Happy Friday, everyone! This week, we’ve been focusing on the importance of eye health using the Kings VSP Vision Tips with our friends from the Sacramento Kings. We posted a Facebook poll on Tuesday asking fans when their last eye exam was, and we were very happy to see that 65% of poll participants have received an eye exam in the past year!

Receiving regular eye exams is a critical component of your health care routine. Learn more fun facts about eyecare by watching these silly Kings VSP Vision Tips today!

• Spreading the importance of eye exams for the early detection of diabetes
• Offering continuing education courses to eyecare professionals about diabetes care
• Reaching out to optometry students to educate them about their role in health care
• Providing tools to eyecare professionals to educate patients about diabetes and their eyes
• VSP’s reach through membership and charity work including Mobile Clinics and Sight for Students

For more information about diabetes and your eyes, visit VSP’s Diabetes Discovery Center.

More than 10,000 children have received the gift of sight, help us reach 40,000 more!

Several weeks ago, VSP^® Vision Care and Boys & Girls Club of America announced the free VSP Eye Pledge campaign to provide 50,000 Boys & Girls Club members in need with access to free eye exams and glasses worth more than $19 million. We recently hit the 10,000 mark!  This means that 10,000 kids across the country will now perform better in and out of school due to their free eye exams and glasses. With 10,000 down, we have 40,000 more to go!

Readers like you can help by simply going to www.seemuchmore.com/eyepledge!  You can choose to donate a free exam and glasses to your local club or the club with the most the need.

The VSP Eye Pledge is completely free and is as simple as these steps:

• Go to www.seemuchmore.com/eyepledge
• Pledge to take care of your eye health, which is an integral part of your overall health
• Direct the donation to either the local club of your choice (by inserting your zip code) or the club in the U.S. with the most need
• Share with your friends and family to help impact even more children in need in your community

Check out this clip to see how your support of the VSP Eye Pledge has already made a positive impact in two children’s lives.

VSP saves members an average of $290 a year on their eyecare and eyewear. That’s enough for 90 cups of coffee.

With today’s economy and prices continually going up on everyday necessities, enrolling in a VSP^® Vision Care plan can help you save on the eyecare and eyewear that you need. Just how much can you save? Check out our interactive savings calculator.

VSP members also have access to exclusive rebates, discounts and special offers. These offers are in addition to the coverage under your VSP plan and can be used with your plan coverage or separately. Check out the most current offers at specialoffers.vsp.com.

Read a few of our member stories and see how they saved with their VSP plan:

“Due to the cost of eyecare without insurance, my family has neglected going to the eye doctor. My husband, daughter, and myself all went to the doctor and got eye exams and new glasses. The balance for our glasses after our VSP coverage was only $55 for all three of us! That is great coverage, especially in this economy.”

Pamela K.

“I love all the new frames this year. If it wasn’t for my VSP insurance I would NEVER be able to afford them. Now I have the latest style and quality, but instead of paying $800 dollars for them, after VSP insurance, they were only $100! Thank you VSP!”

Paula S.

“I was hesitant to change how I handle my eyecare. I decided to try my VSP vision coverage and couldn’t be happier. I found a great eye doctor in my neighborhood and saved well over $400 on my exam and contacts.”

Christopher L.

See how much you can save with VSP with our interactive savings calcuator.

1 Eye Pledge = 1 VSP Gift Certificate for a Child in need

Go to SeeMuchMore.com and take the Eye Pledge in just three easy steps:

-   Select the Eye Pledge that’s right for you
-   Direct a free VSP eye exam and glasses gift certificate a Boys & Girls Club of your choice
-   Share your pledge to help spread the word and help us reach our goal!

Check out this video featuring BGCA discussing the importance of the campaign and the impact it will have to help children reach their full potential.

For more information about the VSP Eye Pledge campaign and to take the pledge, please visit www.SeeMuchMore.com.  The site also includes an interactive, virtual savings calculator to learn about savings with VSP vision benefits, allows users to browse the latest eyewear styles, and provides helpful information about healthy vision.

Many suffering from wet macular degeneration, an age-related condition, are treated with a once-monthly shot of Lucentis—costing upwards of $2000 per shot!  So, it’s great news that an alternate drug, Avastin, has been proved an effective treatment for this condition, with costs as low as $50 monthly. Avastin has been used to treat certain types of cancer, and was not originally intended for ocular use.

Consider the potential savings of swapping the drugs, shared in the Philadelphia Inquirer: “Over the course of a year in the study, Avastin cost to $385 from $595, depending on the treatment regimen. Lucentis cost $13,800 from $23,400.”

And the audience for this is huge. The Associated Press quotes Dr. Paul Sieving, director of the National Eye Institute, the federal agency that paid for the study: “More than 250,000 Americans are treated for macular degeneration each year… About 1.6 million Americans have advanced macular degeneration and another 7 million are at risk of developing it.”

While testing still needs to be done before Avastin is officially approved to treat wet macular degeneration, this is a huge development for those struggling with the cost of care.

Read more about the results of the study in Associated Press and Philadelphia Inquirer articles.

Wondering about the difference between wet and dry macular degeneration? Learn more.

Jill N. a.k.a. Eye Need Coffee Mommy

As my son was born 5 weeks premature, I am well aware how stressful the unknowns are when it comes to baby’s health. Fortunately, it appears there has been some advancements in treating premature babies who are afflicted with blindness.

