Best Practices in Prescribing Multi-Focal Contact Lenses
By Milton M. Hom, OD, FAAO
Milton Hom, OD, FAAO of Azusa, Calif., shares success tips for prescribing multi-focal contact lenses to a growing population of presbyopes. Success hinges on communicating well to patients, determining the patient’s dominant eye, and also recognizing personality traits that ultimately affect patient satisfaction with their new lenses.
Medical Eyecare Opportunity in Optometric Practice
By Tom Steiner
You have the opportunity to better serve patients, and greatly expand the scope of your practice, by offering medical eyecare. It may be time for your practice to measure the medical model opportunity and make plans to roll out new services.
Legally Safe Employee Termination: Drop Sub-Par Staffers While Protecting Your Practice
By Pamela Miller, OD, JD
You can safeguard and strengthen your practice by identifying under-performing, or dangerous, employees, and letting them go in a legally sensible way.
Outsource HR and Billing to Improve Practice Quality and Efficiency
By Paul Karpecki, OD, FAAO
Outsourcing your practice’s human resources and billing can allow you to better focus on your role as doctor, while increasing the quality of the patient experience.
ROB Fast Fact
44.7 Percent of ECPs…
Nearly half of eyecare professionals–44.7 percent–only update their web sites “sometimes,” according to Jobson Research’s 2010 Internet Usage Study, which you can purchase here. Some 31.2 percent say they “often” update their sites, while 22.3 percent “rarely” update, and 1.9 percent never do. According to Jason Daniels, director of professional services for EyeCarePro.net, OD sites should be updated with at least two new pages a month, along with weekly or biweekly content updates. Click here for additional guidance from Daniels.
In Brief
EyeMed Vision Care Launches ‘KidsEyes’Children’s Vision Benefit
>EyeMed Vision Care, a vision benefits company and part of Luxottica, introduced a benefit tailored to meet the unique needs of children 18 years and younger, and to support their active lifestyle. The EyeMed KidsEyes benefit features: Two funded eye exams within the same benefit year and one additional covered pair of eyeglasses lenses if the child’s vision changes within the benefit year. It funds polycarbonate lenses, photochromic lenses and contact lens professional services (fit and follow-up). Additional benefits include a40 percent discount off additional pairs of prescription glasses including broken or lost eyeglasses anda 20 percent discount off sports-related eyewear and non-prescription sunglasses at participating EyeMed providers to protect children’s eyes from impact and UV rays
“At EyeMed, we believe children should have access to more frequent eye exams when their eyes are changing, and use optimal lens materials designed to protect their eyes,” says John Lahr, OD, FAAO, medical director at EyeMed Vision Care. “Children may not realize that their vision requires correction. The unfortunate truth is that about half of all American children have not had a complete eye exam.
In Brief
Essilor Breaks Ground on Technology and Innovation Center
Essilor senior executiveswere joined by local officials in Farmer’s Branch, Texas, to break ground on the company’s new Innovation and Technology Center. The 43,000-square-foot facility is scheduled to open in April 2012. The goal of the newcenter is tocombine and strengthenEssilor’s research and development and engineering resources under one roof.The company will relocatethe current Research and Development Center with 50 employees in St. Petersburg, Fla., to Farmers Branch.”By sharing workspace, resources and equipment between our staff of 75 research and development and engineering professionals, Essilor will be able to better develop products with improved quality and shorter time to market,” says John Carrier, president and chief executive officer, Essilor of America. “The close proximity to the sales and marketing team at the Essilor of America headquarters will also better enable us to best design innovative products that meet and exceed our customer’s needs.”
In Brief
Functional Vision Program Helps Prevent Trips and Falls
Whitehall Boca Raton, a nursing and rehabilitation facility,launched a Functional Vision Rehabilitation Program—help for those who have unexplained falls, swerve when walking, or have abandoned reading. Developed by neuro-optometrist,Larry Lampert, OD, FCOVD, the program helps resolve long-standing vision problems not detected through traditional eye examinations.Dr. Lampert is one of only 511 optometrists certified worldwide by the College of Optometrists in Vision Development.“Basically, these problems are not detected on the eye chart or in prescribing glasses or doing glaucoma tests or looking for cataracts,” says Dr. Lampert. “I remember an LPGA golfer I worked with who had binocularity problems. He’d say, ‘I look at the hole, I look at the ball, I look back at the hole, and the hole just moved six inches.’ It was because of a binocularity problem that developed over time.”
