There’s Gold In The Data
Mention data mining and you probably think of Fortune 500 companies or a large hospital system, but data mining is for small business, as well. Useful data can help you to improve customer service to your patients. The data items that may help your practice include: Responses to email marketing/website/mobile offers If your patients have […]
Gene Therapy for Blindness
Recently a biotech firm in Philadelphia developed the first Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approved gene therapy for blindness. The company, Spark Therapeutics, developed the therapy known as LUXTURNA™, which improves eyesight in persons with confirmed biallelic RPE65 mutation-associated retinal dystrophy, also known as Leber Congenital Amaurosis (LCA). Patients with this genetic mutation have severe […]
Complicated Patients
Optometry is an attractive profession in many ways. First of all, the focus of an optometrist’s career is treating the eye, one of the coolest organs in the body. Also, optometry allows practitioners to have the option of being small business owners. Even though there are many positives, more often than not, complicated patients can […]
Cornea Research News
More often than not, the news on television or on the Internet isn’t good. There are political feuds, crime, and natural disasters–just to name a few. The exception is medical research. Most of the news from the medical field is good. It deals with new treatments or new insights about the workings of the human […]
Working in a Small Space
In 2012, the American Optometric Association put out an executive summary based on their survey of optometrists. One of the things reported in the summary was that optometrists who own a practice work in an office that is 2,528 square feet, whereas non-owners (those who work in multi-doctor practices or corporate optometry) work in an […]
Eye Diseases by Ethnic Group
It is well known that certain diseases, such as diabetes can lead to glaucoma and exposure from high energy visible light (also known as blue light) can damage the macular pigment in the eye. What many don’t know is that some ethnic groups are at higher risk of vision conditions, regardless of exposure to difference […]
Office Improvements
The good thing about owning a practice is that, as the owner, you decide how-and when-to make improvements. The bad thing about owning a practice is that there are so many things to do each day that it can be hard to improve the business itself. If you were a carpenter and you depended upon […]
Maybe It’s a Vision Problem and Not a Behavioral Problem
Preschool children are known for being little tornados. They go from one activity to another and wear out the adults in their charge. Of course, as they get older they calm down—most of the time. As children go through school, many things that were once thought to be exuberance are diagnosed as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity […]
How To Be More Productive
Wouldn’t it be nice if you and your staff could just bang through your tasks without interruption or fatigue? That’s not possible because of interruptions. Literally anything from idle chit-chat and time wasting to a sudden surge in walk-in patients can interrupt administrative work. As a consequence, it takes time to get things done. In […]
Slowing the Increase in Myopia
Myopia is the Rodney Dangerfield* of vision conditions. Unlike glaucoma or macular degeneration, myopia isn’t ‘given respect’ because the majority of treatments don’t involve surgery. Most of the time, either eyeglasses or contact lenses do the trick. If a person is fed up with glasses or contact lenses, there’s vision correction surgery (e.g., LASIK). The […]