does seem like great alternative to surgery but there are DEFINITELY a lot of quack jobs and scammers out there. You definitely have to be careful who you work with.

The Doc my wife was working with was legitimate. He DID have a theory that "behavior often diagnosed as ADHD" is often caused by cognitive/accommodative disorders. Basically they have trouble interpreting what they see on the blackboard or on the page. They can't follow along, so they're bored and as a result they act up or don't appear to pay attention, etc.

So he would not say "This therapy cures ADHD." He would never take a kid with ADHD and start giving him vision exercises just as a fix.

What he DID say was that if your child was diagnosed with ADD/ADHD AND your child has a condition that could be treated with vision therapy (e.g. binocular dysfunction or strabismus) then maybe the ADHD-like behavior is actually just a side-effect of the vision problem.

Since vision therapy is non-surgical and does not use any drugs then it might not be a bad idea to treat the vision issue first and see if the ADHD goes away before you start pumping your kids up with adderal and ritalin.

But if your kid doesn't have a vision problem, then obviously vision therapy won't help him pay attention in class!

@Troy F.:
This is something I agree with whole-heartedly, because I've seen it.

Several years ago, I had a pre-teen (maybe 11) in my office. She was a year behind in school, had been put into a learning disabled class and was scheduled to be tested for dyslexia. She had never had an eye exam.

I did a routine exam and discovered that she was very farsighted. Farsightedness in kids can be tricky. They have strong enough accommodation to focus through a lot of refractive error, and this kid could do it well enough to pass a school screening (which typically trigger referrals if the kid fails 20/40 or worse) but when she tried to read, the extra strain was too much and she had to physically stop after no more than a few minutes.

A simple pair of glasses and some adaptation time was all I needed to give her.

I heard several months later that she'd had a dramatic school improvement, was out of the learning disabled class and well on her way to getting back to grade level.

I didn't "cure" anything, just corrected a vision problem.

Which reminds me, if you're depending on your kids elementary school screening as a sub for an eye exam, don't. They mean well and pick up a lot of kids with problems, but I suspect they miss about half the kids that could use help. They are almost never administered by actual eye doctors.

Having had two surgeries in my life for strabismus, and having done some vision therapy, here is how you can save some money. 1. Wear an eye patch over the strong eye to strengthen the weak eye. 2. Do excercises like trying to focus with the weak eye on a slowly moving pencil held in front of your face. 3. read with the weak eye while wearing the eye patch. 4. Run from any office (medical or otherwise) that uses high pressure tactics to sell medically related services.

Oh, if all the excercises don't work, invest in the surgery. I had it as an infant, and in my 30s. If I live long enough, I may need it again. But it beats having eyes that are pointed in different directions!

@GiselleBeardchen: That is actually an astrological survey device, not any sort of medical equipment.

It looks like saturn is ascending in your third circle of consumerism! Black friday will reap you many rewards.

Maybe the appointment taker/salesperson was trying to "visualize" more sales.

Just about EVERY medical provider I've dealt with lately has made that annoying call to me a day or two before to be sure I'm on the same page as them regarding the appointment.

If a salesperson tells me something like, "Don't you care about your child's vision?" then it's the end of the conversation. But it seems that this is the corporate motto of "Children's Vision and Learning?" Yeah, I'll be trusting YOU with my kid's health....

@Jonbo298: Salespeople like that remind me of a classic Homer Simpson quote, trying to get him to buy a home security system:

"Ex-con" Home Security Salesman: Surely you can't put a price on your family's safety.
Homer: I wouldn't have thought so either, yet here we are. [slams door]

Not only should you inform them that you have absolutely no intention of paying for an appointment that you didn't make, but that since no therapy was actually provided on the first appointment, that you want that $350 refunded. If they refuse, tell them that you are going to have to settle this in court. After getting off the phone, calmly write a polite but firm letter to

1) The Charlatans and copy
2) The States AG
3) Any Local Consumer Affairs Office

Hopefully this will get them to back off, which is what I think your goal is.

You also should immediately change optometrists, recommending a relative is OK, but there should have been disclosure.

Finally, for any issue regarding your child's health, the first place to go for information is your pediatrician. Yes, I know that a pediatrician is not an eye specialist, but they see children all day, and most likely will have some experience with other children that have had this problem. When I need a rec for my boy, I often ask the pediatrician who they used for their kids.

Not only should you dispute the $50 no -show fee, but I'd request a refund for the $350 appointment.

