Optical Equipment

In-Office Lens Making 
Traces a New Path

Some colleagues are going cutting edge when it comes to optical lab technology. Here’s how they make it work.

Admit it. If you and your optician hear one more patient say, “But I can get my new glasses in an hour at [insert competitor’s name here],” you’ll scream. Deep down, you both know you must meet your patients’ demands if you want your practice to survive in these managed-care times. Sometimes, a fully stocked dispensary loaded with fancy eyewear isn’t enough. Your patients want quality product, and they want it now.

Review of Optometry research shows that about two in five O.D.s have their own in-office optical labs. Among all your competitors, that percentage is even higher. Jobson’s 20/20 magazine reports that 54% of all three O’s have some type of in-office lens-making ability. And, as technology has advanced optical equipment with everything from simple-to-operate patternless edgers to remote tracers, the competition has gotten stiffer.

If you’ve considered building a new lab or upgrading the one you have, here’s a look at what other practices have done to cut their optical costs and boost service. 

Remote’s High Note

That time savings is what the principals in Eye Associates Optical Center of Lancaster, Pa., hoped for when they set up a Briot Scanform Net remote tracing system. It links up with the satellite office in New Holland, Pa., about 30 miles away. With this system, the New Holland opticians transmit data to the Lancaster lab’s edger for same-day processing.

Eye Associates spent about $10,000 for the remote system components, including installation, and another $30,000 4 years ago for an edger. Lab manager Suzanne Nissley notes that in less than a year, the remote system has slashed turnaround time in half and has paid for itself. “Our New Holland clientele is more inclined to re-use frames, so remote tracing works well for them,” Ms. Nissley explains. 

The remote tracer has brought another economy to the practice. “Using one lab for all our accounts also qualifies us for higher volume discounts from the lens manufacturers and eliminates a lot of confusion for our wholesalers,” the optical manager says. 

“Our group administrator calculated that when we farmed out jobs to a wholesale lab that charged between $5 and $10 per job, it cost us $500 to $1,500 per week (based on 100-150 weekly jobs). Over a year, that adds up to a range of $26,000 to $78,000,” she adds.

The Eye Care Group in Grants Pass, Ore., has also benefited from the addition of a Santinelli IntelliTrace remote tracing system 4 years ago. Optician Don Larson notes that this 16-employee practice operated by Kenji Hamada, O.D., spent about $14,000 for the package. This practice put one tracer at its front dispensary to transmit data to the lab in the back of the facility and another in a nearby ophthalmological office, for which Eye Care Group also processes orders. 

Mr. Larson, who has 36 years of industry experience, says he’s impressed with the remote system’s ease of use and time savings. “It only takes 15 minutes to show someone how to use it, and probably about 4-5 tries for someone to feel totally comfortable running it,” he says.

The practice has a fully stocked lab of CR-39 and polycarbonate lenses for its weekly average of 120 jobs. Before going remote, Eye Care Group sent those orders to a wholesale lab, at a cost of about $8 each. It also added an Optical Dynamic Systems lens-casting system (about $35,000) last year to process progressive addition lenses. About the only jobs that go to an outside lab are those that require AR coatings.

Eye Care Group made this upgrade mostly to meet the needs of a growing clientele of outdoor enthusiasts who frequently lose their glasses while rafting in the nearby Rogue River. “Most of the time, they lose their only pair of glasses, so we had to add the equipment to be able to fill replacement orders quickly and conveniently, or they would have gone elsewhere,” Mr. Larson explains.

One Giant Step for Service

Their total investment, including plumbing, was $110,000. Dr. Blase says the expense was worth it; the practice now completes 99% of optical orders in-house (except for AR coatings and glass lenses). 

“It wasn’t just an economic decision for us but one of better customer service too, because we now have an environment where we can do the job right for our patients,” Dr. Blase says. “Before we added this equipment, there was a 3-12% breakage rate on lenses. We’ve reduced that to 1%, so processing delays are minimal, too.”

Even a one-office practice can make a simple upgrade that can improve productivity. Optometrist Palmer Lee’s Eye Center Optometrics in Citrus Heights, Calif., recently upgraded its lab equipment when its referral-driven, family-oriented clientele “started telling us they could—and would—get their eyewear quicker somewhere else,” says optician Gary Bjostad. 

So, Dr. Lee’s practice added a Gerber Coburn Kappa lens-finishing system along with Optical Dynamics’ Q-2100 lens-casting system. The lab now handles all but glass lens orders in-house. “Jobs that used to take 2 days to complete now get done in half a day, even though we’re using the same materials as before,” Mr. Bjostad says. 

He estimates that the Kappa system will pay for itself within a year. Meanwhile, Mr. Bjostad is considering adding a remote tracing system to link up with two satellite offices.

Similarly, the Heights Eye Center near Hackensack, N.J., operated by James Aversa, O.D., just upgraded its in-house lab equipment. Before optician Donald Gaudiomonte joined the practice last year, the practice only had a lensometer, salt pan and adjusting tools. 

To better compete with the 15-20 practices in surrounding Bergen County, Heights Eye Center spent around $30,000 for a Briot Accura edger/finisher. Previously, all lens orders were sent to several area labs. 

Now, Mr. Gaudiomonte handles all 3-D scanning, edging, blocking and polishing in-house. Orders that used to take several days now take a day or less. He estimates the edging equipment will save the practice $18,200 in lab fees. “At that pace, our in-house Accura will pay for itself in less than 2 years.”

Where It’s Heading

ODI/Topcon President Bill Galindo observes that more practices are now playing catch-up. “The optometric industry traditionally had been rather conservative in general, but the technological expansion of the past decade has changed all that,” Galindo says. He notes that when patternless edgers revolutionized the industry by enabling dispensers to compete against the bigger optical chains, it was only the tip of the iceberg.

Todd Rhodes, Gerber Coburn’s group product manager, points out that today’s remote tracing systems are merely precursors to e-commerce capabilities. 

“The Internet will play an even bigger role in data transmission and product orders during the next 5 years,” he says. 

“We anticipate that just about every lens company and wholesale lab will have an Internet presence, so practitioners will have more options at their disposal,” he adds.

It can be confusing to wade through the growing sea of technological options to make your practice more efficient, but many of your colleagues are already doing it. 

Remote tracing or lens surfacing might not be for you. But neither is screaming when your next patient asks, “How fast can I get those glasses?” 

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Time for an Upgrade? Go Figure

• Take stock of your existing equipment. Can it process all types of lens materials? The latest technology is not only designed to handle all lens materials and frame shapes, but it’s also more user-friendly. 
• Don’t try to modify your existing equipment. Some dispensers try to update their machines by adding another diamond wheel to process each new lens material. The end result: more errors and higher costs for returns. “If in-house labs had the right equipment to begin with, they could avoid losing money fixing these mistakes,” Mr. Galindo says.
• Compare costs. How much do you spend on lab orders vs. the cost of doing them in-house? Calculate your monthly lab costs per job by lens material. Compare that to the cost of stock lenses. Multiply the differences by the number of monthly jobs, and add it all up for the average monthly in-house edging savings sub-total. Then, subtract your monthly equipment payments. Some equipment can pay for itself within a year or two, others could take longer. Norman Blase, O.D., of Chicago recommends a 5- to 7-year payback period.
• Do your research. If you plan to expand your current location and/or add satellite offices, first examine what other practices with similar objectives have done. Ask colleagues for advice, and ask patients what their service expectations are.—H.B.


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