Don't Miss the Opportunity in Your Chair

I’ve been working with the Contact Lens Institute as one of its 2025 Visionaries, and I’ve been surprised to learn how many doctors simply are not talking about contact lenses with their patients. In August 2023, the Contact Lens Institute and the Vision Council conducted a survey with its US-based provider panel. From 173 qualified responses, only 49% said they discuss the option of contact lenses with most of their contact-naïve, eligible patients at every encounter.¹ Learning this changed the way I was practicing, and I’ve been impressed by how simply raising the topic with patients has grown my contact lens volume in a short period of time.

And so, the focus of this edition of Business Matters is on education—how we clinicians can better inform our patients about contact lens options that might just solve a pain point for them. The best way to do this is to get to know our patients’ daily routines, so we can connect the dots between their visual needs and the right solutions. Having these conversations isn’t hard, it’s just a matter of adding targeted questions to our dialogues with each patient who sits in our chair.

—Shelby Brogdon, OD

Don't Miss the Opportunity in Your Chair
I have worked as an eye care practitioner at a large OD/MD practice, McFarland Eye Care, which has five clinics that serve Central Arkansas for the last four years. While it is a high-volume medical practice including cataracts, oculoplastics, and LASIK, my colleagues and I also perform routine examinations for glasses and contact lenses. Routine examinations compose about 35% of my patient appointments, and one-third of those patients are contact lens wearers. A large portion of my new lens fits include daily disposables, although I still have quite a few established patients in 2-week or monthly lenses.

At the time of this writing, I am about to move to an independent dry eye clinic called Noh Eyes in which I will be a partner with one other practitioner, and we’ll have one technician and two part-time staff members. We will be growing the practice’s patient base, and although routine examinations will not be our primary focus, I will continue providing this service because I love it. I find joy in building relationships with patients year after year, and I feel I can make a huge difference in their quality of life with glasses and contacts.

KEY INSIGHTS IN THIS ARTICLE

Over the years, I have worked to increase contact lens growth by incorporating consistent education into my patient interactions, whether on new lens technology or through addressing their concerns. I have found that simply raising the topic of contact lenses often leads to a deeper discussion about their convenience and improved materials and optics, and it frequently initiates a lens consultation and purchase. I have been pleasantly surprised by how much this approach fosters patient loyalty and drives business growth.

Creating Opportunities Through Everyday Conversations
For me, the key to expanding contact lens usage has been to simply raise the topic with patients while they are already in the exam chair. I admit, this doesn’t happen with every patient—making these discussions part of my routine was an adjustment in mindset and workflow for me, as we practitioners get stuck in our ways. I try to tailor my educational approach to each person to address their needs, complaints, and misconceptions (see the sidebar, Educating Overlooked Patient Populations.) For example, some patients believe that because they wear glasses, they cannot also wear contacts; others have been told that because they have astigmatism, they aren’t candidates for contact lenses; and I still get patients who have been wearing the same lenses for a decade or two and are unaware of the incredible advancements in lens technology.

I also educate my staff to be another touch point for patients to learn about the option of contact lenses. Whether on the phone, at the front desk, or during the work up, we use these opportunities to introduce premium lenses or reintroduce contacts to patients who have outdated prescriptions or negative past experiences.

Leveraging Technology and Pricing in Lens Conversions
Although my team and I never rush patients to decide about contact lenses, we do what we can to keep these purchases in-house. We enroll all current and potential contact lens patients in our EMR’s lens ordering system, which will text or e-mail them a link to purchase the prescribed lens and have it shipped to their door. It can also send them reminders about their next visit. We encourage patients to buy annual quantities of lenses so that their orders are timed with their yearly evaluation, but this isn’t feasible for everyone.

As I mentioned previously, I promote daily disposable lenses for most patients and position this option as the healthiest one for patients’ eyes, but I still have those who prefer a monthly or 2-week lens for various reasons. I do my best to educate these patients on all the available options, including dailies and even 7-day lenses to optimize their ocular health. All the contact lenses I recommend currently are advanced-technology models that contain a high water content and high oxygen permeability.

As far as pricing contact lens fits and evaluations, we have used a tiered pricing model that I will likely continue using as I build the contact lens business at my new office. We’ll have one price for spherical soft contact lenses, and a different fee for multifocal and toric fits. However, while my partner and I establish this new business, we’ll request payment at the time of service rather than accepting reimbursement from vision plans.

The Opportunity is Right in Front of You
In addition to doctor-patient conversations, it’s beneficial to train your staff to ask patients about their contact lens interest and/or wearing habits. Getting staff excited and motivated to talk about all the new offerings in contact lens technology is very helpful in their patient interactions.

But, my biggest piece of advice to colleagues who are looking to educate their patients about trying contacts is to use your chair time wisely. We all have potential contact lens patients sitting in our chairs; we just need to engage with them. I recommend establishing a workflow where you can allow for these conversations to take place during every patient examination.

Reference:

1. The Culture Calculation: Data-backed behaviors for contact lens success. The Contact Lens Institute. Fall 2023. https://www.contactlensinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/CLI-Contact-Lens-Culture-Report-Fall-2023.pdf. Accessed June 12, 2025.

Shelby Brogdon, OD
Optometrist and Medical Director at Noh Eyes Dry Eye Specialty Clinic, Little Rock, Arkansas 
eyebrogdoc@gmail.com
Financial disclosures: None