I'd also report the original optometrist for referring you without discosing their personal relationship with the vendor.

Ugh. Turning on the emotional blackmail thumbscrews to try to get you to hand over cash = classy. Oh wait, I meant sleazy. As others have said, the very SECOND anyone tries that kind of crap with me, there is no way they are getting my business. At that point I couldn't care less how effective or otherwise the product/service/treatment is, as the company itself is coming across as scammy and thoroughly unprofessional. If the treatment is so amazing, there should be no need for those tactics, as their appointment books should be full for the rest of all eternity.

How very, very unpleasant. Elysse, good luck with this - there is no way you should be paying the fee, IMO, but based on what you've already said about the company, they sound like just the type that wouldn't hesitate to trash your credit if you don't pay up. Still shouldn't pay it, though. Screw 'em.

@m4ximusprim3: It's happening! My horoscope was right!

"You will face challenges today"

As a previous poster said, this discussion should be about the poor business practices of a specific business, not about the validity of Vision Therapy as a treatment for strabismus. Vision Therapy, as practiced by optometrists, has been scientifically proven to be successful treatment for amblyopia (lazy eye), strabismus, and convergence insufficiency. Anyone who says otherwise is not reading the scientific literature -- and that includes ophthalmologists or optometrists -- anybody who says, "there is no scientific proof." The National Eye Insitute/NIH and Mayo Clinic recently proved that in-office doctor-supervised vision therapy is the BEST treatment for the common children's near vision disorder, convergence insufficiency. AND an earlier 2005 National Eye Institute study showed that children over the age of 7 can be successfully treated with non-surgical therapy for lazy eye. Many ophthalmologists (who are surgeons) will not refer to optometrists who provide non-surgical vision therapy and they are very pessimistic about the prospects of improved vision for older children or adults with lazy eye or strabismus. The Natl Eye Institute research has now definitively proven their bashing of Vision Therapy to be out-of-date and inaccurate. See the National Eye Institute research at http://www.nei.nih.gov/news/pressreleases/101308.asp and http://www.nei.nih.gov/news/pressreleases/041105.asp. How do I know all this? I was diagnosed with untreatable lazy eye at seven years of age and, thanks to vision therapy with an optometrist, gained the ability to use both eyes and see in depth (depth perception) at the age of 33. Vision therapy works. and it is also WORK for the patient, just like any physical therapy would be... RE: the $$, I felt my primary sense vision was well worth the dollars spent. It changes by life. FYI: Since, someone asked above...photo is not of any medical device.

@dweebster:

"So someone who cared about my child's vision would pay for this procedure?...So don't you care about my child's vision?"

Like others have said you should report this to the Attorney General.

From the sound of it though, you paid $350 for treatment and received no such thing. I would have demanded my money back as soon as I realized there was no treatment as promised. A charge-back would have been good but it's probably too late now.

Many years ago I was treated using vision therapy, and went from not being able to read, to being the fastest reader in my grade, and by 4th grade, I was reading over 150 books a year. Silly kids books like hardy boys and whatnot, but books none the less. Before vision therapy I would read in order to fall asleep, after the therapy, it didn't make me tired at all, though I've heard some people complain about that. lol.

That being said. This place sounds like a scam. The place I went to was an eye doctor's office, they had a very professional business run like any doctor's office. The place described in the story sounds so evil and defective, it's likely their treatment is just as lousy as their customer service. Find somewhere else. And let the BBB know.

Hey OP, my youngest brother had such severe crossed eyes he had surgery for it twice. (At 6 months and at 5 years.) See a trusted eye doctor at a practice that handles medical and surgical eye issues, not just vision correction -- not because it necessarily needs surgical intervention, but because these practices will have MDs and ODs and people with a lot more specialization and experience in unusual problems. (Ideally a specialty pediatrics practice, but depending on the size of your metro area, there may not be one.)

You should be able to get a thorough consultation for your child for the cost of the routine examination. And there are plenty of non-surgical interventions -- my brother, like many patients with a severe problem, used a combination of surgical correction and therapy (over about six years). The therapy was fully as important as the surgery.

@Alvarez:

I looked back at the documentation I have from them just now and have found that the 350$ upsell was put on the bill as "Sensorimotor diagnostic screening", meaning I have no documentation recourse, it's basically my word against theirs.

