Dr. Carlson

Roughly 13 years ago, my husband (also an O.D.) and I were assessing the demographics of our area when we discovered that the number of Medicare patients — our main patient demographic — was growing, and our patient base was becoming older. While some may just view that as an aging population and do nothing about it, we decided to grow our younger patient population.

Right around this time, former President Jimmy Carter introduced the AOA’s InfantSEE program, so my husband and I became InfantSEE providers and set out to see every child born in our area. (It’s incumbent upon all of us to educate our patients about the importance of children’s vision and catch any early developmental issues.)

To accomplish this, we contacted local hospitals to place InfantSEE information and the name of our practice in “new mom” packets; we tracked birth announcements in the local newspapers and sent direct mail pieces to parents seven months later; we educated new parent patients about the program; and, most recently, we started photographing InfantSEE exam patients and putting them on the practice’s Facebook page with the frame, “I just had my first eye exam at Heartland Eye Care.” (We ask for the parent’s permission and use just the child’s first name to avoid any HIPAA issues.) We get tons of hits on the posts, which has been another great way to advertise this important service.

While we haven’t yet met our goal of seeing every infant in our area, we’ve performed 40 to 50 InfantSEE exams annually since the program’s inception in 2005, and between 50% to 80% of these babies are still our patients today. In fact, we have far more children in our primary care practice today than before, and everyone seems to enjoy it, especially our elderly patients who get such joy seeing infants and toddlers.

I get the impression that some optometrists are afraid to see children because they think children are difficult to examine. From experience, I can say that children are sometimes easier to examine than adults. So, if any O.D. is looking for a way to add a segment to their practice that is interesting and allows a practice to continue to thrive, add children. Once you examine a few, you’ll find they’re actually pretty easy. ■

--- Dori M. Carlson, O.D., F.A.A.O., Park River, N.D.