Dr. Davison, center with white coat, with her practice team. Dr. Davison says it’s important to never take your contact lens patients for granted. She proactively works to retain, and, when necessary, reactivate these patients.
Reactivate contact lens patients: Strategies for optometry practices
By Janelle Davison, OD
Sept. 11, 2024
A contact lens patient today is not necessarily a contact lens patient tomorrow, meaning it’s easy to take these patients for granted. Before you know it, they disappear from your office. They stop coming in for annual exams and they stop purchasing contacts from you.
Here are the key steps I take to reactivate these patients.
Identify the Patients with Potential to be Reactivated
When I talk about reconnecting and reactivating contact lens patients, I am referring to those contact lens wearers in my current database who are past due for their annual contact lens exam. It also means reaching out to patients who did not purchase an annual supply of contact lenses on the date of service and reviving patients who dropped out of contacts altogether.
We run a report in our EHR gathering patient demographic information on one year past due contact lens exams and patients who did not purchase a year supply. This data is easy to gather if you have electronic records. I divide the report for our staff of three to complete daily during down time.
Create a Strategy for How Exactly You Will Reach Out
For patients who are overdue, we call first. I think today we have gotten so used to a hands-off approach that patients actually appreciate a call.
The main reason why I added calling the patients was so they could hear our voices and know we miss them and care about their eye health.
Many were getting their contact lens prescriptions renewed online solely based on convenience, and experienced no push-back from online companies (patients get what they want from these vendors despite the eye health risks associated with contact lens abuse).
I devised a script for my staff to use when calling the patient. We anticipate reaching their voicemail (we are surprised if the patient picks up the phone). The team is instructed to leave a voicemail letting the patient know they can schedule via text, online or by calling us back.
For patients who did not get an annual supply, we use my proprietary software, Paradeyem, to verify if the patient has a contact lens benefit. From there we generate a quote, and reach out with the quote and a text-to-pay link using our in-office communications tool Weave.
We implemented Sunbit to assist with interest-free installments for patients to encourage annual supply purchases.
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Use Reactivation as Opportunity to Offer Latest in CL Technology
I am big on presenting new contact lens technology, and keep only the latest-generation contact lens kits in my office. When patients come back, I talk about all the advancements in contacts and make efforts to upgrade them to improve their contact lens experience.
Take Time in Exam Room to Educate Patient About All New CL Options
When patients come in for an annual eye exam I proactively let them know they are good candidates for contacts and ask if they are interested in scheduling another visit to be evaluated and fitted for contacts.
This helps to properly educate patients who didn’t know they were candidates for contacts (astigmatic and presbyopic patients) and to inform patients who dropped out of contacts about water-innovation contacts we fit in our office to allow for better comfort all day.
A Contact Lens Institute (CLI) survey showed that approximately 50 percent of patients rank conversations with their eyecare provider high in getting them to return to contact lenses.
Click HERE to access additional resources from CLI’s See Tomorrow studies.
Once Reactivated, How to Do You Keep These Patients Active?
This is the golden-ticket question. I don’t pre-appoint, however we are considering pre-appointing contact lens patients starting in Q4 2024, and on an ongoing basis after that.
We are also focused on partnering with vendors that have technology available for connecting with the patient to remind them of their appointments and the importance of regular eye exams, via digital communication apps.
ROI of CL Patient Reactivation
There was no additional cost involved in our contact lens patient reactivation effort. Much of the technology I cited as part of this effort was already in use every day in our practice.
Since I committed to keeping the best technology in the office and reengaging patients in 2023, we achieved a 20 percent increase in contact lens sales. So far this year, Jan. to July 2024, we are still up on all our contact lens numbers.
Bottom Line: Keep Patients Engaged
I found that ECPs just need to keep the patient engaged. Don’t be afraid to reengage lost patients and hold their hand back to the exam chair.
*Dr. Davison is a consultant for Alcon, Tarsus, Viatris and Sight Sciences.
Dr. Davison is also a CLI Visionary.
Janelle Davison, OD, is the CEO/Founder of Brilliant Eyes Vision Center and Visionary Dry Eye Institute. To contact her: info@brillianteyesvisioncenter.com
This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.
