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coa
9 months
ago
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I believe this website will become a very useful tool for administrators in ophthalmology, and I just wanted to reach out and introduce myself. My name is Zach Thomas, and I have been in medical practice management for four and a half years. I am fairly new to ophthalmology; so I may post a lot of questions.
We’ve recently seen a drop in our LASIK numbers and we believe the economy is to blame. Just wondering how everyone else is doing in terms of volume for surgical procedures.
Thank you,
Zach Thomas, CAPPM
Carolina Ophthalmology Associates, PA
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jrene
9 months
ago
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While the uncertainty in the economy will make some people put off their decision to make a large expenditure towards an elective procedure like laser vision correction I believe another factor has equally attributed to the decline.
We saw our volume immediately impacted after the News & Observer ran their first of two negative articles on LASIK late September 2007. It was an extremely one sided article that placed a lot of doubt in people’s minds on the general safety of LASIK and the true outcomes. We had surgery and consultation cancellations with people directly citing the fear they felt after reading the article and concerns are still raised with reference to the article regularly. This article was also timed perfectly to coincide with FSA elections so some people that were planning to put money aside for procedures in 2008 chose not to. The follow up article that the N&O ran a few months ago featuring LASIK patients that were suicidal or had committed suicide didn’t help instill confidence either.
I think the decline we saw in the fall was directly associated with the negative industry publicity and the drop in the first quarter of 08 is a combination of that and economy concerns.
I would recommend looking at your consultation numbers in Q4 2007 vs. Q4 2006. If your consultation numbers were down then it’s not a surprise that surgery numbers are down Q1 2008 too. So many of our Q1 surgeries are driven by FSA’s. We are seeing our inquiry levels and consultations on the upswing and while still not quite up to 2007 levels it is a big percentage improvement over Q4 2007.
Hope that helps and would like to know if other centers in the area agree.
Jill Swartz
Refractive Coordinator
Laser Eye Center of Carolina
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