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Archive for the ‘Optoblog’ Category

Submit Davis Vision Claims Through Apex EDI Clearinghouse

David Langford, O.D. on November 4th, 2010 under Optoblog •  Comments Off on Submit Davis Vision Claims Through Apex EDI Clearinghouse

The clearinghouse I use, Apex EDI, now has the ability to submit Davis Vision claims.

My biggest question is, “Why?”

You have to visit the Davis Vision website to verify the benefits and get an authorization. From there it’s just one or two clicks to enter and submit the easiest exam “claim form” I’ve seen. I think the Davis Vision’s website is the easiest of all vision plan websites to use and know exactly how much I’ll get paid.

Pretend you had a perfect world where every single vision plan you use had an agreement with your clearinghouse. Then you could always use your practice management software to upload all your claims to the clearinghouse. This would seem like an advantage. The fact is that you still need to go to some website or call on the telephone to get an authorization and find out benefits. Now stop pretending and realize you still have several vision plans not working nicely with your clearinghouse.

I just use LastPass to make it easy to log in with different insurance websites. It’s easy to submit claims on the insurance website after getting the authorization. I still have to keep track of my ledger with OfficeMate, but I just tell it not to make electronic claims with certain insurances.

Can someone explain any benefits for vision plans to team up with clearinghouses?

I Know What Glenn Beck is Doing and Why He’s Doing It

David Langford, O.D. on October 29th, 2010 under Asides, Optoblog •  Comments Off on I Know What Glenn Beck is Doing and Why He’s Doing It

Glenn Beck and Faith, Hope, and Charity

Glenn Beck and Faith, Hope, and Charity

When Glenn Beck threw his big event on 8-28-2010 most on the theophobic Left and in Big Media were perplexed and mystified. It’s possible that most of the 500K+ crowd didn’t fully understand the why. His radio show itself should have been a big clue for anyone paying attention. He has been concentrating on Faith, Hope, and Charity for over a year. But why?

It stems from his reading of the scriptures, the bible and especially the Book of Mormon.

Regardless of whether you choose to believe the Book of Mormon, to understand what Glenn is up to, you must hear some of the back story. Book of Mormon events took place here in America. Repeatedly throughout the Book of Mormon, the Lord tells the people via the prophets that if they will keep the commandments, they will prosper in the land. If they don’t, they will be destroyed.

Two different civilizations discussed in the Book of Mormon went through several cycles of prosperity and destruction because of their faith in keeping the commandments or their wickedness in disobeying God.

Similar to what Moses and Jethro instituted, he Nephite form of government at the time was a hierarchy of judges and major law changes were by voice of the people. In setting up this government, the last king, Mosiah, warned

Mosiah 29:26-27
26 Now it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right;…

27 And if the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this land.

At one low point, a prophet named Nephi, who also happened to be Chief Judge, forsook his high level government office to preach full time the gospel of Jesus Christ:

Helaman 5:1-4
1 And it came to pass that in this same year, behold, Nephi delivered up the judgment-seat to a man whose name was Cezoram.
2 For as their laws and their governments were established by the voice of the people, and they who chose evil were more numerous than they who chose good, therefore they were ripening for destruction, for the laws had become corrupted.
3 Yea, and this was not all; they were a stiffnecked people, insomuch that they could not be governed by the law nor justice, save it were to their destruction.
4 And it came to pass that Nephi had become weary because of their iniquity; and he yielded up the judgment-seat, and took it upon him to preach the word of God all the remainder of his days…

Why wouldn’t Nephi use his government office to invoke change among the people? The answer is from an earlier prophet, Alma the Younger, who saw the iniquity of the separatist, apostate Zoramites. Mormon writes in Alma 31:5

And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just- yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them- therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God.

And many listened, mostly the humbled poor, and returned to the fold and lived in Jershon with the Ammonites. Those Zoramites who remained hardhearted began a war with the Nephites because of that conversion, recruiting and eventually leading the Lamanites in this war.

The Book of Mormon teaches us that we, as a nation, must come unto God in order to have peace and prosperity. That is why Glenn Beck is taking the tack of Faith, Hope, and Charity.

