Medical Model

Nutritional Supplements: Practice Preventative Eyecare

By Gina M. Wesley, OD, MS, FAAO

Nutritional supplements can give a preventative boost to the eye health of your patients—and selling and recommending supplements shows your concern for their total health.

In our effort to safeguard patients’ eye health, ensuring that they have the right mix of nutrition is an important component, along with annual comprehensive exams and needed screenings. For that reason, I began selling nutritional supplements in my practice last year. In addition to being received well by my patients, who show enthusiasm for the supplements, offering these products has enabled us to enhance the preventative eyecare we provide. Here is how I have made use of nutritional supplements.

Nutritional supplements on display in Dr. Wesley’s office.

Explain Need for Adequate Nutrition

First and foremost, we always encourage patients to get their best nutrition from food sources as this is the most natural. However, some patients admittedly don’t get enough servings per day (we recommend 10 per day), or they are at high risk for eye disease. For those patients, supplements can help bridge the nutrition gap. I recommend a specific eye formulation that protects against damage to the eye in macular degeneration, as well as cataracts (both preventative, as well as therapeutic). I prefer not to mention the specific brand I sell to avoid the appearance of promoting a brand rather than the value of nutritional supplements in general.

The recent Age-Related Eye Disease Study by the National Eye Institute points to nutrition and supplementation as a way to protect the eye. Omega 3 fatty fish oils are also sold by my practice, as they are also protective in risk for macular degeneration, as well as dry eye. We also discuss overall multivitamins with patients if they are interested, but mainly we discuss “nutraceuticals” that are specific for eye health.

Out-of-Pocket Expense Usually, but Can Be Financed

These supplements range from about $15 to over $100 per month depending on how much supplementation the patient opts for. I would say very rarely (almost never) does insurance cover supplements. In some instances, flex-spending dollars can be used. CareCredit also can be used in our practice to finance these items.

Have Cost Conversation with Patients

I tell patients that I understand that cost may be a factor, but my job is to protect their vision and prescribe the products that I believe will best do that. Most patients when asked can’t put a price on their vision, but they do easily take it for granted. All I can do is give them the information, and my hope for those who don’t move forward with nutritional supplements this time around is that they will the next time they visit our office. Sometimes the best I can do is plant the proverbial seed in their minds.

Prescribe Supplements for High-Risk Patients, Especially

My associate doctor and I discuss health and what protects the eye nutritionally with all patients, but we tailor our specific prescriptions for those at high risk for degenerative eye disease, those with family history and those who show a strong concern for protecting their eye health.

Educate Staff on Supplements

Our staff is trained and well-educated. They themselves take a variety of different products, so it serves as a nice testimonial to patients about their own experience. There are no reps that educate us, but I take it upon myself to be sure we are all on the same page in the practice. There are SO many options out there, we choose to focus on about four to five core product options and be very well educated on them.

Limit Amount of Inventory On Shelves

We don’t carry more than about 15-20 bottles at a time of a variety of products we sell, more in the interest of ensuring the product doesn’t expire before we sell it. We will order in new product every month depending on what sold the month before. We can usually turn over that amount in several months’ time, but I also have a small practice (we see about 150 patients per month at this time). I’m sure that larger practices that sell supplements go through much larger inventory volumes.

The product we sell, additionally, has an online delivery that saves the patient money and eliminates the need for large quantities of inventory in-house. We then get a commission off those sales. ROI depends on the quantity sold, but with the product I sell, we can make anywhere from $5 to $40 per product item sold. I know there are other supplements that could generate greater profit, but I did research to pick out the product I think has the best quality and absorption for my patients, rather than the one that could simply make my practice the most money.

ROI Dependent on Which Nutraceutical Company You Work With

Return on investment and overall profitability depends on which nutraceutical company your office workswith. For instance, some companies pay greater amounts for online account sign-ups (so your patient gets monthly deliveries at home and you receive a percentage of those sales), and some only have inventory options for re-sale. Either way, it’s worth exploring to determine what is a best fit for your office.

Explain Research to Skeptical Patients

I tell patients that I keep up with the latest research and that these findings keep indicating that our nutrition plays a big role in disease prevention, as well as prevalence. To quote an old adage, “We are what we eat.” Or, as I like to point out, what we don’t eat. The concentration of lutein and zeaxanthin in the macular tissue has been proven time and again, so to recommend patients eat food that contain these antioxidants, or take supplements that contain them if they can’t eat them, just makes sense.

Prescribe and Sell Nutritional Supplements: Action Plan

Do homework in deciding what nutritional supplement you want to use in your practice. If you aren’t confident in what you sell, neither will your patients be.

Have a plan for supplying patients, both in-office, as well as via shipment/delivery. Make it convenient.

Prepare your staff to tell patients about these products, even if in a simple, concise manner. It is unrealistic that everything will come from the doctor, so your staff also has to participate in patient education.

Related ROB Articles

Macular Degeneration Testing: Alert Patients to Value of Nutraceuticals

Educate Patients on Preventative Eyecare

Medical Eyecare Opportunity in Optometric Practice

Gina M. Wesley, OD, MS, FAAO, is the owner of Complete Eye Care of Medina in Medina, Minn. To contact her: drwesley@cecofmedina.com.

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