This article was originally published in a sponsored newsletter.

Many astigmatic patients have not found success with contact lens wear. Patients judge us based on their vision every day of the year. They may have difficulty with a loss of sharpness compared to their spectacles because of limited availability of parameters, unstable vision as a result of variable rotation of the lenses, or a loss of comfort during the day. These patients may be unwilling to try contact lenses again unless they know about the new and exciting changes with daily disposable options in this category. There are several new possibilities that could satisfy their visual and comfort needs during contact lens wear, and they need to hear about them.

Develop Your Message

Many patients spend more of their workdays in front of digital devices, making dryness and digital eye fatigue a greater issue than it has been previously. Their visual environment is demanding, but there are many new daily disposable lenses that provide enhanced wettability along with visual stability. When introducing these lenses to your patients, keep your initial pitch simple. I like to start off by saying, “We have many newer contact lens options that support improved ocular health, wettability, and visual stability that will likely also improve your contact lens-wearing experience.”

Keep Your Diagnostic Fit Set Full

Once you have generated excitement with patients about a new daily disposable contact lens, you want to send them home with it. However, when you are committed to prescribing more daily disposable lenses, it becomes more difficult to keep your diagnostic lens bank full. Even a small 0.25D change or 10° axis shift can make a big difference in success, so make sure someone in your office is responsible for restocking those trial lenses often.

Set the Stage and Make the Fitting Process Easy

Prepare your patients by discussing how astigmatism-correcting contact lenses only come in specific prescription ranges, but the fitting process helps ensure their astigmatism power and axis are lined up perfectly for their vision. This explanation helps set the stage for patients to understand that their contact lens prescription may be a little different compared to their spectacle correction, but it is customized for their eyes. Additionally, you can help patients understand the importance of stability in their contact lenses and the value of the fitting process by explaining their astigmatism with the cylinder power and axis demonstrations on the phoropter.
 
Astigmatic patients are an exciting category of daily disposable contact lens wearers. Keeping astigmatic patients in contact lenses provides significant value to your practice as well as the patients you help to see more clearly, and improved daily disposable toric contact lens designs allow your practice to offer a differentiated product.