Contact Lenses

Adjusting the Mix of Contact Lenses

Recommend Daily and Monthly Lens Replacement, Improve Compliance and Profits

By Judith Lee

The facts show that a contact lens product mix with a preponderance of daily disposables and/or monthly lenses enhances patient compliance, resulting in higher practice revenues.

Replacement Schedules and Patient Compliance
Daily disposable contact lens wearers are the most compliant in following replacement schedules, followed by those who replace lenses monthly. Those replacing lenses on a two-week schedule are the least compliant, according to separate studies by the Centre for Contact Lens Research (CCLR), University of Waterloo, and the Management & Business Academy (MBA), sponsored by CIBA VISION and Essilor.

Compliance is highest among wearers of daily disposables. Some 94 percent of daily disposable lens wearers are compliant to a level of 70 percent or higher, versus 68 percent for wearers of monthly replacement and just 18 percent for those replacing lenses at two-week intervals.

Six of 10 patients on a two-week wearing schedule said they tended to forget to change their lenses, CCLR reports.

“Some things we do daily, like shower and brush our teeth,” notes Kevin Roe, OD, FAAO, director of professional relations for CIBA VISION. “There are things we do monthly, like pay the mortgage or make the car payment. There’s nothing we do on a two-week interval.”

Improve Compliance & Profits with Upgrades, Multiple Sales
The key to improving compliance and profits is two-fold: upgrading materials and lens designs, and capturing multiple-box sales in a lens replacement schedule that you recommend and that is more likely to be followed.

MBA DATA demonstrates that practices in the highest performing quintile of MBA practices have a contact lens product mix distinctly different from lower-performing practices. For this top-performing group, daily disposables comprise 25 percent of lenses dispensed, versus 1 percent for the lowest-performing MBA practices–or versus 6 percent on average for practices nationally.

Monthly silicone-hydrogel lenses account for 40 percent of that highest performing quintile, versus 14 percent for the lowest-performing MBA practices–or versus 18 percent on average for practices nationally.

First, upgrade present wearers to silicone-hydrogel (si-hy) materials that offer dramatic improvements in comfort and performance, as well as health benefits to the eye. Additional profits come from upgrading low-astigmats to toric lenses and presbyopes in monovision to multifocal lenses.

Second, change the recommended lens replacement schedule from two-week replacement to daily or monthly replacement. Data on patient compliance indicates that many patients in two-week lenses already are going a month before replacing their lenses anyway.

Daily or monthly replacement schedules: Healthier for patients; more profitable for your practice.

Do the Math on Incremental Profits
Now do the numbers on selling four boxes of contact lenses, based on data reported in Best Practices of Contact Lens Management from the MBA.

When you go from selling four boxes of two-week HEMA lenses to four boxes of monthly si-hy lenses, the incremental profit comes to $62.76 for spherical lenses. That incremental increase leaps to $83.16 for si-hy torics and $69.08 for multifocals.

Do the math on the numbers of patients you can upgrade, and you have an idea how much profit comes from getting the mix right.

Stretching Lens Replacement Risks Eye Health
When two-week patients stretch their wearing schedule, they risk their eye health, says Steven Bennett, OD, FAAO, an Ann Arbor, Mich., contact lens specialst. They also stretch their lens supply, which will likely delay the patient’s return to your office, decrease contact lens revenue and increase the likelihood of losing the patient.“If you don’t educate the patient about what’s really healthy,” says Bennet, “and you let them overwear the lens, you have no bond with that patient. They will go anywhere for replacement lenses.”

Change Replacement Cycles
“A two-week patient in theory would use eight boxes of lenses per eye per year,” says Dr. Roe. “But industry data tells us otherwise.” Market research from CIBA VISION reveals that annual profit for a two-week wear is only about $48 per year. Profit from monthly and daily disposables wearers is $63 and $177 respectively. “By changing the mix of products, and doing nothing else,” he says, “the practice can potentially make up to $75,000+ without seeing one additional patient.’

Guide Your Patient to Dailies or Monthlies
Likely, your contact lens patients haven’t opted for daily or monthly replacements because you have not directed them there. As is further noted in Best Practices of Contact Lens Management, the product sales mix is determined by eye care provider preference and not consumer choice.

Dr. Bennett, who has converted all of his two-week wearers to either daily disposables or monthly replacements, says it’s a win-win: “It’s much better for the patient and for the office.”

Talk the Talk:
Presenting Benefits of Daily or Monthly Lens Replacement

Be the prescriber! Convince your patients that daily or monthly lens replacement promotes eye health. Dr. Roe and Dr. Bennett offer scripts for directing the conversation.

Dr. Roe: Talk Lifestyle
“It’s apparent that a two-week replacement schedule just doesn’t fit your lifestyle. For your convenience and the health of your eyes, it’s time to put you into a lens that better suits your lifestyle.”

Dr. Bennett: Talk Healthier for Eyes
“The wearing schedule for these lenses is two weeks. How often are you replacing them?”

(Patient pauses.)

“My guess is that you are doing it once a month.”

(Patient agrees.)

“I will give you a lens that will be healthier for your eyes and easier for you to remember.”

Reiterate patient benefits (convenience, better eye health) and emphasize the success patients have had with the lens you’re recommending.

Judith Lee is a health-care writer and founder of Communication Works Now, an online communications firm. E-mail her at Judith@judithlee.net.

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