Austin Eye Gym

Unilocal is listing Dr McMains Beck as an optometrist. She is actually a neuro-​optometrist, which is *very* specialized. She is the only neuro-​optometrist in the Austin area who chooses to accept insurance.
I have been a patient of Austin Eye Gym /​Dr. Mary McMains Beck for over a year. I have had an extremely positive experience. Dr McMains Beck is a very knowledgeable and compassionate care provider.
I have a progressive disease and choose my many health care providers *carefully*. I also have an advanced degree in nursing, which can make me a fairly particular patient lol ;) My disease affects my vision, and Dr McMains Beck and her team have helped me make incredible progress! I used to get motion sickness every time I drove or was a passenger. Now it is very rare for that to happen. My overall fatigue has improved. I am much more aware of what my eyes are doing, which is important for trying to control them on bad days.
Austin Eye Gym’s staff are very friendly and make my vision therapy a pleasant experience. My 14 year daughter even liked the therapy. However, she couldn’t do the homework because her studies were too demanding at the time. She only had a few visits before I told her she couldn’t go back until she was able to commit to therapy. They were all good visits. (As an extra bonus, she now understands why balls were hitting her in the face when she tried out for basketball :)) My 12 year old is coming in next week for an evaluation. I trust Dr McMains Beck and the therapists to help her (balls tend to hit her in the face too).
I have even referred perfect strangers to Austin Eye Gym because I am so impressed with the help I have received there. I have referred others (who share my disease and don’t live in the area) for vision therapy because it has helped me so much.
Regarding insurance and billing … I am fortunate that my insurance covers this therapy. Every practice I have ever been to has made me sign forms saying that I will pay whatever the insurance does not cover. One person mentioned an «equipment» fee. The use of the special glasses that are used with the interactive video equipment is billed separately ($ 30). The staff explained this to me up front. Insurance bases coverage according to billing codes. In my case, the $ 30 is covered every time I use the glasses (which may or may not be every visit). In my 14 year old’s case, they were not covered because her codes are different. It is Aetna’s choice to not cover. I can assure you that I would have gladly paid the extra $ 30 every visit if my daughter could have /​would have done the therapy. This therapy costs upwards of $ 7000 elsewhere. I have only ever had one issue with billing; it involved a simple clerical error, and it was quickly resolved. I drive about 45 minutes to come to therapy there, and it is worth it. I am so grateful for how much they have helped me.

Let’s start off with a little background. I’m a professional race car driver. Probably the most important safety feature I have in the litany of safety devices (roll cage, helmet, fire retardant suit, etc.) is my vision. If I can see what’s happening around me, I stand a better chance of not hitting it.
I first contacted Austin Eye Gym about getting a baseline test required by my licensing body. Every driver has to have this baseline in order to determine if we’re fit to return to racing after a crash. Yet another level of safety, but it turned out to be a great one. Not because of a crash, but because I decided to work with Austin Eye Gym on vision therapy to help me improve my vision.
I always want to know the answer to the «Why?» of things. Everyone on the staff made sure I was able to understand the intricacies of what I was asking about, to the depth I was able to comprehend. I’ve learned a lot about the difference between eyesight and vision. How I can use vision to help me be a better driver. I’ve also learned how I can use vision to help my clients/​students understand how to be better drivers. Understanding the goal of the technique has given me an expanded vocabulary and toolset to make people safer on the track, and on the street. If it had’t been for the expert level of understanding, and the thoughtfulness of the answers to my probing questions, I wouldn’t be as good as I am at what I do. I owe a lot of this to the entire Austin Eye Gym staff.
Now, for an anecdote…
After a terrible qualifying session at the Lone Star Lemans at Circuit of the Americas here in Austin, I found myself pretty far back in the field. I was 24^th on the starting grid. Out of 30 cars, that’s not very good. Fortunately, the car chief was able to diagnose and fix the problem with the car before the race, so I was ready to charge the field and get back to where I’m accustomed to racing. The start of the race, the green flag dropped, and we were off. Using techniques sharped by my vision therapy at Austin Eye Gym, I was able to use my «enhanced» peripheral vision, coupled with experience, to take a wider line at the first turn, passing several cars, getting up to 20^th position before turn two. At turn 9, amid a pack of frantic racers, I found myself again in a situation where a BMW had spun ahead of me, but again, my «enhanced» vision allowed me to process the threat sooner than I think I would have prior to my work with Austin Eye Gym. I quickly took another two places. By the end of the first lap, I had worked my way from 24^th to 17^th, and was on a roll. By the time I was done, I was able to get all the way to 5^th place. Moving up 19 positions in a professional race is not an easy task. Some of that I can credit to the car chief fixing the issue from the qualifying session, some of that can be credited to my raw talent (tongue-​in-​cheek here… just roll with it), but easily half of those positions I can credit to the excellent work of the entire team at Austin Eye Gym. The entire group, working together as a team, helped me to be able to see better, making me safer, and making me a better race car driver.
And finally a rebuttal for some misunderstandings…
For those of you complaining about an insurance bill problem and giving Austin Eye Gym a bad rating, you’re giving the bad rating to the wrong entity. The insurance company is your problem. EVERY doctor you visit, be it your GP, a specialist, or the emergency room, has you sign the same form where you state you’ll be responsible for anything not covered by insurance. Check with your insurance company BEFORE YOU VISIT to be certain they’ll cover it. Chances are good, unless you have crappy insurance. The doctor’s office simply sends in the insurance codes to the insurance company. The insurance company decides whether or not they’ll pay.

