I do not consider the following to be a "negative" review, rather something that I wish I had known prior to signing a contract with Vision Development of WNY, because we would have looked and ultimately gone elsewhere. The staff, all around, are wonderful people and we were always met with kindness. Truly, some of the nicest people I have ever met. I think that is why I acted without doing enough/proper research and thinking things through.
My son is 6 and in 1st grade One night, he mentioned to me that the book we were reading looked blurry and I made an appointment with a local optometrist to have him checked out. Long story short, after that visit, I contacted two other doctors, a pediatric optometrist and vision therapy. We promptly heard back from Vision Development. I spoke to Dr. Alyssa for an hour, she was so comforting and kind and made my concerns seem validated. I made an appointment for my son and took him soon after for an evaluation. We were told that everything was out of pocket as they did not accept insurance, so I was very aware of this, and I was worried about my son and felt as though we had no other options.
We went in for the evaluation and he was diagnosed with 4 things: Paresis of accommodation, Hypermetropia, convergence insufficiency and Generalized contraction of visual field. The main issue in my opinion, was the convergence insufficiency (he cannot cross his eyes, so he does see double and has a hard time focusing) which is muscular, however they really were focusing on "Generalized contraction of visual field", which was related to his pupils dilating and then pulsing when light was shined on his eye instead of staying "tight". Dr O'Conner, who did the evaluation, told me that his issues were neurological. Hearing that, I of course panicked. He never mentioned to me that the other 3 issues he was diagnosed with at the time were muscular and needed actual strength training to get stronger. After that appointment, I was given a sheet with a price and some information about "light therapy" and a daily "infinity walk" with my son. At the time, I also thought that was going to include weekly visits to the office to work with someone on everything, but when I reviewed the contract, the 4 dates on the contract were just in office visits to check his progression.
At the time of signing, I was told that the package we paid nearly $4,000 for, included light therapy and the infinity walk, all which my husband and I would do at home. We were doing all the therapy at our home. I sat in a closet with my son for 20 minutes a day staring at a green light, and for 5 min he walked the infinity symbol. During the checkups my husband and I did both ask, and were reassured at that time, that the light therapy should correct all things he was diagnosed with. 95% of the time, we were told, this works for kids. I felt a bit skeptical, and normally I am not skeptical about things, but it turns out we should have been skeptical and pushed more and questioned more. I know this was our choice to sign and pay, which we did.
We started the suggested therapy in mid-March, and in mid-May - we were told that we need to continue therapy because the light therapy only improved his "Generalized contraction of visual field" concern. At this point, he was also wearing glasses to help correct his convergence insufficiency, which was so helpful. But his GLASSES were the reason everything seemed better for him- not light therapy. His reading fluency improved, and his writing improved due to his glasses, not because of light therapy. After our last check in, I met with the office manager to go over another contract, suggesting weekly visits at the cost of around $8,000. At this point I just had a pit in my stomach because I knew in my heart (and should have known better), that light therapy was not going to fix a muscular issue. I told the office manager that we are going to try another doctor for a second opinion.
Once we decided not to move forward, my husband called the office and inquired about partial compensation because we truly feel that we did not receive ~$4,000 worth of services, and as of May 8th, we were done with the original package "program" (our last visit was supposed to be in July but we were weaning our son off of the light and he would be done with it by May 22nd). I understand that this is a business, and they need to operate, however, the cost we paid to them, the effort we had to put in for this therapy and the lack of actual therapy effort/work from the office, doesn't really seem reasonable or honorable. I truly do not know why this was so expensive, as we were given a light, and I sat in a closet with him. During the phone call, we were not offered anything. It was stated multiple times that "I" said that he was improving and doing better, but that was purely due to his glasses, and honestly, I am not the type to just openly criticize. I also thought that with over a month read more
