Estimate how many hours your front desk spends each week checking vision plan and medical eligibility, what those hours cost, and what they would cost with a dedicated virtual assistant at $10 an hour. The default time, share and wage come from the CAQH Index, the American Optometric Association and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Your practice
Drag a slider or tap a number to change it.
Enter 20 to 800.
Share of optometry billings paid by vision plans, medical insurance and government programs (AOA, 2022).
Enter 10 to 100.
Average time saved per check by moving manual and portal checks to fully electronic (CAQH Index, 2024).
Enter 1 to 60 minutes.
BLS median for receptionists, May 2025.
Enter $7.25 to $100.
From BLS data for health care and social assistance establishments with 1 to 49 workers, June 2026.
Enter 0 to 60.
EyeCareWorks is $10 an hour, billed weekly for tracked hours, working in your own portals and practice management system.
Front desk time spent on verification
20.7hours a week
1,076 hours a year
Cost per year
The same hours at $10 an hour.
In a March 2026 MGMA Stat poll on staff phone time, 45% of practice leaders pointed to eligibility and prior authorization, more than any other task.
An estimate for planning, not a quote. Time per check varies by plan and portal, so use your own figure if you have timed it.
Checks per week are your appointments times the share of patients whose coverage has to be checked. Hours are checks times the minutes each one takes, divided by 60. The cost with your team uses the wage you enter plus benefits, payroll taxes and paid leave, which Bureau of Labor Statistics data put at about 34 percent of wages at private health care and social assistance establishments with 1 to 49 workers (BLS, June 2026). The cost with a virtual assistant is the same hours at $10 an hour.
The default share is 69 percent. In the American Optometric Association's 2022 income survey, owner optometrists received 30 percent of their 2021 billings from vision plans, 23 percent from private medical insurance, 16 percent from government programs and 31 percent as direct patient payment (AOA, 2022 Survey of Optometric Practice). The calculator adds the first three. That is a share of billings rather than patients, so use your own figure if you track it.
The default time is 12 minutes. The 2024 CAQH Index estimates that medical providers could save 12 minutes per eligibility and benefit check, on average, by moving manual and partly electronic checks, such as web portals, to fully electronic ones, and it puts the provider labor cost at $8.57 for a manual check and $4.46 for a partly electronic one, against $2.00 fully electronic (CAQH Index, 2024). The calculator uses that average saving as the time each check takes. Portal checks cost less than manual ones in that data, and real times vary by plan, so time a few of your own checks and adjust.
Verification is often phone work, not just portal work. In a March 2026 MGMA Stat poll on staff phone time, 45 percent of practice leaders pointed to eligibility and prior authorization, more than any other task and ahead of scheduling at 31 percent (MGMA Stat, March 2026). Every hour on hold with a plan is an hour the front desk is not spending with the patient standing in front of it.
It depends on the plan and the method. The 2024 CAQH Index estimates that medical providers save about 12 minutes per check, on average, by moving manual and partly electronic checks, such as portal lookups, to fully electronic ones. Timing a few of your own checks gives the most accurate number.
The 2024 CAQH Index puts the provider labor cost of an eligibility and benefit check at $8.57 by phone, mail, fax or email, $4.46 partly electronic, such as through a web portal, and $2.00 fully electronic.
Most optometry billings run through a plan. Owner optometrists received 69 percent of their 2021 billings from vision plans, medical insurance and government programs in the AOA 2022 survey, and many patients carry both a vision plan and medical coverage, so the practice has to work out which one applies before the visit.
Software is fast for the payers it connects to electronically and hands the exceptions back to your front desk. A virtual assistant handles routine checks and the exceptions, by phone when needed, and documents the answer in your practice management system. Our insurance verification virtual assistant page compares the options.
Minutes per check come from the 2024 CAQH Index, the plan share from the AOA 2022 Survey of Optometric Practice, the wage from Bureau of Labor Statistics data for May 2025, and the benefits rate from the BLS release for June 2026. Every source is linked at the bottom of the calculator.
All three are on the calculators page.
A short call to list your plans and portals and decide how verified benefits should appear in your system.
