Eye Insurance Handler Moving to Costa Mesa
By VITA REED
Vision insurance administrator Medical Eye Services Inc. is moving its headquarters from Long Beach to Costa Mesa into a building that once housed operations of Laguna Hills-based Del Taco Inc.
Medical Eye Services spent $4 million to buy the two-story office building at 345 E. Baker St. from Airway Associates LLC. The 33,754-square-foot facility was built in the 1970s.
After upgrades, including a lobby remodeling, Medical Eye plans to move to Costa Mesa in March.
The company “has simply outgrown its current location,” said Aspasia Shappet, president of Medical Eye. “With the lease near its end, it was an opportunity to explore other locations.”
Reasons for choosing Orange County, according to Shappet, include a larger worker pool in terms of people in their 20s and 30s, proximity to John Wayne Airport, hotels and restaurants and freeways, including the San Diego (405) and the Costa Mesa (55).
Many of Medical Eye’s 120 workers drive from OC to Long Beach, Shappet said.
Medical Eye, a unit of Eye Care Network Inc., administers eye care claims for insurers, health maintenance organizations, preferred-provider organizations and employers that offer their own insurance. PacifiCare Dental & Vision, part of Cypress-based PacifiCare Health Systems Inc., is a client.
Plans provide a combination of eye examinations and glasses, just examinations or glasses or what Medical Eye calls voluntary or cafeteria plans available for businesses with 100 or more workers and require 60% participation.
Eye Care Network is a PPO that started in 1976. It has some 6,100 provider facilities with a network of ophthalmologists, optometrists and opticians. The company is private and didn’t disclose financial information.
Medical Eye and the Eye Care Network’s programs provide vision care services to more than 1.2 million members in 10 Western states. Providers in the plan agree to a discounted fee for services and materials.
Suzanne Richie and Dave Stolte, both of the Charles Dunn Co.’s Irvine office, represented Medical Eye in the building buy. Bryon Ward, Scott Read and Wade Tift of Grubb & Ellis Co.’s Newport Beach office represented Airway Associates.
Richie said she and Stolte had been working with Medical Eye for three years on finding a new headquarters. They found a building for Medical Eye three years ago, she said, but the company decided to wait until its lease expired before moving.
