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CooperVision’s newest lens, the Biofinity, is now available at Wal-Mart. They’re selling it for something like $49.87 (it’s a one month lens).
I guess my private practice is no longer the exclusive provider of Biofinity in the Cache Valley area.

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I just was contacted by Review of Optometry. Apparently, they didn’t want any comment from me, but they were hoping that I knew the name of an optometrist in Utah that is vocal about 1-800 type stuff (apparently not me, just any other Utah O.D.). So, Utah ODs if you want to comment on the whole 1800/Wal-Mart story, let me know so that l can pass on your information to Review of Optometry.

But I thought that if by some miracle R.Opt. makes a link to my site, I’d better update more about what I’ve discussed with others about the whole partnership with 1-800 and Wal-Mart since my original post. Of course, this has been a hot topic at Wal-MartOD.com and at other sites like the highly secretive society of ODwire (which I don’t read anymore because, hey, it’s a secret).

So in my last post, you read the e-mail that I immediately sent back to Wal-Mart HQ the moment I heard about the news. The next day I went to work, and to my utter amazement, my vision center manager thought the partnership was pretty cool. Why? Apparently, Wal-Mart currently buys their contacts directly from each company, so this partnership is supposed to make the process faster for the patient. It is also supposed to help lower costs since 1-800 and Wal-Mart can combine their buying power to ask for a deeper discount from the individual contact lens manufacturers.

Then the district manager called and expressed the same opinions, but also added that Wal-Mart would save money by transferring the expensive maintaining of walmart.com’s online contact lens sales to 1-800’s website. She also said that 1800 has a huge brand recognition. If you walk-up to someone on the street and ask them where one could go to buy contacts, something like 40% will say 1-800-Contacts.

So this tells me that Wal-Mart is using 1-800 as their sort of high recognition buying group. In my practice, I order most lenses through a buying group like Lensco, but then some lenses I just purchase through the manufacturer, and hard lenses I get through Valley Contax ( I know Lensco does hard lenses also, but Valley has the I-Kone and my alumni’s C.A.D. design.)

So is it a sin for Wal-Mart to get itself a buying group? Of course not, unless that buying group happens to belong to the Spawn of Satan. Okay, all kidding aside, I wrote the following follow-up e-mail to Dr. Patel:

…I would gladly be willing to recant anything I’ve said about 1800 CONTACTS if they would join the Vision Council of America, prominently display the “Check Yearly. See Clearly.” logo (checkyearly.com), erase from their site any directions for consumers to subvert doctor recommended expiration dates, and withdraw their lobbying efforts for government mandates on 2-year expiration dates.

You should include that as part of your bargain with them.

So, just because 1800 sells contacts online doesn’t make them my enemy. It’s their coaching of consumers to badger doctors about prescription expiration dates and worse, their lobbying for laws to mandate to doctors a minimum 2-year expiration date (which succeeded into become a Utah state law).

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Wal-Mart recently announced in a letter that they are “excited to announce a long term alliance between Wal-Mart/Sam’s Club and 1-800 CONTACTS..”

May Heaven help us, because 1-800 sure isn’t going to. I promptly wrote the following E-mail to Dr. Patel, Wal-Mart’s Director of Professional Relations:

Dr. Patel,
I would advise against any kind of alliance with 1-800 CONTACTS. You’re not the first one to try. Standard Optical, a Utah-based optical chain, aligned with this Utah-based contact lens reseller for a while, and it didn’t last long. You should talk with those in the know about why it didn’t work out.

1-800 is also militant about teaching the general public to force the doctor to make decisions not in their best interest. Everyone inside our industry acknowledges that yearly eye exams are important, but 1800’s own website indoctrinates consumers to mandate to their doctor that prescriptions should expire at the two year mark OR LATER. (see: http://www.1800contacts.com/docAndRx/DocRx-release-1.shtml ). As a Utah eye doctor, I already suffer with practicing in the only state in the nation with a minimum 2-year contact lens expiration date- thanks to 1800’s lobbying power in our Utah legislature.