My daughter has been seeing Dr. Becker and staff since December 2014. She has made extraordinary progress since coming to Austin Eye Gym. The staff make her sessions fun and change it up to keep her progress from stalling out. Dr. Becker is amazing! She’s not your cut and dry doctor. She’s a professional and really cares are the patient and wants to make sure you are progressing. She’s not there to tell you what you «Want» to hear. She tells you what you «Need» to hear and the work it takes to make your child successful.
Vision Therapy is by no means an easy process or cheap but it’s necessary so that my daughter could read. The hard work pays off in the end! I’m so glad we decided to go to the Austin Eye Gym.
Do your homework… there’s not many doctors who even deal with insurance in this field so with the additional benefit of being able to use our insurance it’s been a God sent.

First off let me preface this review by saying all of the therapists that worked with my daughter were great and very caring. I harbor no ill will towards any of the clinical staff.
That being said the business practices that we experienced at Austin Eye Gym was horrible beyond belief. They advertise themselves as one of the only OT/​PT/​VT practices that can and will bill to insurance so that you will not have to pay out off pocket for everything. While this is not a flat out lie it is at best a bait and switch tactic. How their scam works is basically they have you sign a paper saying that you are responsible for anything not covered by insurance. This in itself is not out of line. What is the shady part is that they say that they will know in the first few billing cycles what will be covered. In the mean time what they do is just submit different codes to the insurance trying «to hope it makes it through» sometimes it does on a technicality, then the insurance will audit and see the mistake and stop payments. This is where the aforementioned document comes into play. We had back billed items for almost 9 months of therapy that were just piling up charges with out them notifying us of them because they were just resubmitting them. Then after they had fully exhausted all possible options on insurance they come to you and say. Bam… here is the bill you promised to pay since your insurance does not cover it you are responsible now for it. All this time they have known that is was not going to be covered. When we signed that paper I explicitly said if this is particular code was not covered by insurance then we do not want that service. We due to their shady practice (and the fact she really knew it is never covered) they continued trying to rebill insurance for 9 months all while racking up charges. Then coming to us with a $ 1k bill saying, «Well you signed this agreement» If you don’t pay we will send you to collections.

Now do you want to fight this, have them turn you into collections, mess up your credit, get a lawyer, fight to get it fixed, then your credit is a mess just for a $ 1k bill… No… and that is what they know will happen you will just give in under their Gestapo tactics, and they will get paid.
The basics are this. We and a few other families I know have gone to these people and had similar issues related to their insurance mishandlings. I hope that you don’t get taken advantage of like we did. They did good clinical work for my daughters needs, but all said and done I ended up paying almost 100% of my billed services. Knowing that going in I would have elected to go with a pay as you go plan at another provider. One that is a little more reputable and maybe even part of a larger better established practice.

We love the Austin Eye Gym and Dr. McMains!
Dr. McMains has been treating our 9 year old daughter for the past 2 plus years. The staff is very attentive and great with the kids. I feel very confident in Dr. McMains professional assessment and treatment plan. I love the fact that they will bill our insurance company! After receiving VT from another location and spending thousands of dollars out of our pocket, I appreciate the effort that Austin Eye Gym puts forth in explaining our coverage.

I am sure everyone’s experience is different. We had very unpleasant experience with Austin Eye Gym.
Austin Eye Gym overcharged more than $ 700 from us by collecting directly from us and also from our insurance company. After I brought this to their attention 1 month afterwards, Austin Eye Gym first asked me for proof instead of checking themselves. After I sent the insurance claim statements, the answer was «ok. I will check with the billing to make sure that we DID receive the payments.» Then it was another round of discussion of if they can keep the amount as credit instead of refunding to us.
Austin Eye Gym also requests additional fees. For instance, there is a fee to put on the waiting list and another for Vision Therapy Program. Insurance companies do not recognize those fees and won’t pay or count them towards deductible. There is also no explanation of the fee. When we made the demand to have an explanation of the Vision Therapy Program fee, the explanation was «it was for using the equipment in the office». This sounds very strange since the pricey office visit fee (thousands of dollars) should have included the «privilege» of using the equipment. Most of us don’t go to see a doctor and pay «equipment» fee separately after copayment and claim.
On our last visit, Austin Eye Gym demanded an immediate collection of fee when we were about to start an appointment. When I refused to make the payment and asked them to bill to insurance instead (to get correct amount that I am responsible for), Ausitn Eye Gym refused to provide service in front of my 7-​year-​old daughter. On the way home, my daughter kept asking me why she couldn’t get exercise today and why we had to wake up super early for something they could have told us over the phone. Hopefully, this would be the end of our experience with Austin Eye Gym.