Mormon was the chief captain of the entire Nephite army and prophet of the church, whose members were few since the wickedness of the Nephites had caused them to come to the point of extinction at the hand of the Lamanites. What message would you give in a speech at a synagogue during such a desperate time? His son, the prophet Moroni, in closing the book his father started, quoted his father’s speech which was dedicated to the concepts of Faith, Hope, and Charity (see Moroni ch. 7).

Also Moroni recorded in Ether ch. 12 the words the Savior had spoken to him:

28 Behold, I will show unto the Gentiles their weakness, and I will show unto them that faith, hope and charity bringeth unto me—the fountain of all righteousness.
29 And I, Moroni, having heard these words, was comforted, and said: O Lord, thy righteous will be done, for I know that thou workest unto the children of men according to their faith;

So if you had a national radio and t.v. show, believed the Book of Mormon is sacred scripture just like the Bible, and loved your county, and you knew that the best way to get a country to prosper is for the people to come unto God, then you would be doing the exact same thing Glenn Beck is trying to do: Inviting everyone to have Faith, Hope, and Charity.

Thank you, Glenn Beck. I’ll love you forever for what you have done and are continuing to do. We must all have faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; repent; be baptized; and continue in faith, hope, and charity until the end of our days. Our own eternal salvation depends on it and so does the prosperity of our nation.

Please take Glenn Beck’s 40 Day and 40 Night Challenge.

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No More Renu Sensitive Starter Kits

David Langford, O.D. on October 26th, 2010 under Optoblog •  Comments Off on No More Renu Sensitive Starter Kits

picture of Renu Sensitve soft contact lens multipurpose solution

Renu Sensitve

I got a memo from Walmart Health & Wellness Ocular Wellness Team on 10-22-2010:

Effective October 21, 2010, Bausch and Lomb will halt the shipment of the Renu Sensitive care kit as they take a different approach to the Renu product in the market

An evaluation will be made in Q2 2011 and a decision will be made at that time as to it (sic) whether or not the shipments will resume.

When I got the Renu Sensitive starter kits a few months ago I was kind of wondering what the deal was. I mean, if I were a patient I’d be wondering, “Why does the same company offer three competing brands of contact lens multi-purpose solution: Renu Fresh (formerly MultiPlus), Renu Sensitive, and BioTrue?”

See also my entry about the ingredients of the common soft contact lens care systems.

I think the label “sensitive” is a complete marketing gimmick. Someone has dryness or redness with their contacts, so instead of asking their eye doctor, their first impulse is to look in the contact lens solution isle and think, “Yah, my eyes are sensitive, so I’ll buy the product that says ‘sensitive’ on it.”

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Shriners to Take Insurance Money but Not Patient Cash

David Langford, O.D. on October 19th, 2010 under Optoblog •  Comments Off on Shriners to Take Insurance Money but Not Patient Cash

Apparently it’s possible to take insurance without having to collect any copays or deductibles from patients. That’s news to me. Apparently Medicare and Medicaid have a waiver you can get to allow this scenario, but the article leads me to believe that with “private” insurances you can just drop the copay. Huh.

The libertarian in me thinks that ideally I should be able to collect or not collect with impunity, but I was sure current contractual agreements with “private” insurers required that I always collect.

(Note: I put quotes around “private” insurance since Obamacare effectively takes the free out of free enterprise.)

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OfficeMate 8 to 9 Progress

David Langford, O.D. on October 19th, 2010 under Optoblog, Reviews •  2 Comments

So I have OfficeMate in my practice. I started using them in 2006 with release 7.x, and I currently have 8.x. It uses an access database which never really needed a server because it’s just a file that you could put on one computer and share it peer to peer. At the time I went ahead and bought an expensive Windows/Dell server because they recommended it, but I found out later from working with it that I could have just put the OM db file on cheaper network attached storage.

