“Backorder? What do you mean, ‘backorder’?”, Molder shouted into the phone, somewhat exasperated, “Fine, just switch it to that. I need this in my hands tomorrow.” He hung up the phone, missing the days when he could at least get the satisfaction of slamming down the receiver. “Problem?” Skulli asked, as she finished piling up job trays.“ “That was our lab. They said that … [Read more...]
Un-BEAR-able Doctors
I recently found out that my daughter (who was six at the time) needed glasses. While there’s nothing wrong with that, in and of itself, the way that it came about was certainly odd, to say the least. I want to go through what happened, and see if you can spot where things could have gone better. It certainly seemed like some education from a local optometrist would have gone a … [Read more...]
How the Grinch Stole Who-tometry
In his cave, just north of Who-ville, the Big Optical Grinch sat, with his newly-acquired lapdog, Max. Now, the Grinch hated all of the Whos down in Who-ville. But there was one thing that he did love, which was all of their lovely Who-money. He wasn’t sure what it was about it, but he wanted to get more of it. He knew that the biggest shopping day of the year was approaching, … [Read more...]
Cyber Security and Recent Incidents
Many optometrists and optometry students have reported receiving Chase Bank Amazon credit cards in the mail, even though they never applied for new credit cards from the bank or from Amazon. Many of these same people have received credit alerts on their accounts when they were contacted by credit reference agencies to alert them that there had been a failed attempt to open up … [Read more...]
A Hand-off is not just a Hand-off but a Transfer of Care
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...]