For instance, you might help your patient avoid eye strain if they spend hours working on a computer by advising them to use a plastic or poly lens with AR coating. If the person is using a line-free multifocal for appearance, visual acuity, and eye health, s/he should be using a visually appealing and effective prescription when s/he is at work in front of the public s/he wants to impress. If you wear a line-free multifocal sometimes (progressive is a negative word for many people – avoid using it in the dispensary), you also should wear a comparable in-office multifocal that you believe in when you face your patients. Practice what you preach and your patients may imitate your practice.

Positive education will get you and your patients where you want to go. Your patients are in the dispensary to pick your brain. You have the knowledge and the expertise to help your patients maintain their eye health and see their world more clearly. Your patients have the power of the purse. Do not confuse your role and your power.

You present and educate, they choose: therefore, allow the person sitting in front of you the uninterrupted time to exercise that power to choose. Silence is golden, especially after you have presented an eye health choice that is new to your patient. Let your patient be the first to speak about that choice presentation. You may surprise yourself at how often when you expose the patient to an eye health need that s/he chooses to make that need into a new pair of eyeglasses.

You are in charge of you. If you have parts of your life you do not approve of, look in a mirror, because that is the person who has the power of persuasion to effectuate change.

If you want the Doctor who practices in your office to be more involved in educating your patients about what lenses and lens technologies are recommended for their eye health, you are in charge of making it happen.

First, set the tone. Thank the Optometrist or Ophthalmologist for bringing the patient to you and ask her/him if there are any recommendations they have for you to consider when helping this patient choose the best eyeglasses to enhance his/her visual needs. If there are recommendations, write them down while the patient watches, or underline them on the prescription for the patient to see. Whether or not your Optical Doctor has considered doing this in the past, your asking the question enhances the Doctor’s stature and may draw the Doctor into the eyeglass dispensing process now and in the future. Is this something you, as the dispenser, want to see happen? As an aside, if it is the patient who brings you the prescription from an outside Doctor, thank her/him for choosing to entrust their visual needs to you. Thankfulness sets a tone.

Secondly, show you care about your patients by asking them about their life. If you don’t know the patient, ask, “Tell me something about the things you enjoy doing.” If you know them, you might ask, “How is your golf game going?” Knowledge about what is frustrating them about their game might open an opportunity to educate them about how wearing Drivewear lenses might improve their score, or make it easier to follow the hit ball through the air in the dimmer light of morning or evening. If the patient describes his/her outdoor activities, you can dispense the knowledge of the value of prescription polarized lenses for visual acuity, improved eye health, and personal safety.

Keep the way you phrase your knowledge simple and easy for a lay person to understand, and make only one point at a time, or at most two points. Always end your knowledge statement with an “open ended” question for the patient: a question that can not be answered with a simple “yes” or “no.” For instance, “When has glare bothered you, even when you are wearing those beautiful sunglasses you have there?”

Thirdly comes that most dreaded moment when you must mention the price of these lenses that your patient has not even asked you for. How do you successfully overcome this hurdle that many of you place in your own path? After your educational explanation, and since your patient has mentioned reasons that the current glasses s/he owns might not serve her/his needs, suggest the appropriate lenses with AR, the total cost for lenses and additional eye health technologies (not coatings, since a mere coating may unintentionally come off), and then you might ask, “What type of frame do you feel would be most appropriate for your polarized sunglasses?”

Do you feel you are putting pressure on your patient by presuming to ask this question? Why is this presumption not pressure? Because your patient has just described dissatisfaction with using her/his current glasses, you have presented a solution with a lens cost, and you have asked an open ended question. Now comes the hardest part for you to master. Remain silent.

Yes, this is the hardest part. To be an effective dispenser, you must allow your patient the uninterrupted time to consider the new information you have given. Now, before you say another word, give this patient the time to consider whether she/he wants to use this new knowledge to improve his/her visual experience with the eyeglasses you have recommended as best able to fulfill his/her visual needs. If the patient indicates what frame she/he wants, you know what to do. Even if the patient says, “No,” say to the patient as you do it, “I am writing your work visual needs on your chart, and your complaints about using your regular glasses in this environment, so the Doctor can evaluate these needs when you next see her/him.” No other comment from you is necessary.

Especially do not try to sell him/her these glasses. Do not remind this patient of some of the cogent reasons for buying this pair of specialized eyeglasses. Respect this decision, and continue to dispense new knowledge. Ask your open ended questions. Then remain silent. Your patient will remember that you respected a “No” decision, and will respect that he/she is not being subjected to a sales pitch, but that you are sharing your knowledge so she/he can make an informed choice about his/her eye health and vision needs.

By empowering the patient, you are building a trustful relationship. If your patient trusts that you care for him/her, and also about her/his visual needs, do you think that she/he might be more inclined to choose to buy glasses from your practice?

You are in charge of you. If you think that any of the ideas you read in EyeCare Professional might lead to your achieving your goals for your practice or your life, try them on for size. If they fit, wear them proudly. If they need alteration to fit your style or to fit the way your clientele sees the world, make the necessary alterations. Act now, procrastinate later. And treat every “A-ha” moment as a “Just do it” moment.