I think the bigger take-away here is that Insurance providers, especially the lower tier ones, will fight you tooth and nail to provide the medical coverage and incur all the costs associated with that (billing personnel, lawyers etc...) instead of just paying for the costs as agreed upon.
This is very distressing, and I was looking at my medical bills from last year, the blood work done cost nearly $800, and I opted for a cortisone level exam that was $280, of which I only paid $15. But it took a ton of legwork, calling for procedure numbers, speaking to clueless CSR outside the US. The costs for basic procedures are just outlandish, so both the hospital as well as the Insurance play this war of attrition where the only real loser is the patient caught in between, often while ill and with no other recourse.
This poor guy got screwed and even with medical insurance they wanted HIM to do the legwork to prove he shouldn't pay when his exams were complete.
I'm kind of on-board for a Megacorp like Walmart to enter this space at this point, if only to see what other alternatives they could come with.
Their vision stuff wasn't bad at all, I had a hard time getting an appointment with a local provider with my medical insurance due to time/schedule constraints, so I went to a Walmart, got an exam during lunch (covered by insurance), gave them my frames and 1.5 week later I had them in my hand with new lenses for $155 with 2 year warranty waiting for me in the evening (7pm?).
I think my Insurance savings would have been like $40 had I gone into a network optometrist so it was hardly a deal breaker as my time was a bigger concern.