Practices dedicated to diagnosing and treating dry eye aim to ensure that patients get the best care possible and the best preparation for surgery, if applicable. To treat dry eye effectively, they invest in the top diagnostic and treatment technologies. Fees eventually cover the costs, and practices employ various methods to find dry eye patients. Here, experts share their tips for identifying and attracting dry eye patients.

Existing Patients

For practices looking to expand their patient base for dry eye treatment, they don’t have to look very far, says Patti Barkey, COE, CEO of Bowden Eye & Associates and Eye Surgery Center of North Florida in Jacksonville. In fact, their first dry eye patients are likely already in the waiting room.

“In the first few years of our own practice’s dry eye initiative, I called it ‘the beast’ because it just kept growing,” recalls Barkey. “When we started Dry Eye University to teach practices how to excel at comprehensive diagnosis and management of this disease, we advised them to begin by using a SPEED questionnaire to identify dry eye in their existing patients. Because, if they market their services to outside patients at the start, they will be overwhelmed,” she explains. “Today, about 75% of patients who walk through our doors have some kind of dry eye complaint. Others are asymptomatic, and we’re able to diagnose the disease process through routine testing and then treat it early to prevent full disease progression.”

As part of the dry eye protocol at Bowden Eye, every patient with dry eye is encouraged to undergo treatment. She notes that patients usually require very little urging to comply. “They have been uncomfortable and had vision fluctuation for a long time, and some have visited multiple practices searching for a diagnosis or treatment. They are so relieved to hear that the doctor understands their problem and knows how to treat it,” she says. “They ask, ‘Why didn’t my doctor tell me about this?’ and we have to explain that the disease was misunderstood and overlooked for years, but now we know more about it and have better diagnostic and treatment technologies. We can help everyone to some degree, and, of course, we now understand that treatment is essential for optimal surgical outcomes.”

Dry Eye University

In October 2017, the eighth program took place for Dry Eye University, a program started by Patti Barkey, COE, at Bowden Eye & Associates in Jacksonville, Florida. When the practice became very successful with dry eye — in terms of both outcomes and revenue — vendors of dry eye medications and technologies began asking if their customers could visit and observe. They were happy to host colleagues for a half day, but over time, conversations revealed an unexpected commonality: the practitioners did not understand dry eye disease, which, in turn, led to a lack of patient education and a poor grasp of how treatments worked.

“It was clear that most visitors needed more than 4 hours to understand the root causes and multifactorial symptoms of dry eye disease, in addition to the available treatments on the market. That gave us the idea for Dry Eye University,” Barkey recalls.

In the program, Barkey and her colleagues spend the first 4 hours educating attendees about the ocular surface, dry eye, the meibomian glands, Sjögren’s syndrome, evaporative versus aqueous deficient disease, and dry eye related to trauma, including surgery. The next day, they introduce diagnostic and therapeutic tools and vendors. They also talk about developing a standard of care, training staff, educating patients, and creating treatment plans for the disease process. Finally, they discuss talking to patients about cost and the advantages of providing flexible financing options with the CareCredit credit card.

Each group of attendees encompasses numerous roles within the practice. “Some practices were inclined to send just the office manager, but we knew those folks had no chance of convincing a doctor who doesn’t understand the disease process. We encourage each practice to send an administrator, clinic staff member, and physician. Many practices send a second or third group later because doctors don’t have the time to teach everyone in the practice.”

Referring Physicians

Practice-building efforts around dry eye disease also include outreach to referring doctors. Optometrists handle most referrals, but Barkey’s practice also has begun talking to primary care practitioners, rheumatologists, and gynecologists about dry eye and what Bowden Eye & Associates can offer to this group of patients.

John D. Sheppard, MD, MMSc, president of Virginia Eye Consultants, Norfolk, adds that beyond referring patients for dry eye disease, optometrists can control it well before surgery. “We actively discuss identification and treatment of dry eye with our large network of clinically astute referring optometrists, who often prepare our patients for surgery,” he says. “One of the most important things they can do with a surgical referral is control the patient’s dry eye, which allows us to spend our time with the patient discussing, planning, and performing surgery.”

Elizabeth Yeu, MD, also at Virginia Eye Consultants, takes a similar approach, with the secondary goal of building better relationships between patients and surgeons. “Three-quarters of our patients are referred by ODs, many with a diagnosis of cataract. We discuss dry eye disease with their doctors, including how they should be sensitive to the ocular surface and lid margins, realize that the problem is present before corneal staining occurs, and watch for symptoms,” she explains. “Ideally, we want referring optometrists to diagnose and manage dry eye before patients come to us for surgical consultation. When patients see a surgeon, they want to schedule a date for surgery. Remember, this is typically the patient’s first meeting with the surgeon, so we want to avoid the doubt and disappointment that accompany a stranger telling them they have a disease they’ve never heard of, which the doctor must delay surgery to treat. When an optometrist diagnoses and treats dry eye first, surgeons can move right to surgery, ultimately building more positive patient relationships.”

CARECREDIT RESOURCES

According to CareCredit’s Path to Purchase Study, 68% of patients surveyed were not aware financing was available for their vision surgery, yet 51% would consider financing if it enabled them to get treatment immediately. With CareCredit, patients can move forward with treatment without approval, and can pay right away if approved. CareCredit offers a wealth of resources to help you spread the word about financing options.

The CareCredit Social Media Toolkit helps you quickly engage in the online conversation.

• Click and share. Choose from a reserve of prewritten posts and tweets to help you provide key info patients want. With the touch of a button, instantly “share” these posts on Facebook page and Twitter.

The CareCredit Advertising Toolkit has web resources to help remove the cost barrier during online searches.

• Banners and buttons. Available in a variety of colors and sizes, these can easily be customized and added to your website to let patients know financing is available.
• Easy access. Patients can apply for a CareCredit credit card directly from your website, and come away with a way to fit dry eye services into their budget.**

The CareCredit Payment Calculator lets patients instantly see how budget-friendly treatment can be.

• Share online. Add the calculator to your practice website to make it easy for potential patients to estimate monthly payments.
• Share in-office. Use in your fee discussions to quickly show how CareCredit financing options can make dry eye services affordable.

Source: Path to Purchase Study conducted on behalf of CareCredit by Rothstein Tauber Inc., 2014.
**Subject to credit approval

Marketing Dry Eye Services

Beyond identifying existing dry eye patients and enlisting referring doctors in their efforts, once up to speed, practices can use marketing strategies to build their dry eye practices. Both Virginia Eye Consultants and Bowden Eye & Associates use radio advertising, printed materials and videos for the waiting room, interviews with local media, and public service announcements about free dry eye screenings. Social media has also proven to be an excellent vehicle to discuss dry eye, particularly because it can discuss familiar symptoms to those who are viewing the messaging via screens.

Dr. Yeu appreciates how her practice’s marketing director uses social media to connect in ways that make sense to patients who have dry eye. “The marketing director who manages our social media accounts speaks directly to patients with questions, such as, ‘Do your eyes feel tired?’ or ‘Are you uncomfortable in your contact lenses?’ People who have never heard the term ‘dry eye’ respond because we are describing a problem that is very familiar to them, and then linking them to much-needed help.” •