By Tina McCarty, OD, FAAO
April 8, 2015
SYNOPSIS
Explain to patients that you are ensuring their long-term eye health. When you establish a wellness message early, it pays off over time.
ACTION POINTS
STARTEYE HEALTHMESSAGINGEARLY. Let parents know about InfantSEE and the need for annual eye exams for children.
ESTABLISH PATTERNS OF REGULAR EYECARE. By emphasizinglong-term health, you teach patients to return for annual exams.
PRESENT OPTICAL SOLUTIONS WITH EYE HEALTH MESSAGE.Recommend eyewear that solves real-lifevision challenges, such asUV protecting sunwear and blue-light blocking lenses for computer and device use.
In our practice, we operate from a mission to preserve the eye health of our patients and keep their eyes functioning at their best. We emphasize to patients the importance of annual comprehensive exams to maintain eye health, and we reinforce the message that we can serve theirmedical eyecare needs.
By emphasizing eye wellness in the care we provide,we show patients that we can meet their individual needs, identify and treat potential ocular health risks or diseases, as well as educate themon necessary intervention to avoid a future ocular health problem. Offering wellness care in a primary care setting can have unlimited potential in revenue or practice growth. It can really be all that you want it to be.
Educate: Wellness Checks Start Young
One example of preventative care that I use to grow my practice is InfantSEE Assessments. By seeing these patients young, and providing a good quality assessment, not only can you identify health risks early, and have great potential to help a patient, but it can be a tremendous way to easily grow your practice. Quickly you begin to notice that the siblings, parents, friends of parents, co-workers of parents, and others, are coming to you for wellness checks. In addition, those infants will be returning at age 3, before Kindergarten, and throughout their childhood, growing your practice.
I tell patients who are parents that it is recommended that the first eye exam occur between 6-12 months of age, then at age 3, before Kindergarten, and every 1-2 years thereafter, depending on other factors. I tell parents that children, especially, don’t often know they aren’t seeing well–and have nothing to compare their vision to. This makes wellness eye health and vision checks important to enabling children to perform at their best academically, athletically and socially.
Dr. McCarty’s web site projects astrong message of eye wellness. Dr. McCarty says it’s important for the doctor to discuss how he or she can help the patient preserve eye health long-term, including the products the practice sells, which also can help safeguard eye health.
Preventative Eyecare Only Requires Basic Instruments
You don’t need many more instruments to provide strong wellness eyecare than you need to open the doors of your practice for the first time.
When I think of the basic essentials of preventative eyecare, I think of a visual acuity system, auto-refractor/topographer, chair/stand/slit-lamp, phoropter and hand-held lenses and devices (fundus camera would be ideal, but not vital). The cost can vary greatly depending on if you want everything to be new in the beginning or are willing to buy slightly used for less.
Show Link Between Wellness Eyecare & Products Sold
Prescribing and selling sunglasses shows that we care about protecting patients’ eyes from damaging UV rays. Our optician and our patients are educated that it isn’t just about if a lens has a UV block in it; it is about how the lens and frame cover the patient, how comfortable it is, and whether a patient is willing to wear it or another UV-protecting product whenever outside when the sun is up.
Most patients understand cataract development is linked to UV exposure, but few think about the ocular surface changes and skin cancer risk around the eyes associated with UV exposure. Blue light awareness is still relatively new, but with increasing evidence to support the link between blue light exposure and macular degeneration, it has become another important part of the eye health wellness conversation. That conversation should include education on the blue-light blocking spectacle lenses now available.
Every contact lens patient is educated about the importance of UV protection, but tying in a promotion linked to what you are recommending can help show that you stand behind what you recommend, and that you care. We offer a sunglass promotion with all annual supply purchases of contact lenses, which helps to drive annual supply sales while helping patients get that pair of sunglasses they need.
In Multi-Doctor Practices, Specialize in Wellness Niche
Depending on the size of the practice, it may be possible for the doctors and support staff to focus on areas they like and desire to focus on. Our practice is large enough that we all perform routine annual exams, but some of us are better at and enjoy seeing a younger population, while others prefer the older patient bases. For example, a doctor focusing on younger patients might concentrate on monitoring contact lens wearers for the discomfort and conditions that can arise from long-term contact lens wear, whereas a doctor specializing in older patients might focus on preventing and helping to monitor conditions like cataracts and macular degeneration.
Gain Support of Staff
The staff needs to support the doctor and reinforce the eyecare wellness philosophy. Every staff member, from the receptionist to the assistant to the opticians, need to be on board in order to be successful. We have had success hiring support staff who have participated in a local medical assisting program, and then are trained by us further on eye health in the practice, or offsite through continuing education. Once the basics are in place, training staff to help us practice eyecare wellness isn’t so hard.
Tina McCarty, OD, FAAO, is a partner of Eye Care Center in Fridley, Maplewood and Maple Grove, Minn. To contact her: tina.mccarty@eyecarecenters.net