According to an article published in the Wall Street Journal last week, babies born before 30 weeks of gestation have immature eyes and are at high risk of developing a condition called retinopathy of prematurity that is caused by uncontrolled growth of blood vessels in the eye. The blood-vessel growth can lead to scarring and detachment of the retina, which causes blindness.

The article highlights the results of a study that were so significant that the 15 hospitals participating in the research have stopped using lasers in favor of this drug, Avastin, which is injected into the eyes of the affected newborns.

Read the full article

Andy Gee a.k.a. GeeWhizKid

At this past weekend’s Health Fair & Forum in Sacramento, 14 VSP employees volunteered their Saturday to staff an information booth, provide low-level vision assessments, or assist doctors Elisabeth S. Swan, O.D. and Thomas R. Swanson, O.D. who were also volunteering their services in SeeLia, one of the VSP mobile clinics. 

 Several of the VSP volunteers share their thoughts from the experience. 

 Marian H. assisted patients in the screening:    

“The vision assessment showed that both a man and his daughter were in need of our services. The daughter is in the second grade and wants to be a teacher or a scientist when she grows up. She was having trouble seeing at school so her teacher moved her closer to the front of the class.
He knew they both needed corrective eyewear but had absolutely no way of providing for himself and his daughter.
I explained the importance of annual comprehensive eye exams and set him up with a VSP Mobile Eyes voucher and a doctor directory.
I couldn’t believe the change in his demeanor. He was so happy he started crying and it took a few minutes to get him calmed down. I assured him we were happy to provide this service.”  

 Judy M. assisted patients in low-level vision assessments and discovered:    

“My most memorable moment was when I realized the young man I was talking to was having a sight-threatening issue, knowing time was so important to saving his eyesight.
Sure, I could be at home or going to a movie, you know, comfortable things. But for so many people there is little comfort. The people that come to these events come for a very real reason. It’s a need.” 

 Juliet C. manned the information booth, educating visitors on health risk factors prevalent in the African American community. 

VSP Employees (L to R): Koi R., Juliet C., Cynthia S. and Doris B. volunteering at the VSP information booth

“I volunteered for this event because of the importance of educating the community on various health risk factors such as diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension.”  

Cynthia S. helped educate visitors on what makes up a comprehensive eye exam.  

“I volunteered at this event because I grew up in the neighborhood, and this was a way of giving back to the community. I met parents of people I went to school with and it felt good to be able to educate them on the many diseases that can be detected through the eyes. It was amazing how many people didn’t understand the difference between their perception of an ‘eye exam’ and a ‘comprehensive eye exam’ from a VSP doctor.”  

Jenny B. assisted in the vision assessment process.  

“..to see someone’s face when they realize that VSP isn’t expecting anything from them, that the exam and glasses given to them are free just so they can see better! I met a 52-year old woman who had never had an eye exam in her lifetime, making do with $2 ‘cheaters’ that really didn’t fix her vision problems!”  

Me? I got to merge my photography hobby with my desire to volunteer in the community and work alongside VSP employees who I don’t see everyday! Check out the photos from the event at VSP’s Flickr gallery.  

Niki M. is a VSP Mobile Clinic Operations Manager.

The latest from Niki:

Today was even busier than yesterday! Kim and I are really getting the hang of working the dispensary. I have learned more about prescriptions than I ever thought I would! Our group split again, so collectively we saw nearly 500 patients in 5 hours. We have 4-5 optometrists and 5-6 optometry students in each group, so as you can imagine, they are keeping us moving.

I dispensed glasses to an older lady today that hadn’t been able to afford glasses in years. When I put her in new glasses and asked how the reading card looked, she said very humbly and sweetly, “Wow, I can clearly see all the pretty words again.” Some of the towns in Dominica we are visiting are very, very poor, with some living in one bedroom shacks without bathrooms and only enough electricity to power a few small items in the kitchen (if at all). In conditions like this, survival becomes more important than some of the “luxuries” (like clear vision) that most people in the US take for granted.

With our Mobile Eyes program, we offer patients great Marchon and Altair frames for free. With this program, patients must pay the local Rotary, which VOSH partners with on these missions, $25 for whatever random reused glasses they have in stock. The patients in Dominica are so grateful, and accept without complaint some of the second-hand older frames we have to distribute.

Tomorrow is expected to be our busiest day. We will be in Roseau, the capital and one of the more populated areas, and also where our hotel is located. Our whole team will be together with the goal of seeing over 800 patients!

Our time is flying by so fast!

Kim’s notes from day two:
We split the group in two today and collectively we saw over 400 patients. Niki and I are really comfortable with the flow and dispensing. We have adapted to VOSH’s seventeen years of experience and they are a well oiled machine. We coined a new term today: we are “vosh-ticians.”

This group is amazing and have made us feel so welcome and a part of the team.

Notes from the first day of the clinic:
We arrived safely in Dominica and have been enjoying getting to know our team of 35 and the locals. We spent Sunday at a local church with the crew and had the honor of meeting the country’s president! They fed us delicious local food.

Today was our first clinic day. After an hour and a half crazy bus ride in the monsoon rains, we saw nearly 200 patients, who were already lined up and waiting well before we arrived. There are tons of boxes and supplies to lug in and out each day, so in addition to our duties in the dispensary, they’re keeping us very busy.

The Ferris State optometry students VSP sponsored are very grateful for VSP’s assistance. Stay tuned for our next update and follow our tweets @VSPVisionCare

Bringing hope to the eyes of Dominica Part 1 and Part 2