<prompt> Human: Background: My health insurances vision plan sets a flat amount 450 in my case that can be used on all vision related expenses Dr. visits, contactslenses, frames for a plan year. Because of this, I was calling around to ask the rates of a regular eye exam to maximize the amount of money remaining for new contacts. One place I called said they charge more for patients with insurance. Ive heard of negotiated rates that insurance companies make with Doctors, but this is almost like the opposite! Instead of a reduced price, the price doubles! Why would the insurance company allow themselves to be billed almost twice the normal cost?For reference, I called some other Eye Doctors and their rates were around 230, so 350 is definitely on the high end.  <response>: I manage an optometry clinic, and we do the same thing. Our bill out price for an exam is 129, but we discount it down to 69 for our cash paying clients. This may seem shady but insurances usually dont pay us half of our bill out price, they will discount it down themselves and pay us 40-89 depending on the insurance, its ridiculous. For example spectera pays a maximum of 45 for an eye exam, and often times a patient will pay a 45 dollar copay, we bill the rest to spectera they send us nothing and make note that the patient cant use their benefits till the next year. Insurances are generally scum especially in the optometry world so sometimes we have to be creative to get a payment from them, by billing out more than we expect to be paid.I would advise anyone paying for vision benefits to cancel their plan, I have never seen a case where the insurance was worth what its members paid, but eye exams are rather inexpensive in my location. 