optoblog.com

Has anyone seen this movie? I had a patient recommend it to me, but I’d never heard of it.
A reviewer at IMBD says it’s like a Support Your Local…Optometrist.

• I'm baptizing my son at 2 PM MTN today. #

• New blog post: Glaucoma 1969 to 2009 #
• @jwarrenod I'm sorry John. Link to what? By the way, your podcasts talking with Walt are awesome and you should do more. in reply to jwarrenod #
• I filmed Napoleon Dynamite Goes to Mutual as a video-skit entry in our ward talent show. It's flippin' awesome. http://bit.ly/1EfieV #
• Glaucoma 1969 to 2009 link is: http://bit.ly/vRTBF #
• Napoleon Dynamite goes to Mutual was updated. http://bit.ly/1dSUhb #

We made a movie for a church talent show activity. I think it’s funny.

Make sure you watch past the closing credits for a bonus.

In case you are wondering, I wrote the script in Celtx, filmed with my 9 year old Sony Digital8 camcorder (hence the not-so-great sound), and edited it with Corel Video Studio X2.

My dad is finally cleaning out his garage of old optometry books and stuff- now that he’s been retired for a few years. (Does anyone know of some niche market for old edition optometry books? We’re just planning on giving them to D.I.)

I saw this newspaper clipping tucked in one of his books. It appears to be from the AOA News December 1969. My how things have changed in the last 40 years. Interesting also is how phaco was a new technology.

• I am now a BYU fan again- as long as they don't later in the season lose to Wyoming or something… #

The Optometric Business Academy (OBA) came out with some statistics regarding Walmart O.D.’s revenue growth in 2008.

Walmart practices grew 10% during 2008, on average, as Sam’s Club practices grew 6%.

Growth also varied depending on years at location.

I’ll be interested to see what 2009 stats will say. Anecdotally, my business was up 8% in 2008 while so far for 2009 I currently forecast it to be down over 8% (so back to 2007 levels). So when you think about it, 2009 could see me be down 16-18% from where I wanted to be.

Thanks Obama. That was such a great idea to spend our way out of a recession and have the government take over several private sector industries. Idiot.

So Kevin M.D. reports on how the whole send-the-prescription-electronically-to-the-pharmacy thing is going. Apparently ePrescribing is not all that and, to me, not even a bag of chips.

Here’s what clinches it for me:

Furthermore, despite the marketing hype, ePrescribe “provides absolutely no cost or time savings for pharmacies or pharmacists,” since any errors in typing or if a doctor wants to change anything on the refill will cost the pharmacy another 30 cents…
[Doctor Grumpy]…also reports numerous problems about the amount of time it takes to send a prescription over the internet.

So, the only ones getting rich are the vendors. Imagine that. Thank you government for mandating a completely unnecessary and economically burdensome idea that someday we’ll all have to ePrescribe. Idiots.

See what the new Wolfram Alpha computational knowledge engine has to say about “optometrist.”

Our overall average income as a profession of $93.8K seems kind of low compared to our overall average optometry school debt of $112-132K for 2007 averaged for all schools by ASCO.

BTW, the Wolfram Alpha isn’t a search engine, it’s a knowledge engine. Words mean things, you know. From what I can tell, it looks like a new way to get answers for math class and looking up stocks and stuff.

Hey, they list the chemical formula for BAK and Travatan. It’s fun to play.

With Walmart’s announcement of a sweeping change about getting out of the business of billing vision insurance companies for their doctors, a whole new cottage industry has sprung up. Businesses are soliciting Walmart doctors to let them handle all the insurance billing.

Yup, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Ophthalmic vendors think we optometrists are so stupid. Just because we picked this profession, they think we are prone to making poor financial choices just like some people are accident prone.

Any of you vendors seeking to do insurance billing for me are wasting your time. All I need is my practice management software and Apex EDI. It’s as automated as can be. Most of the vision insurances have their own website for authorization and billing, and then I use Apex EDI for my BlueCross, Medicaid, DMBA, and other miscellaneous insurance companies. (You can do Medicare also, but I am disinclined to participate with them.)

Apex EDI works great. It’s fast and easy. And I don’t need no stinking slick Rick to be some unnecessary middle man. It’s cheap too. I pay 43 cents per claim, less than a postage stamp these days. I also pay the extra $20 a month for the ERAs and Electronic Tools which make my life a lot easier, so it’s worth it.

Call up Apex EDI and tell them I sent you. Use my Champions Code (sales code) to get a better deal: Champ148. I use it in my practice (VisionHealth EyeCare PLLC), and you can use it in yours without the growing cottage cheese industry of Walmart insurance billing middle men.

[Note to Slick Ricks: Any more “comments” made by you to advertise your middle man services will be marked as Spam and deleted. Do us all a favor and go con some other profession.]