The s**t gets deeper, and stinks to high heaven. I'm really irritated at this point, I just found that 350 has truly been kissed goodbye...But I will fight them to the end over this 50$ over principle....and I am now officially drafting a letter to my Attorney General, the appropriate state medical board, and the BBB.

@Eyebrows McGee:

Thanks for the info! We're actually with an OD now that is not only honest, but has us patching and doing "pencil push-ups" for a few months to see if there is any improvement... and I've yet to be bullied into anything.

That pic reminds me of the Brian Regan Eye Exam bit:

Also, referring back to my paperwork here, I've found that the total cost was NOT 1500, but a rather ludicrous 4110$ for 30 45-minute sessions. 1500 was to be Paid. Up. Front.

When I had to reconcile all of my outstanding debts in order to qualify for a mortgage, I found a $60 co-pay charge from a doctor I don't even remember seeing, let alone seeing a bill for. Didn't have time to fight it, but at least it was only $60.

Definitely shouldn't have to pay it. I'd almost go so far as to say you could recoup the 350 since they promised you treatment that was never delivered, not further pitches.

First, demand a refund for the treatment they didn't perform that they said they would. (Fraud by deception I think is what it's called) Then about this appointment that they made against your wishes, they sent you a bill by US Mail, right? Mail fraud is a felony, feel free to complain to a postal inspector. Oh, unless of course the bill is an honest mistake, which you clearly want to give them a chance to correct.

I would agree with the "theft by deception" thing as well. You were clearly told that your $350 was for a treatment, and was the full price. You got absolutely no services except an upsell. It's really clear that no service was provided and you should not have to pay for that.

My guess is if you file a small claims action for the $350 you're out already, they will simply call you and arrange to send you a check, and that will also be the end of your so-called "no-show" fee. These sort of places generally know they are complete scams and count on people not standing up for themselves.

Um... Consumerist's write-up of this story is misleading.

"Now, four months after the experience, the business is billing her $50 for a "penciled in" appointment she never agreed to keep in the first place."

Well, the OP describes something differently. They scheduled an appointment for her, but she didn't object and didn't cancel.

I'm not blaming the OP. She told the story honestly. Vision Therapy was pushy, rude and misleading. And yeah, they were trying to scam her.

But "didn't agree to" sounds like a stretch.

You should report this company to the KY Board of Optometric Examiners, 2624 Research Park Drive, Suite 305, Lexington, KY 40511. They have legal authority to enforce fines for unethical behavior of this nature.

Well, the OP describes something differently. They scheduled an appointment for her, but she didn't object and didn't cancel.

@twophrasebark: The OP said "No" to any more appointments and the lady said she'd schedule an appointment for her anyway. The OP didn't agree to the appointment. That the employee decided to ignore the fact that she already said she didn't want another appointment is not the OP's problem.

@lockdog: I was just looking through the comments to see if this was mentioned, as I'd expect nothing less from a place that pronounces it "Ver-Sails."

@Rectilinear Propagation:

"I hadn't planned on it; we couldn't afford it and I was getting a second opinion. The receptionist asked "When did you know this?" and I said, "Pretty soon after I left the last time"

Ugh. That's terrible. Don't forget to get an upfront agreement on specifically what you are getting for your money before making any payments.

This reminds me so much of Keyes' depiction of Charlie Gordon's retardation treatments as a child. A great representation of the medical sham community as it existed, and still exists today apparently. Also, the representation of a haphazard professional medical research community experimenting on people under similar vague and shady promises... I wonder if that's true too.

"Where patients are treated like shoppers"

No, more like where potential patients are treated like naive suckers.

I am not a professional. I am a parent of a child that had moderate strabismus.

Vision Therapy was very effective at relieving it over the course of a year, and as a result he is reading much better. He also has ADHD and it didn't fix that ;) However his strabismus was a contributing factor to his ADHD.

Sympathy ploys from a "professional" can be very effective at separating you from your dollars, however, and any practice that relies on that is most likely more concerned with their bottom line than your child's vision. There are bound to be plenty of Vision Therapy professionals out there that have built a successful practice on focusing on the real needs of their patients.

As far as specific therapies, several have been listed and I could tell you the ones that we ended up doing ourselves at home, but they were at the behest of the therapist with specific instructions for where our son was at in his therapy. Anything done without the oversight of a professional can result in more eye strain and exacerbate the problem.

Please, for the sake of your child's vision, seek out a competent professional that has the recommendations of several ophthalmologists.