Insights From Our Editors

Can ODs Re-Engage Patients with Chronic Medical Conditions?

June 3, 2015

Optometrists have a key role to play as part of the team caring for patients with chronic conditions, according to “Eye Exam Impacts on Re-Engagement for Chronic Conditions,” a UnitedHealthcare study that followed2,300 UnitedHealthcare plan participants enrolled in employee-sponsored health plans to determine whether patients lacking care for chronic conditions followed up for treatment with a primary care physician or specialist after an eye exam. The study showed that 57 percent of patients with chronic conditions who receive a comprehensive eye exam became re-engaged with a primary care physician or specialist in managing their ongoing illness.

In the coming world of the Affordable Care Act implementation, you must be viewed as an integral, competent provider of medical eyecare.

Here’s a study that can help you do that. The UHC study “Eye Exam Impacts on Re-Engagement for Chronic Conditions” is really important.It’s not unusual that patients with chronic conditions grow tired of the condition and drop care. The UHC study shows that 57 percent of patients with chronic conditions who’ve dropped out of care become re-engaged with a primary care physician or specialist after a comprehensive eye exam. That shows the importance ofeyecare in the total management of patients with chronic conditions.

Chronic conditions increase with age.More Baby Boomers–the second largest demographic in our population–are growing older each day. That means there will be more people with chronic conditions coming into the practice each year moving forward for the next 20 years.

Let’s take this week to make sure we are being viewed as integral, competent providers of medical eyecare. To help focus on this area of practice, let’s ask five tactical questions and one core strategic question:

1) How actively do you market to patients that you manage chronic conditions?
2) How much continuing education did you get last year in managing chronic conditions?
3) Do you have more than two chronic condition profit centers identified in your practice?
4) Have you established written protocols for managing two or more chronic conditions?
5) Does over 30 percent of your gross revenue come from managing chronic conditions?

The core strategic question is perhaps the most important question: Have you positioned your practice as an integral, competent provider of medical eyecare? To see if you have done this effectively, simply answer this question: Are you viewed as an integral, competent provider of medical eyecare by local physicians? In the worst case scenario, the local physicians think of someone else when they think of medical eyecare.In the best case scenario, you are the first provider that comes to mind when local physicians think of medical eyecare.

So how do you get there? How do you get tothe top oflocal physicians’ minds? One way to think about this is to consider it as a marketing problem.If you were to create a marketing program to get your local physicians to think about you as an integral, competent provider of medical eyecare, here are the three essential steps that it would contain:

1) Send studies and reports, like the UHC study, to your local physicians to make them aware of the importance of eyecare to the entire medical care of the patient. Dribble these to them so you don’t overwhelm them. Three-to-four times a year is plenty.

2) Send reports on every patient to keep the physician informed of the medical care you are delivering. Make sure the key information is put in the first paragraph of the report with supporting information following. Don’t make them read the entire letter to figure out what you are trying to tell them.

3) Make patients your representative to the PCP by re-thinking your case presentation. Every case presentation should have at least three sections: medical, vision and recall. Let’s consider the medical case presentation. This means on every patient–even if the patient has no significant medical issue–you are going to address the medical. For example: “We tested you today for 10 chronic conditions such as glaucoma, cataracts and the negative changes that occur as a result of hypertension and diabetes. The great news is that based on your test results today, we do not need to address any medical issues.” It takes less than 15 seconds to say, but makes a lasting impression in the patient’s mind. Patents will communicate to the PCP what you say in your case presentation.

From a marketing perspective, make sure your brand is strong as an integral, competent provider of medical eyecare.

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