After many fumbled hand-offs between my optometrist and I, we decided to analyze how we perform our hand-offs and what it means to the patient. After much review, we found that a hand-off is not simply pawning the patient off from optometrist to optical (or check out), but a chance to transfer the care and expertise. We found that patients don’t want to have a first-class … [Read more...]
Waiter! There’s some cylinder in my sphere!
NERD ALERT! (for all your super-duper techie stuff) One of the most frequent ‘problems’ that I hear about when talking about compensated lenses is when we’re dealing with spheres. All too frequent are exchanges like this: Doctor: I ordered this lens as a sphere, but there’s cylinder in it - it’s wrong! Lab: Yes, I understand you ordered it as a sphere, but the … [Read more...]
Increase Patient Revenue with Add-Ons
What is one of the best ways to improve your bottom line this year? You can add more patients or more hours, but these options will cost more in payroll and marketing. The best way to improve your bottom line is to increase revenue per patient. This can be done in a number of ways, such as raising prices on frames, lenses, contacts, and services. In spite of that, insurance … [Read more...]
Why Patients Purchase Ugly Frames
Americans are individualistic… We celebrate the distinctions of uniqueness. This theme is ever present in the pervading eyewear fashions of modern society. An industry that had a genesis in functionality is now marked as an industry of fashion. In a day where comfort and fit play second fiddle to style and hue there are many reasons why one might choose a particular frame over … [Read more...]
Independence® Coatings
When you offer a product in your store - especially AR coatings - you want to be sure of the product you’re selling. You don’t want to find out later that what you sold wasn’t any good, since you’re the one that it’s going to come back and bite. When it comes to a quality coating, I like to look at the warranties. Usually the longer the warranty, the safer you are, … [Read more...]
Roxanne… You don’t have to worry about that blue light.
Those days are over - you can easily protect your sight. This song is becoming more and more familiar these days. Protection from the ever-present blue light is everywhere, and there’s more products now than ever that offer some form of protection from it. But as more and more products come out on the market, how can we tell them apart? Products range from lenses that use a … [Read more...]
Just what I needed… another magazine
Yes, that’s right, it’s another optical magazine with a three-letter title. I’m sure you’ve been waiting for another one to come out, so here we are. When looking at all of the magazines currently available, none of them really fit what I wanted to see, so I went ahead and decided to do it myself. Thus, we have opt magazine. That’s ‘opt’, not oh-pee-tee. As in, “The … [Read more...]
If you only knew the power of glass lenses
When 700 years old you reach… Look as good you will not. For the majority of their history, eyeglasses have been made of just that - glass. These Are the Lenses You Are Looking For Glass has, believe it or not, changed over the past few decades. There’s been plenty of advancements in making it thinner and stronger than ever before. The best example of this is probably sitting … [Read more...]
So, you decided you want to be an O.D.
That’s great! As with any field, one of the things that’s always good to know is the perspective of those that have gone before you. Learning first hand what things you can do now do increase your success in the future. There’s always a gap between ‘educational setting’ and ‘real world’ demands, and finding out first hand is probably the most valuable thing you can do. To that … [Read more...]
3 Steps to Creating Effective Seasonal Marketing Campaigns
You’ve survived another Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, and New Year’s Day! Another silly season is past. Pat yourself on the back and take a few minutes to evaluate the success of your 2015 holiday marketing campaigns. Did you stand out from your competition? Did you capture the attention of loyal patients and potential patients too? Did you leverage fun, relevant and … [Read more...]