contact lens business
Fostering Success with Multifocals
With effective communication and careful patient selection, these lenses can be a boon to your practice.
By Christopher Kent, Senior Associate Editor

Success with multifocal contact lenses isn't always easy to achieve. We asked several experts to share strategies that have helped them turn these lenses into practice-builders.

Bruce Koffler, M.D.
Lexington, Ky.:

Get your staff excited about fitting multifocals. This is a key factor in stimulating patient interest.

To help accomplish this in our practice, we have an office meeting once a week. During the meeting we set aside a time for each area of concern around the office, including contact lenses. I use this time to introduce our staff to new multi-focal products -- what the product is, how it's designed, how it can be used, what type and age of patient it would be ideal for, etc. The meeting provides an opportunity for training, education and motivation.

We've found that these weekly meetings do more to generate sales than dollar incentives.

Prepare the patient for extra office visits. Make the patient aware from the beginning that getting these lenses right usually requires more office visits than simpler contact lens options. That helps the patient understand why you're charging more, and minimizes irritation or discouragement during the fitting process.

Peter R. Kastl, M.D., Ph.D.
New Orleans, La.:

Don't buy into the idea that multifocal contact lenses don't work. If you select your patients wisely, you'll achieve success most of the time. Here are a few points to keep in mind when deciding whether a patient is likely to succeed with multifocals:

► Emmetropes and low myopes will be harder to fit. They see well at one focal length already -- emme-tropes see well at distance and low myopes can read without glasses. Even with no added correction for the range in question, emmetropes' distance vision will be slightly blurred, as will low myopes' near vision. These two types of patients often find this irritating.

► For the same reason, the best patients to fit are hyperopes or high myopes, who already have to use glasses to see clearly at any distance. They won't experience the blurring that the other patients will.

► Patients already wearing RGP lenses take to bifocal RGPs very well; you're merely adding a reading segment to the bottom of the lens. The success rate in these patients approaches 100%.

Explain that vision will be different. Keep reminding the patient: "Although you'll be able to see pretty well, your vision won't be the same as you're used to." Simultaneous vision is quite different from having the eye focus at distance and near separately. Getting the patient's expectations in line can keep him from rejecting the lenses.

Mark Andre, F.A.A.O.
Portland, Ore:

Host a seminar to present the options that are currently available. This will let you screen dozens of patients in a single evening.

Remember that a successful multifocal patient can be very good for your practice. Most patients that purchase multifocal contact lenses also buy glasses (a high ticket item), and many will refer friends and family members to your practice.

Jason Jacobs, M.D.
Denver, Colo.:

Keep patients informed. Send your patients a newsletter with a section describing the newest multifocal options. Lots of patients who failed with multifocals in the past have no idea that new designs are available. If you let them know what you have to offer, some of them will come in to try them out.