optoblog.com

I saw this list over at PookieMD’s blog, and I think you should add it to your list of considerations before applying for optometry school, because many of the challenges facing PCPs also relate to optometrists.

For those of you who remember Link Gate on my practice website, you’ll remember that my response to criticism of linking to Wal-Mart.com was, “Why link for free when I can sign up to earn ad revenue from 1-800 CONTACTS link referrals?”

Some outfit called Commission Junction handles the details for 1-800’s referral program, and I got this email from them today:

You are receiving this email because we are concerned that your Commission Junction publisher account has not generated any valid commissions (from payable transactions) recently. We encourage you to begin earning commissions as quickly as possible. Otherwise, your publisher account is at risk of deactivation due to dormancy…

So for the one guy who started Link Gate, let me assure you that no one cares that I link to 1-800 or Wal-Mart since apparently no one follows the links anyway.

According to Al Cleinman, VSP is hurting the very private practice doctors that it purports to help.

How ironic. Al has a whole bunch of posts about VSP. I would have to say that the only people VSP is trying to help are the execs at VSP. Of course they don’t care about the doctors. When they feed you the line that they are there to help traditional private practice doctors, it’s simply a marketing gimmick. And of course they don’t care about the patients either, otherwise they’d let them have freedom of choice to see any doctor they want, including a [gasp] Wal-Mart doctor.

Every year the great folks at Mount Ogden Eye Center throw a shindig for all the optometrists within their market area. They schmooze us with a fancy, delicious lunch at Sherwood Hills Resort and then treat us to a free round of 9-hole golf (with cart).

Of course they learned us stuff during the lunch (something about multi-focal IOLs and Intralase, I recon), but with the golf, they have prizes for the longest drive on one hole and the closest to the pin on the par-3 hole.

And guess who got the prize for the closest to the pin! Yep, me. And I have three witnesses. So I got a prize for free stuff at the club house.

Of course, don’t ask me about my 3-put on that hole, and also don’t ask me about my sixty-something score for nine holes, either.

Anyway, I highly recommend that all the optometrists in northern Utah attend next year.

Here’s an actual clean optometrist joke/cartoon. I’ve linked to Savage Chickens before, so if you haven’t already subscribed to its site feed, then now would be the appropriate time to do so.

And actually, if you are looking for more cartoons about optometry, then you should check out my Optoblog cartoons and put them in your slide shows for CE events and optometry school lectures. 😉

This is one way to explain conjunctivitis.

Any readers of this blog entry entitled “The Perks of an Optometry Career” need to read my “Do Not Become an Optometrist” entry or my “Should YOU Open a Private Practice?” entry.

How does the perk of working every Saturday sound? How do you like getting home many nights at 8:00 PM, (just in time to tuck your kids into bed)?

Unless an optometrist is employed by a big chain or there is some extreme emergency, hours are generally restricted to Monday through Friday with no on-call duty needed.

That’s not true in today’s market. Only government workers get Saturdays off now. More and more private practices offer extended hours and Saturday hours to stay competitive in today’s market. People don’t take time off work anymore just for routine eyecare (but of course they’ll do it for the dentist, but not you…a lowly optometrist).

Oh, and other doctors don’t have to worry about their scope of practice being legislated away.

And how do you like having a cap on potential income? You can only see so many patients a day. Get rich selling an unlimited number of widgets that everyone wants. Only become an optometrist because you love it…but, that begs the question how do you find out that you love optometry without going to expensive optometry school? By the way, when I went to optometry school (PUCO 2003), it cost about $22,000 per year for tuition, including fourth year when you’re not even at school because you are on preceptorship. Last I heard it’s up to $27,000 per year.

So my question is, at what price point does optometry school become unfeasible?

I’ve come across some websites you may be interested in:

• Local Eye Site

Interesting because it allows all people who work in the eyecare field to use the same site for forums, job search, and buy/sell equipment or practice. I especially like how it is open so that anyone can read what has been posted without being registered. Registration is free if you want to post something.


• Wal*Mart OD

See what your main competition is up to. You won’t be able to post anything, though, because registration is limited to Wal-Mart doctors like me.

• Association of LensCrafters Leaseholding Doctors (ALL Docs)

See what the Lenscrafters eye doctors are up to at this website. From the looks of it, half the site is dedicated to their National Meeting which includes “recreational and social events to help unwind.” A.K.A. providing plenty of booze so you can get hammered and make funny faces while being photographed for their website.

But seriously, what professional organization doesn’t spend all your dues and sponsors’ donations in support of this glorified purpose?

There was an interesting article written at the AmateurEconomist.com about “Why Doctors Are Not Good Businessmen.”

Hat tip to Kevin, M.D. who commented on this story and said,

“This is why the private practice model of medicine is dying. More practices are being bought by hospitals where the physicians are salaried. This relieves the burden of administrative tasks and supervising ancillary staff, so that the doctor can focus on medicine.”

Rob at VSP says that “[private practice doctors] provide the best care.” Well, if I’ve got the weight of a business on my shoulders, doesn’t that detract from patient care? Additionally, in our field where the private practice doctors sell what they prescribe, can you totally rule out any conflicts of interest which potentially detract from patient care?

Again, independent doctors of optometry in a Wal-Mart setting don’t have the conflict of interest and their administrative duties are much less than private practice.

What’s funny to me is that every CE event I’ve been to always has some talk about why optometrists should start the “medical model” in their practice and watch the money role in. Well, how is adding more third party payers going to help you make more money? Primary care medicine is dying according to Kevin M.D., and yet the roboconsultants are telling us to join more insurance panels. I think getting rid of insurance companies in your practice is the way of the future.

The roboconsultant woos you buy saying that for one case of dry eye you can milk an insurance company for $500-$800 in office visits and procedures. Well, do you do that for every dry eye patient, even the poor self pay patient or the patient with insurance but poor benefits? I would think that doing it just for those with good insurance would be unethical as well as probably insurance fraud.

I think the more your appointment book is filled up, the more you should be able to charge for your services. It’s the old supply and demand of free economics. I think a better system would be for patients to have to front the money to pay the doctor for office visits at the time of service. The patient would have to get reimbursed what they can from their insurance company. Maybe then insurance companies would be forced to have a faster turn around time on processing claims for their patients and be watched more closely for just rubber stamping a denial based on some frivolous billing exercise (or at the least the patient has to worry about it instead of me.) I simply provide the best care for the patient, recommending only the products and services that they need, since now I don’t have to worry about getting paid.

So Rob’s Blog has this to say to people about getting yearly diabetic eye exams. As if optometrists in a commercial setting don’t do the same thing, he tells a big lie here:

…these [private practice] doctors consistently have the longest relationships with their patients and provide the best care.

Rob, people aren’t buying what you’re selling anymore. I see VSP beneficiaries out of network all the time in my Wal-Mart setting. I guess they aren’t loyal to a practice setting, but rather they factor in price and convenience while assuming, correctly, that any doctor they see in my area is competent.

Oh, and I remember when Intel in the Hillsboro/Beaverton, Oregon area was buying your VSP, and then they switched to EyeMed. Does that mean they thought your private practice network of doctors couldn’t “provide the best care?”

But I see what he’s trying to do. Any roboconsultant will tell you that you need to differentiate yourself from the competition; however, I take exception when he lies.