Embedded Files
Page 6
“Optometrists and non-ophthalmic providers are organized and ready to jump in. They see the gap in care. If a hospital can’t depend on ophthalmologists, why wouldn’t they send patients elsewhere? Why wouldn’t optometrists become gatekeepers?” Everywhere else in medicine, nonsurgeons are the gatekeepers, thus it seems perfectly appropriate for optometrists to fill this role. Having been on-call for our respective hospital emergency departments, we can say with authority that the need for an eye surgeon is exceedingly rare. As there is always the remote possibility for surgical need, an eye surgeon needs to always be available, and this just makes sense. If both optometrists and ophthalmologists would proactively educate their collective patients to “call us first” before going to an emergency department, several things could happen: • Patient care would be greatly enhanced. • Patients would save significant time and money. • Those caring practices would enjoy enhanced revenue. • Emergency department physicians, who have a variably limited skill set for eye problems, would become unencumbered from eye emergencies. We all need to step up to the plate and reach out to this subset of patients with urgent eye care needs. We applaud those optometrists already providing such emergency eye services, and to our friends at Vision Source for being formally proactive in this regard. PATIENTS ARE READY FOR REMOTE EYE EXAMS—ARE YOU? A company called DigitalOptometrics is offering full-time and parttime positions to optometrists who are willing to perform remote comprehensive eye examinations during the day, evenings and/ or weekends from their home office or other location of choice. DigitalOptometrics, which operates in the United States and Canada, uses live videoconferencing technology to enable comprehensive eye health and vision analysis remote eye examinations performed by licensed optometrists. The goal, according to the company, is to make comprehensive eye exams convenient to patients in both urban and remote locations by having exams performed remotely by licensed optometrists. Our take: These technologies are in their infancy and will only grow. Refraction-centric practices will be hurt. Medically-centric practices should be protected. Give this great contemplation. Fortunately, our colleagues at the AOA already have. The AOA kicked off a national public awareness campaign this year on the importance of an annual, in-person, comprehensive eye examination with an AOA family doctor of optometry—turning a moment (the tie-in of year 2020 and 20/20 vision) into a movement. SECTION I: STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS THE EYE AND THE ED • Most common ICD diagnoses: Conjunctivitis ..33% Corneal injury..13% Corneal foreign body ......8% Hordeolum....4% • Mean ED charge: $989.30 for eye visit • Eye visits: 1.5% of all visits —Vazini K, et al. Ophthalmology 2016;123(4):917-19 • “Approximately 387,000 patients per year present to US emergency departments with eye injuries, and children represent up to one-third of those injured.” —JAMA Ophthalmology, August 2018 REVIEW OF OPTOMETRY JUNE 15, 2020 7 Optometrists Can Rise to the Occasion This year, the world has been overwhelmed by the coronavirus pandemic, which filled hospitals with COVID-19 patients and ground the everyday workings of society to a halt.
Google Sites
Report abuse