Wise to the World
Phone Power
NOTHING
TURNS off
patients like a negative telephone experience. Wouldn't you be annoyed if you called
your doctor, only to get lost in a complex phone tree or greeted with a terse "Hold
please"?
You can train your staff to avoid these and other
common mistakes with "From 'Hello' to 'Goodbye': Telephone Success in a Wink" from
Wink Productions. "Many doctors don't realize they give the most important tool
in their office to under-trained employees," says Sue Connelly, F.C.L.S.A., a founding
partner of Wink Productions. "This tool needs to be treated with respect to send
the right message about your business. Training can help staff achieve this goal."
This training program includes:
-
A CD with 12
video vignettes covering topics, such as "Mind Your Manners" and "Patience with
Patients."
-
An "In a Wink
Think Book" for group leaders and meeting participants.
-
A customizable,
printable Telephone Procedure Manual.
To learn more about "Telephone Success
in a Wink," or to watch a sample clip, go to
winkproductions.com.
CL SAVVY
Upgrading Happy Patients
You may be tempted to
keep happy contact lens patients in their current brands, but they deserve to try
today's newer, safer materials and advanced designs. Even patients who resist change
may be receptive to an "upgrade," especially when they learn about the health and
comfort benefits offered by new contact lens materials. Upgrade options include:
-
Switching
from traditional hydrogel to silicone hydrogel lenses to improve oxygen transmissibility
and overall eye health
-
Recommending
more comfortable materials with improved wettability
-
Offering advanced
optical designs for improved vision.
Even if patients decide to stay with
their current contact lenses, you'll be planting a seed that may prompt them to
ask for an upgrade the next time they see you.
Neil A. Pence, O.D., F.A.A.O., Bloomington, Ind.
Children
and Contact Lenses
SOME
PARENTS
think their children are too young to take care of contact lenses properly. However,
a report from the Adolescent and Child Health Initiative to Encourage Vision
Empowerment (ACHIEVE)* Study suggests that children as young as 8 years of age can
wear daily disposable contact lenses safely.
"The objective of the ACHIEVE
Study is to evaluate differences in self-perception between children who wear contact
lenses and those who wear eyeglasses," says Jeffrey J. Walline, O.D., Ph.D., a research
scientist at The Ohio State University College of Optometry in Columbus. "We won't
have final results until 2008, but our preliminary results have shown that children
in the ACHIEVE contact lens group routinely wear and care for daily disposable soft
lenses independent of their parents."
This is good news for O.D.s who want
to expand their contact lens practice. "Most O.D.s won't prescribe contact lenses
to children under 12 years of age," Dr. Walline says. "The ACHIEVE Study is raising
awareness that children as young as 8 years old can wear contact lenses responsibly.
We should remember this and offer contact lenses as an alternative to eyeglasses
for correcting myopia."
*The ACHIEVE Study is sponsored by the Johnson
& Johnson Vision Care Institute.
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Are
you worried there aren't enough private practices to go around? An informal survey
among industry experts conducted by Marilee Blackwell, M.B.A., C.P.A., A.I.B.A.,
O.D., from Blackwell Consulting, found that 850 to 1,400 optometry practices
are sold each year. |
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Optometric Management, Issue: September 2005