Page 33 - 2015 Best Practices of Spectacle Lens Management

Eyewear Vision insurance influences eyewear Vision Insurance Coverage among Eyeglasses
purchase cycle.
Purchase One-half of American households have some Wearers by Age (% of adults with vision insurance coverage)

Total Cycle form of vision insurance. This varies widely by 60% 54% 54% 55%
locality. While the breadth of vision insurance
continued coverage can be considered a negative because 53%
of the need to discount goods and services to 50% 46% 46%
covered patients, it also can be a positive because
people with insurance have an incentive to visit 40%
the office more frequently. Studies show that the 30% 28%
frequency of eyewear purchase among patients
with vision insurance is greater. 20%
19-24 25-30 31-40 41-45 46-50 51-64 65 and older
Source: Essilor US Segmentation Study, 2008

What’s at Stake
12 months Longer than 12 months Impact of Reducing Interval Between Eyewear Purchases
Reducing the interval between eyewear purchases Annual Practice Gross Revenue
from a typical 30 months to 25 months produces $500,000 $750,000 $1 million
$62,937 incremental revenue in a practice with
annual gross revenue of $750,000. With the Annual Eyeglasses Sales $220,000 $330,000 $440,000
1,454
969
Total Eyeglasses Buyers
1,938
potential to significantly increase the annual Annual Eyewear Buyers 881 1,322 1,762
number of transactions from a patient base, (30 months average purchase interval)
adopting effective recall methods is among the
process improvements with the greatest impact Total Eyeglasses Wearers
In Practice
on practice revenue and profitability. 2,203 3,305 4,405
Average Interval Between
Eyewear Purchases (months) Annual Eyeglasses Sales
28 $239,258 $358,887 $478,289
25 $261,958 $392,937 $523,916
23 $289,425 $434,251 $578,850

Source: PAA projections

What Goes Wrong

• Medical rationale for yearly comprehensive eye postcard or not, call to book appointments after a year has elapsed.
health examinations is not emphasized to patients. Many do this to take advantage of their vision insurance benefits.
To the extent that patients are convinced that prevention or early
treatment of sight-threatening ocular conditions is assured through Further, in many practices that send one-year anniversary reminders,
yearly eye exams, they are more likely to return to the office more there is no monitoring or follow-up with patients who do not
frequently, providing occasions to purchase eyewear. Many offices do respond. Dormant patients receive no further communication from
little to reinforce the importance of yearly monitoring of eye health. the practice. In some practices there is no telephone follow-up with
patients who fail to arrive for scheduled appointments. In many
• Recall methodology is lax. Most practices do not pre-appoint practices there is no one given responsibility for patient recall.
patients at the conclusion of eye exams. The recall procedure used
in most practices is to send a postcard 11 months after a patient • Candidate patients are not informed when new
receives an exam, encouraging the patient to call the office to spectacle lenses are introduced. When patients who might
schedule an appointment. Management & Business Academy™ be interested in new spectacle lenses that address their unmet needs
(MBA) faculty Gary Gerber, OD, has measured the percentage of become aware of these advances only during their infrequent office
patients who respond to reminder mailings among his consulting visits, there is no opportunity to accelerate the purchase cycle.
clients. He says the usual average is approximately 15 percent.
His measurements also show that approximately 10 percent
of patients will, on their own initiative, whether they receive a

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