The Vision Behind Biltmore's Vision - TribPapers
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The Vision Behind Biltmore’s Vision

Ensure a hassle-free vacation by keeping your contact lenses in your carry-on, packing essentials, and always having a backup plan! Photo courtesy of Biltmore Vision.

Asheville – Robert Bishop is a licensed optician who used to work for a large office of no small repute in the area. He recalls the date, October 10, 1995, when he went into business for himself as Biltmore Vision Center. “I wanted to run an honest business where I can help people.”

He spoke for awhile about how he was born in the area and has lived here for all 61 years of his life. “Community” isn’t just a buzzword for him. He likes doing things the old-fashioned way, where you spend time with your customers and get to know them.

In business with him are Dr. Paul Michalove, OD, and Dr. Herbert Gibson, OD. He’s known both of them for a long time, and they share his values. His wife, Dee, serves as office manager.

Bishop said, as a general rule, the big box stores were “all about the money.” He had heard stories about practices bilking people for all they had, and he did not want his office to be like that. “I wanted people to return, and to have good things to say. It isn’t all about the money. I don’t like doing business with operations like that, and I didn’t want to be in the business of treating people like that.”

At Biltmore Vision, customers are served with conscientious care. Source: biltmorevision.org
At Biltmore Vision, customers are served with conscientious care. Source: biltmorevision.org

Bishop said a lot of eye doctors spend maybe 15 minutes max with each patient. At Biltmore Vision, patients typically spend 30–60 minutes with professional staff. “It is more likely we’ll detect health problems and write more precise prescriptions with longer exam times,” he said.

“Our patients are important,” clarified Bishop. Old-fashioned, he still believes everybody loves to share, and he likes to hear about the lives and interests of his customers. “Somebody might enjoy fishing, so we talk about that. Just friendly conversation,” he said.

“We like to spend as much time as we can with patients.” That means Biltmore Vision only sees about 8–10 patients a day, and that’s the way they like it.

Biltmore Vision’s clientele will get a full eye exam with manual, calibrated optometric equipment. Bishop said there are at least a couple offices in town where patients get their exams via telehealth. “There’s just no way you can tell anything about the health of the eye by sitting in front of the computer.”

What Biltmore Vision doesn’t do is surgery. “No lasers,” said Bishop. In addition to the exams for glasses or contacts, they have 1,700 frames on display in the showroom, and they perform repairs and adjustments.

In this era of medical mergers, Bishop acknowledges that “it’s difficult to be a small business.” The compliance comes easy, he said, “because we’ve been doing that all along.” However, he misses out on all the economies of scale, like bulk purchasing.

Bishop said the vision industry is always changing for the better. For example, a lot of people couldn’t drive at night because of glare, so antireflective coatings were developed. More recently, some studies concluded that blue LED light, which only became commercially available in 1989, may contribute to age-related macular degeneration. So now, glasses can come with blue light filters.

Other changes have come because of the insurance industry. Bishop used to grind all the lenses in-house. The patients would have an eye exam and then wait in the lobby for their glasses. Now, Biltmore Vision may have to send out for their lenses.

They still have lens-grinding capability, but, Bishop explained, some insurance companies require patients to have their lenses ground at the insurance company’s labs. “Sometimes insurance dictates what you can get.”

To illustrate, he said Medicaid only allows patients to get a subset of eyeglass frames. Worse, they only allow them to get “standard lenses.” These do not include UV protection, transitions, or progressive lenses. So, if a customer suffers from advanced presbyopia and needs multifocal lenses or is overly sensitive to light, Biltmore Vision might step up to help this person with an affordable second pair of glasses that actually work.

“We offer more personalized service. We’re a small and family-owned business,” he said. His website says the business is Christian-owned, and he’s not ashamed to say so. His faith teaches him to do good and help people, and he doesn’t see anything wrong with that. “God’s good to us and allows us as a small business to be successful in spite of all the things going on with healthcare right now.”

Biltmore Vision Center is located at 17 Sardis Road in Asheville (828) 665-0603. And yes, they’re accepting new customers.