Specialty Lenses Unplugged

Ever heard of “Try not 2 blink?” The cohosts of this interesting podcast become the interviewees as Drs. Deom and Habibi share their thoughts about their eyecare journey, how specialty contact lenses have impacted the lives of their patients, and their outlook for optometry over the next few decades.

If you’ve been to contact lens or dry eye CE lectures in the past few years you’ve most likely heard Drs. Mile Brujic and David Kading lecture. Or, you’ve read one of their many publications. Or, as a student, you were exposed to the many offerings of Optometric Insights to help grow your career. Now, you can hear each of these innovators describe their passion for eyecare and how they hope to impact ECP’s and their patients for years to come.

The HydraPEG story is an interesting one – a Silicon Valley startup company with the goal to increase contact lens wearing time and comfort. Hear from Dr. Vic McCray, Brandon Felkins and Karen Havenstrite on how they took a biological approach to creating a product that results in contact lens patient success.

Want to learn more about keratoconus? How about building an OD-MD optometric practice? Guest Dr. Barry Eiden shares his experiences in these areas in a spirited, enlightening discussion.

There’s lots of interest in kids and contact lenses today. Guests Dr. Jeffrey Walline and Dr. Jennifer Fogt share with us tips for managing children and their parents with contact lenses for refractive errors, aphakia and post-surgery.

Interested in how to start and build a specialty contact lens practice? Hear how Dr. Elise Kramer went into the highly competitive South Florida market and survived – and now is thriving as she discovered the importance of differentiation from the practices near her.

Interesting, out-spoken, controversial. These are all excellent descriptions of our guest Dr. Art Epstein. Listen and learn about the intricacies of setting up a dry eye practice and incorporating new products and lenses to improve patients’ quality of life.

Highly sought-after international speaker and scleral lens expert Dr. Tom Arnold joins the podcast to discuss what ignited his interest in specialty contact lenses, ocular photography and building a community on social media.

In this episode, Craig discusses the steps necessary to gear up your practice as a specialty lens "center of excellence." Listen in as he describes how to devise a path to become a contact lens specialist, beginning with what instrumentation is critical for acquisition of pertinent ocular data. He also provides suggestions on where to gain knowledge in specialty areas such as scleral lenses, custom soft lens design, presbyopia and orthokeratology. Plus, additional tips and opinions will be provided from industry experts. 832424

In this episode, Craig visits the headquarters of Contamac Ltd. located in beautiful Saffron Walden, Essex in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1987, Contamac is a global leader in the manufacture of contact lens and intraocular lens materials. Craig is first welcomed by managing director Rob McGregor to learn more about where Contamac began and where it is heading. Next, R&D manager Tristan Tapper discusses the process of developing new products and what new technologies the future could hold. Finally, Martin Conway discusses his role in professional services and how he works with eyecare practitioners and on educational initiatives within the industry. 832424

In this episode, Dr. Stephanie Woo joins Craig to discuss her path towards becoming an expert in specialty lenses and a partner in a multiple site practice located in two different states. From how she works with her highly trained staff to manage a demanding patient schedule, to tips on how to manage contact lens reimbursement, billing, and coding, Dr. Woo provides interesting insights into her busy specialty lens practice. 832424

In this episode, Craig sits down to discuss a question on everyone’s mind – you have worked hard to become one of best in your community at providing specialty custom lenses, but how do you let patients and other health care providers know? Listen as we chat with Dr. Jason Miller about how he was able to build his multi-doctor practice by generating internal and external referrals and hear some of his tips for increasing referrals in your practice. 832424

In this episode, Craig is joined by Randy Kojima to discuss the utilization of topography when fitting contact lenses. The title, which refers to double-checking before you take action, is extremely appropriate in fitting contact lenses. Join in and listen to one of the world’s experts on the use of topography and profilometry as he shares how precise ocular measurements can make your patients more successful in their lenses. 832424

In this episode, Craig welcomes guests from across the globe as Eef van der Worp joins us from the Netherlands to discuss scleral shape and the utilization of customized lenses in Europe. Craig is then joined by Dr. Matt Lampa to discuss soft lens fitting in the United States and his methods to offset the high amount of soft contact lens dropouts through utilization of customized soft lens designs and parameters. 832424

In this episode, Dr. Brooke Messer joins Craig for a conversation about multifocal contact lenses and how she achieves extremely high success rates by providing products to specifically fit the individual presbyopic patient’s visual and lifestyle needs. From learning about how Brooke became interested in multifocals, to how she utilizes instrumentation and a wide variety of lens options to obtain the best visual outcome, Craig and Brooke discuss how they approach presbyopic fitting. 832424

In this episode, Craig welcomes Drs. Melissa Barnett and Jeff Sonsino to kick off our journey with a discussion about scleral lenses and their place in the market today. From how they became experts in scleral lens fitting, to how they select their patients and utilize technology to aid in their fits, Jeff and Melissa discuss how scleral lenses have changed their practices and offer their thoughts and (often differing) opinions on their role in the optometric practice today. 832424