I had a patient last year, whom if her prescription hadn’t expired, she wouldn’t have come back in to see me for her yearly exam. If she wouldn’t have had her yearly exam, I wouldn’t have noticed an FDT screening visual field defect and reduced vision in one eye that wasn’t there the previous 2 yearly exams. If I wouldn’t have seen her, I couldn’t have referred her to the ophthalmologist who referred her for imaging which found the diagnosis of a brain tumor. A yearly eye exam saved her life, and under 1800’s reign, we are sure to miss these kinds of cases in the future.

If your only goal is to cut costs related to online sales at walmart.com, why not use 1800 as a nameless, behind the scenes
subcontractor? Giving them the limelight is the wrong move for Wal-Mart. An alliance with 1800 disgraces our reputation.

Also, I’ll quote from your FAQ (http://www.walmartod.com/clients/1814/docs/FAQ_Alliance.pdf): “Consumers in that same survey specifically cited cost and “purchasing them is inconvenient” as reasons for over-wearing their lenses.” Wal-Mart boasts about how something like 50% of a town’s population visit their store in any given week. How is stopping by the vision center on their bi-weekly pilgrimage inconvenient? What they meant to say is expensive or don’t have enough money. They expect to buy a box per eye and stretch it as long as possible. The real problem is that people expect a year supply of contacts to be less expensive than glasses just because you throw them away, and most also expect them to be a replacement for, not in addition to, glasses. Change those two perceptions, and you’ll increase your contact lens sales without help from the enemy of 1800 CONTACTS.

Please see my previous blog posts about 1800:
http://www.optoblog.com/2007/10/09/check-yearly-live-another-year/
http://www.optoblog.com/2007/07/30/patients-say-the-funniest-things/
http://www.optoblog.com/2007/03/19/1-800-eat-crap-and-die/

Sincerely,
David Langford, O.D.

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I’ve been having a problem with EyeMed vision insurance, so I’m taking it to the blogosphere since their support fails to find a solution.

When patients come in for an exam and contact lens fitting, their information sheet says $x copay for exam and $0 copay for Contact Lens fit and follow-up. All well, and good. I’m assuming that EyeMed will reimburse me $30 for my time and expertise in fitting contacts. Then when we go to eyemed.com and bill it, and it tells us that the patient owes the $30! What?!!

We call customer support, and they say that on his system, it says up to $55 maximum copay on CL fit and follow up, so we must have misread it.

It said $0 copay for CL fit and follow up in black and white on the patient’s insurance card. It said it on the benefits information when we preauthorized the exam online. What is the deal, EyeMed?

Meanwhile, I need to charge more money to the patient, but they’re going to have a cow about how we’re trying to rob them when EyeMed is to blame!

Please, EyeMed, fix your error on the website and send another letter to let your beneficiaries know that they will be paying for their contact lens evaluation.

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People open or buy private practice optometry offices all the time, but should you? Are you the one who should be doing such a thing?

My advice is that if you feel the urge to start a private practice optometry services and optical business, then you should probably see a qualified psychologist. No seriously, chances are something is wrong with you- at the very least delusions of grandeur.

IF it turns out that you don’t have a diagnosable mental condition, then you should read this article by the president of Matsco, a financing company that helps idiots like you start a private practice optometry office. Then ask yourself if you’ve got what it takes- what this article says it will take.

Then if you think you have what it takes, then you must be mental. You’ve probably never done anything other than go to school. Have you ever even owned your own independent business before? I would say if you have a proven track record of business experience and the attributes talked about by Allison Farey, then proceed with caution in your crazy idea.

But first answer this: if you actually have experience running a successful business, why wouldn’t you keep doing that? You can sell millions of widgets but you can only see a limited number of patients each day. (Patients who either faint or become incensed when they hear how much your private practice charges for an exam.)

Some practice consultants out there may feed you with all sorts of garbage along the lines of “if you build it, they will come” and “you simply charge $120 for a $500 quality exam,” and other feel-good sayings combined with 20-year-old tactics and strategies (as they rob you blind with their exorbitant fees). Stay away from them. If you are an undergrad reading this, do yourself a favor and become a pharmacist. If you are already in optometry school, then seek employment in a respectable setting like government work. If you prefer the private sector, then seek out a good HMO or decent chains like Wal-Mart, Shopko, and LensCrafters.

Private practice optometry is dead. Or it’s at least vestigial, kind of like your appendix. It’s probably good for something, but no one knows what. Even though some scientists claim to know what it’s good for, no one cares-except when they excise it for giving them some trouble.

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