Training Aids for Today's Contact Lens Staff

BY ROBERT A. KOETTING, O.D.
JAN. 1997

What's so important about Dk? How can you tell if an RGP lens is warped? What causes GPC? These may be simple questions, but can your staff answer them? If not, don't you wish they could? Sure, you say, but who will teach them? Hey, look around! The most obvious source of information is right there in your office. In addition to journals and periodicals, you probably own three or four of the hundred or so good textbooks available. With these resources, you could easily begin an educational program whenever you like.

Assign some home study followed by time in the office to discuss the basics of contact lens wear and care. This approach is easy and economical, but if it's not for you, there's also help available from other sources.

BEYOND THE BOOKS

Contact lens reps want your business. Furthermore, they want to become better acquainted with your employees. So let them! All representatives of major companies have completed a course on contact lens fundamentals. Just ask one to coach a couple of your staff members and everyone will gain.

Fitting more specialty lenses -- toric, bifocal and cosmetic -- to suit a broader patient base and a growing presbyopic market requires more help in the exam room. RGP lenses are better than ever, but few technicians possess the skills necessary to modify them. Once your technicians are proficient with the basics, you'll want them to know a great deal more about lens fitting philosophies.

Selecting the proper training courses may not be easy. Unless you know specifically what an instructor plans to present, it's wise to review the notes after the course with an eye towards 'filtering out' any material with which you may not agree. Your staff should follow your vision care philosophy.

You might even want to design an 'exchange program' with another eyecare practitioner. Offer to guest lecture in his or her office in exchange for equal service for your own staff. The formality will make both presentations memorable.

There's no more effective morale booster for your office team than sending them to an eyecare exposition or a regional congress. The American Optometric Association and the state paraoptometric organizations put great effort into seeing that basic courses are available on programs all over the country. Employees genuinely appreciate these trips which make them worth every cent you spend.

SPEAKING WITH A SINGLE VOICE

In a contact lens practice, there are many questions to answer about mail-order lenses, refractive surgery, managed care plans, professional fees and on and on. Chances are that you have a very good answer for every question, but it's your personnel who are actually talking to your patients. Make sure they're conveying your message appropriately.

Prepared scripts can be quite helpful for the people who answer your telephone. Make a list of the most frequently asked questions and insist that your receptionist recite the answers until the delivery sounds natural. The same goes for chairside technicians. Save your own time by having staff members rehearse each other.

Hardly anything beats role-playing when it comes to gaining confidence. And your employees will have fun too. You'll find they can hardly wait to play the part of a cantankerous patient putting others on the spot. You'd better be on hand for this one though, because some guidance will probably be needed.

REGULAR STAFF MEETINGS WILL PAY OFF

Hold regular meetings with your staff to help determine the things they ought to know along with individual strengths and weaknesses. Plan six months or a year in advance with benchmarks to measure progress. Ask everyone to come in an hour early one day each week, or stay an hour late or dedicate a lunch. Be consistent and don't allow interruptions.

There are plenty of things to talk about and the best way to learn anything often involves trying to teach someone else. Assign one employee the task of teaching another so both will be responsible for the outcome.

Training today's contact lens staff may require changing some habits, but hasn't that always been true in the contact lens field? CLS

Dr. Koetting, an internationally recognized author and lecturer, has served as contact lens chairman of the American Optometric Association and has headed the Contact Lens Section of the American Academy of Optometry.