Insights From Our Editors

Market Opportunity: Prescribe & Sell More AR in Children’s Eyewear

Nov. 23, 2016

More children in your practice could benefit from anti-reflective treatment in their spectacle lenses, findings from The Vision Council VisionWatch 2016 Parent Child Vision Care Report suggest. Over 26 percent of parents said their child’s lenses possessed AR coating. This is slightly lower than the 30 percent of AR coated lenses in the total population (which includes children and adult lenses). Parents with one child under the age of 18 living at home were slightly more likely to have purchased their children’s lenses with AR coating and parents with managed vision coverage were far more likely to purchase AR coated lenses for their children than those without vision coverage. Also parents from higher household incomes were more likely to say their child’s lenses possessed AR coating than those from lower income households.

We would never order glasses for ourselves without AR lens treatment, as well as other features that improve the quality of our lives. The reason we put these features into our lenses is for the benefits to our lives that they give us. Our patients deserve improved quality of lives, too. The words we use with patients can often make the difference between them getting the additional features in their lenses or not.

Mark Hinton, CEO of eYeFacilitate, and an international eyecare consultant, just gave an in-service that addressed this exact issue (and much more).  Here’s the magic formula for patient case presentation – discuss benefits not features – and here are the words to use: “I’m prescribing eyewear for your child that is safe, comfortable, clear, and eliminates glare. They will light adapt when your child goes outside to protect from the sun’s radiation.” That’s it.  That simplifies the case presentation dramatically.  But is it effective?

After using this script for two weeks, Carole Burns, OD, said, “I’m running on time for patients now and have significantly increased my capture rate.” She reports a seven percent increase in capture rate. Running on time and an increase in capture rate are two things that every doctor should desire. In addition to an increase in her doctor productivity, she stated, “I feel so free in the exam room now.  I don’t have to spend time explaining things that often confuse most patients.”  

Take this week to re-evaluate your case presentation. Do your patients really get the best glasses when in the exam room or optical you list a menu of all the features their glasses need to have?  If not, then perhaps a different approach is in order. Dr. Burns explains her experience with the new case presentation script, “Doing a case presentation the old way with a menu list of features, patients would often eliminate one or two of the features due to price.  With the new approach, that discussion rarely comes up.”

This new script is so powerful that you should use it with all patients.

Try the new approach for the next two weeks and measure your results to see if you can increase your capture rate.

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