Anyway, along comes progress. OM with release 9 has implemented the famous, awesome SQL database. What makes it famous and awesome is that SQL is opened source and cross platform. So of course OM implements a Microsoft only version of SQL. The Windows Server Small Business that I’ve been using isn’t supported, so now I am faced with paying a whole bunch of money for a new edition of Windows Server standard. If I upgrade to that, I might as well update my client machines to Windows7. If I do that, my current video cards don’t support it, so I’ll have to either buy new video cards or just a new box.

So now, with all that plus the yearly, over $1K fee for OM, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t start over with some other solution. To tell you the truth, the only thing I use OM for is electronic billing. I just scan my paper charts with my awesome and fast Fujitsu Fi-6130 document scanner.

I really wish OfficeMate would have implemented a cross platform implementation of an SQL db. I could have just used a free Linux server to host the db.

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Insurance is Bad for Business

David Langford, O.D. on October 14th, 2010 under Optoblog •  1 Comment

Amen to Dr. Ari Weitzner’s post.

The Roadmap Planner with the Daily Dats System™

David Langford, O.D. on October 11th, 2010 under Asides, Optoblog, Reviews •  Comments Off on The Roadmap Planner with the Daily Dats System™

I have a little side project at roadmapplanner.com. It’s especially suitable for students (college or high school), but as a professional I use it too. It’s really helped me since this summer to stop being a slacker spiritually and get on task. My family is happier for my becoming a better person by performing the tasks and achieving the goals I set for myself. Please consider it for a Christmas gift for you or someone you love.

The Roadmap Planner with the Daily Dats System™ is a set of 53 small, portable weekly planners with goal tracking integration and 3 week future calendar and white space for taking down notes.

An 8 1/2″ by 11″ sheet of white, uncoated, card stock paper is scored for a trifold on the y axis, and the user also trifolds it along the X axis. This double trifold design (like a road map 😉 ) compacts the page to a 2 7/8″ by 3 11/16″ footprint that fits in your pocket. Because it’s card stock, it’s rugged enough to last traveling in and out of your pocket the entire week. Fifty-three sheets come in the package, one for each week of the year.

Features:

  • The Daily Dats System™ for making, tracking, and achieving your goals.
  • To do list at top of each day.
  • Plan A and B for each time slot of the day.
  • Half hour time slots starting at 6:00 AM and ending at 11:30 PM.
  • Current week planner on front and 3 week future calendar on back.
  • White space for recording new contacts and other notes.
  • Different motivational quote for every week.
  • The day and date is pre-printed so you don’t have to write it out.
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2010 How Does Your Practice Compare?

David Langford, O.D. on October 6th, 2010 under Optoblog •  Comments Off on 2010 How Does Your Practice Compare?

MBC-CE.com (for private practice optometrists) and OBA-CE.com (for Walmart/Sam’s Club optometrists) have released their 2010 versions of practice metrics/benchmarks.

I’m republishing the pdfs here in case you don’t have access to their sites.[edit: Apparently re-posting their pdfs is copyright infringement, so click on the links to be taken to their websites] (If not, I highly recommend you get a login because they both have really useful information.)

OBA’s 2010 practice metrics

MBA’s 2010 practice metrics

By the way, OBA-CE’s major sponsors are: Ciba, Alcon, Essilor, Topcon, and Transitions.
MBA-CE’s major sponsors are: Ciba, Essilor, American Optometric Society

StainingGrid.com Updated to Include Biotrue

David Langford, O.D. on September 21st, 2010 under Optoblog •  2 Comments

StainingGrid.com has updated their data to show the new Biotrue MPS from B&L.

Contact lens solutions vs materials vs corneal staining

Contact lens solutions vs materials vs corneal staining updated 2010-09-16


It looks like it’s only half as bad as MultiPlus 😉
contact lens solution ingredients
(Click image to enlarge.)

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Percentages of Types of Exams from a Walmart Practice

David Langford, O.D. on September 18th, 2010 under Optoblog •  2 Comments

For you optometry students trying to make up numbers for your business plan, here are some percentages from my average Walmart practice:

Eye exam types
In 2007 and 2008 I didn’t track the percentage of patients using insurance because I didn’t have to bill very much back then.

For more interesting stats to help you make your business plan, the OBA-CE has compiled these:

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