Fitting more patients in prosthetic contact lenses won�t necessarily enhance your revenue stream. But it will do wonders for your sense of professional fulfillment.

Still, many doctors wonder how they can incorporate prosthetic lenses into their practice routines without sacrificing time away from revenue-generating activities. Panelists at a roundtable discussion of prosthetic lenses at the 1999 Contact Lens Association of Ophthalmologists (CLAO) in Las Vegas addressed this issue saying they charge a global fee or an exam fee equivalent to what they would charge for a keratoconus patient or other complex fits.�

Michael A. Ward, FCLSA, Director of Contact Lens Service at the Emory Center in Atlanta, said that he doesn�t offer the same contact lens guarantee to prosthetic patients as he would regular contact lens patients. This protects his practice from patients who continually want to tweak the color of the lens.

Many doctors also have patients sign a waiver that says the practice will try to help them gain reimbursement from an insurance company, but that the patient will ultimately be responsible for payment. Patients often have to pay for either the procedure or the material � or both.