Dr. Edlow, right, with daughter and practice partner/administrator, Lauren A. Caplan. They share details on a practice investment that made a significant positive difference to patients and profitability.
Technology for optometry practices offering improved care and a profitability boost.
By Lauren A. Caplan
and Richard C. Edlow, OD
Sept. 4, 2024
The eyecare landscape presents a complex environment of opportunities and challenges.
Reimbursement rates are flat or declining and patients are seeking the best value for treatment.
Thus, understanding the intricacies and variations of market dynamics and treatment options is crucial for any optometric practice.
The primary goal of an optometric practice is to enhance the vision and ocular health of patients.
However, to be successful and sustainable, optometrists must broaden their outlook and goals for the overall practice. With that in mind, an optometric practice must strive to:
1) Provide excellent clinical care
2) Deliver topnotch customer service
3) Profitably grow their practice
As we scan the industry and evaluate opportunities that satisfy the three goals, one of the no-brainer solutions is providing patients with Neurolens technology.
Editor’s Note: Neurolens offers the only contoured prism lenses, however, prism lenses are also available from Varilux XR series from EssilorLuxottica, iD LifeStyle from HOYA and GT2 Lenses from ZEISS, among other options.
Measuring Binocular Misalignment with VR Headset
Neurolens is a system that measures binocular misalignment and then corrects that misalignment with a pair of lenses featuring patented contoured prism technology.
The repeatable fine-tuned measurements are performed in the exam room with the Neurolens N3 virtual reality (VR) headset. We found that patients are truly impressed by the high-tech VR experience.
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Our practice adopted the Neurolens technology more than two years ago. We now have hundreds of patients absolutely thrilled with the reduction or elimination of their symptoms (including the senior author here), ranging from chronic headaches to near vision asthenopia.
Given the increased demand on our eyes of using electronic devices, the number of patients experiencing these types of symptoms is rapidly growing, and we continue to offer them the Neurolens solution.
Most of our patients are more than satisfied with their results and often recommend other patients to our practice. Additionally, patients often come back for a second or third pair of Neurolenses.
Neurolens offers a 100 percent guarantee that allows patients to return their lenses for a full refund if they do not provide the anticipated symptom relief. Occasionally, a patient will bring the Neurolenses back to our office and return to their previous Rx without the contoured prism.
However, the number of patients that do so is extremely low (less than 4 percent), which is consistent with the national average for Neurolens.
After our years of experience, we find that many of those patients will return to our office a week later asking to go back to Neurolens, as they aren’t willing to sacrifice the visual comfort Neurolenses provides.
Adding New Out-of-Pocket Revenue Stream
So, now that we have satisfied goals one and two above, it is time to evaluate goal three: the potential financial benefit to the practice.
Our practice offers full-scope optometry and cares for a variety of patients with a diverse array of payment methods: major vision care plans, medical plans and private pay.
We decided to do a retrospective analysis of 20 vision care patients opting for single-vision (SV) or progressive addition lenses (PAL) with polycarbonate and anti-reflective coatings and 20 Neurolens patients with the same material and treatments.
We calculated just the lens portion of the patient transactions, as the exam fee revenue was essentially equivalent between the two groups. While we suspected we knew what the results would be, it was still a worthwhile exercise to see how significant of a financial impact Neurolens was having.
For each pair of lenses we calculated the gross profit (insurance reimbursement plus patient payment minus any insurance charge-backs and lab fees).
The single-vision insurance patients produced an average gross profit of $63 per pair of lenses sold. The PAL insurance patients produced an average gross profit $107.
The Neurolens single-vision generated an average gross profit of $379 and the progressive patients produced an average gross profit of $474 each.
Our practice typically dispenses 30 pairs of Neurolens each month with a 50/50 split between SV and PAL. The additional monthly gross profit is $4,740 for SV and $5,505 for PAL producing an increase of $123,000 profit annually.
With this in mind, Neurolens helped our practice achieve all three goals for a successful practice. We created extremely happy and loyal patients and simultaneously strengthened our practice profitability.
Richard Edlow, OD, (aka, the Eyeconomist) is a founder of Catonsville Eye Group in Baltimore and is retired from clinical practice. Lauren Caplan (Dr. Edlow’s daughter) is a partner and practice administrator with Catonsville Eye Group. To contact Dr. Edlow: rcedlow@gmail.com
*The authors have NOT received any financial support for this study.
This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.
