Medical Model

Natural Eyecare: Enhance Patient Care & Build Your Practice

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By Harvey Yamamoto, OD

Sept. 27, 2017

Natural eye drops and pellets, free of artificial additives and chemicals, can enhance the comfort of your patients’ eyes, and in the process, help improve vision by stabilizing the tear film. When patients are more comfortable, and feel they see better than they did before, your practice becomes a winner in their eyes–one they are likely to refer friends and family to. For those reasons, my practice only prescribes all-natural eye drops from Natural Ophthalmics, and have found these products to be nearly universally loved by patients, who may have tried other products with little, or no, success.

Try It Yourself
Both my daughter and son are ODs, so we are a family practice in the truest sense, and don’t want to give patients products we wouldn’t use ourselves.

My daughter specializes in pediatric optometry and my son specializes in ocular disease, while I specialize in fitting the most difficult-to-fit contact lens patients. We have an in-house contact lens lab where I can often be found making specialized lenses.

As a scientifically minded family, we were initially skeptical that all-natural products would be effective, let alone better than other products. That was before I tried Natural Opththalmics’ Cataract Crystalline Lens Eye Drops on my own eyes 12 years ago. I found my vision enhanced, and my eyes kept more comfortable. We now prescribe those cataract-specific drops to all of our cataract patients.

Today, we have become a huge customer of all of Natural Ophthalmics’ products. We invest around $1,500 a month in Natural Ophthalmics products, and always make a return on that investment.

Enhance Medical Eyecare
We are a caring optometric practice that emphasizes the importance of thorough care. Each patient is given a complete medical eye exam annually, and patients at risk for diseases like macular degeneration are given education on the link between their diet and lifestyle and their risk of sight-threatening conditions. We show them how to eat less meat, and more fruit, vegetables and grains. We communicate the message that the health of the eyes, and the ability to maintain good vision, is tied to overall wellness. That holistic message is coupled with the latest in diagnostic technology and medical eyecare.

Let’s say a patient comes in with complaints of itchy eyes, reading problems, glare and seeing spots.

The doctor will usually recommend an OCT exam to rule out retinal detachment, and then will carefully refract the patient and give recommendations on the types of lenses that would best suit their needs. Anti-reflective lenses are recommended to most patients, and allergy solutions, such as Natural Ophthalmics Allergy Desensitization Eye Drops, will be prescribed for itchy eyes.

Patients with cataracts are prescribed Natural Ophthalmics Cataract Crystalline Lens Eye drops, or pellets, depending on the severity of their cataract. Once the OCT exam is concluded, and PVD is found with visible floaters, the doctor will prescribe Natural Ophthalmics Floater pellets.

We do not keep track of the number of Natural Ophthalmics products we prescribe, but approximately seven out of 10 patients will be prescribed one, or more, Natural Ophthalmics products. We stock all of Natural Opththalmics’ medications in our office. One of my wife’s jobs is to keep a stock of all the Natural Ophthalmics inventory on our shelves, and she generally orders additional inventory 2-3 times per month.

Create One-Stop Care
Just as we provide both full-scope medical eyecare in our office, along with an optical dispensary, we also want patients to find the products we prescribed under our roof.

We do our best to provide “one-stop shopping” for all our patients. Many of our colleagues will send patients to ophthalmologists for advanced medical eyecare, and then have them return for refraction and glasses and contact lenses. But if the patient doesn’t need surgery, we try to provide everything the patient needs within our own office. The time and convenience of our patients is important to us, so we want to ensure the care they receive from us is as simple as possible.

Natural Ophthalmics products have helped thousands of our patients receive that type of one-stop care. Most patients have allergy issues, and are prescribed Natural Ophthalmics Allergy Desensitization Eye Drops, which offers us a solution to their problem in just a few seconds. Most our older female patients have dry eye challenges. We prescribe them Natural Ophthalmics Tear Stimulation Dry Eye Drops, and another solution to a problem has been arrived at within seconds, with three different dry eye drops from Natural Ophthalmics to choose from.

It is not unusual for our patients to be prescribed several Natural Ophthalmics products on their first visit. They tell their friends and family on how we took care of all their needs in one visit–and how well we took care of those needs–and their friends and family come to see us, too.

 

 

Harvey Yamamoto, OD, is the owner of Harvey H. Yamamoto O.D., Inc., in Ontario, Calif. To contact him: harveyyamamoto@yahoo.com

 

 

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