Contact Lenses

Partner with a CL Distributor to Make Reordering Convenient and Simple

By Mary E. Boname, OD, MS, FAAO

Use a contact lens distributor to maintain your inventory and streamline patient reorders. The payoffs: Less work for you, and you retain valuable CL patients

I began using a CL distributor to simplify my inventory and billing. I found that this same distributor also offers convenience to my CL patients–and this has been a patient builder.

I have been using ABB CONCISE’s contact lens distribution services for approximately eight years, and in that time my practice has benefited from being able to offer enhanced contact lens services to patients. I decided to use a distributor to reduce the number of individual contact lens companies I was dealing with. I wanted to have one bill for all of the contact lenses that we ordered. The key advantages of ordering through a distributor are: enhanced customer service, availability of all of the contact lenses that I fit, fast turn-around time (if the order is placed before 3 p.m., Monday through Thursday, I have the lenses in my office the next day), my reps from all of the contact lens companies receive “credit” for the orders I place through ABB CONCISE and I always have trial lenses available.

In turn, using the full range of services of a contact lens distributor allows me to better the patient experience:

Mary Boname, OD, FAAO

Montgomery Eye Care, P.A.

Skillman, NJ

One doctor, one location

www.mecnj.com

New England College of Optometry

Class of 1994

Specialties

Comprehensive family eyecare, contact lenses, ocular surface disease evaluation/treatment and management and emergency eyecare.

CL Patient Annually

520

Annual Comprehensive Examinations

2,600

Set Up CL Patients to Order on Practice Web Site

By setting up all of my soft contact lens wearers to order their contacts on my web site via ABB CONCISE’s online contact lens ordering system Yourlens.com, I am reducing my ABB CONCISE bill, and increasing the size of the check I will receive mid-month, which represents “profit” on the sale of contacts from my practice, Montgomery Eye Care’s, web site. There is a Yourlens.com a direct link on our web site so patients can order online themselves. I also have a link to Yourlens.com on our Facebook page. I make sure that every new and existing contact lens patient is set up to order off our web site, and we send a confirmation e-mail to them while they are still here in the office.

Ordering via Distributor Web Site Enhances Compliance

I encourage patients to order their year’s supply or select the “auto ship” feature when placing their contact lens order to ensure compliance with the wearing and replacement schedule of their contact lenses. The key advantage of Yourlens.com is the ease of use. I was able to implement it myself several years ago. I better serve my patients by not only providing them with comprehensive eyecare (evaluating the fit of their contact lenses and the health of all of the ocular structures,etc.) but also educating them on the importance of the proper care and replacement schedule for their contacts, and sending them a link to order their supply. In many cases, patients order while they are here from their smartphones or as soon as they get home.

Patients nod their heads in agreement when I say that “In order for you, as a contact lens wearer, to take the best possible care of your eyes, it is imperative to have the proper supply on hand. It will ensure that you don’t over-wear the contacts because you have run out of them (over-wearing them increases your risk of potentially sight threatening complications, like corneal infiltrates and ulcers).”

Market Contact Lens Services Using Multimedia

The marketing of these CL services is done in our print ads in U.S. 1 newspaper and Town Topics in a syndicated column that appears every other week in both papers, and through e-mail blasts with Websystems III at my office.

Optimize Relationship with Distributor Rep

Our ABB CONCISE rep, Shelly Farley, makes herself available via phone, e-mail and regular visits to my office. Currently, she is putting together laminated sheets that I can use as a tool to educate my patients about the savings they will realize when they order a year’s supply of their contact lenses. The quarterly report of contact lenses that ABB CONCISE compiles helps to keep us cost-competitive with our online pricing. In addition to these reports that are produced for us, I am able to go online to the ABB CONCISE web site to track my contact lens inventory finances myself–making the service a win-win for both me and my patients.

Related ROB Articles

Boost Annual CL Supply Sales with Convenience and Value

Manage Your Contact Lens Inventory for Profitability

Increase Sales of Contact Lens Annual Supplies

Mary E. Boname, OD, MS, FAAO, is the owner of Montgomery Eye Care, P.A., in Skillman, NJ. To contact her: mboname@mecnj.com.

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