Milton Hom, OD, FAAO, shares why optometrists should care about antibiotic resistance.

Optometrists can play key roles in women’s health, especially in macular degeneration and obesity. Include a conversation about cosmetic use in discussions with female patients as well.

The femtosecond laser has brought many significant advances to eye surgery. For more than a decade, it has been used to create lamellar corneal flaps for laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK), and more recently this laser is used to precisely perform several steps in cataract surgery.

Diet and nutrition play significant roles in the maintenance of health and prevention of disease.1,2 Every five years, our government releases dietary guidelines based upon all the players in the “food fight.

We all know the typical algorithm for our patients having diabetes: Maintain healthy blood sugar and pressure control, get annual dilated eye examinations, and receive laser or anti-VEGF therapy if and when they develop vision-threatening diabetic retinopathy (DR).

With the advent of electronic health records, it is now easier than ever to keep up with what medications a patient is actually taking, and (especially in the arena of glaucoma) the several classes of medications, such as steroids, beta blockers, and antihistamines, that can influence how patients’ eyes behave. With this in mind, I had a patient come in the other day with an interesting question regarding her intraocular pressure (IOP).

I like to describe my practice as “concierge like.” We are all familiar with the concept of MD VIP practices. They require patients to pay a flat fee to be part of the practice’s patient base, and, in return, the patient has free access to his physician at any time.

Point-of-care (POC) diagnostic laboratory testing is not common in eye care. This is not due to any lack of clinical need-it is rather the result of a lack of specific tests known to demonstrate diagnostic and/or treatment relevance to the optometrist and a general resistance to adopting new diagnostic technologies.

It’s been a busy week for ophthalmology research and news after both the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) annual meeting in Seattle and the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ASCRS) annual meeting in New Orleans.

After much anticipation and a long wait for both clinicians and patients in need, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved corneal cross-linking (CXL) in mid April. This procedure is globally considered the only method of halting the progressive family of diseases called corneal ectasias, including keratoconus.

As optometry’s scope of practice has increased, optometrists have embraced allergic eye disease. Ocular allergies have multiple effects to patients in our practice. But, if allergies are unidentified because symptoms may not be present during office visits, patients may treat themselves.

Among the thoughts I’ve had since the Super Outbreak of tornadoes that hit Alabama on April 27, 2011, is this: if there’s not already an ICD-10 code for “Tornado-induced viral conjunctivitis, bilateral, initial encounter,” there probably should be.

Optometrists in a practice unaffiliated with a tertiary care center will rarely see patients ocular cancer, a disease that is both sight threatening and life threatening. Because it’s impossible to predict who will walk through your door, it’s necessary to remain vigilant for signs of ocular melanoma, basal cell carcinoma, ocular lymphoma and leukemia, as well as cancers that have metastasized to the eye.

Dry eye represents a major opportunity with more than 25 million people suffering from the condition in the U.S.,1 and meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD) is thought to be the most common cause of dry eye.2 During a session at SECO, Walt Whitley, OD, MBA, FAAO, shared his tips for making the most of this opportunity in your practice.

How can your office avoid spending a lot of staff time on patient vision care plan questions and better ensure that you get paid? We asked optometrists on ODs on Facebook and ODwire how they handle this common problem.

I enjoyed patient care, but I wanted to do more with my career. I didn’t necessarily look at patient care as where I wanted my career to be. I was recognized to be able to marry clinical and business and mediate communications between the two.

An optometric practice is a business just like any other business where the same rules apply-revenues minus expenses equals profit. Too many times we borrow ideas from mediocre businesses, practices, and people.

Eye care has been a magnet for new-and disruptive-technology. In the past few years, the industry has seen the birth of companies such as Smart Vision Labs, Opternative, and EyeNetra, just to name a few.

A U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, Gaylord Nelson, founded Earth Day in 1970, and it has been celebrated annually since that time on April 22. In 1990, his efforts were revamped to include recycling efforts. This got me thinking-how am I addressing this in my office now, and what can I do better?

When we need a good laugh, we love to head over to Twitter and find out what patients are saying about their optometrists. Check out what they had to say.