The past months have seen a flurry of headline-producing news in the contact lens industry. Chances are, with each new headline, practitioners have found themselves saying, "How will this affect my account with this company?"

While stability of product flow during turbulent times in the industry was not my initial reason for selecting a contact lens distributor, it is a benefit.

In fact, my initial reason was one shared by many other practitioners�the ability to get better pricing on products frequently not provided to lower volume practices. We started with a distributor about 12 years ago, when our practice had five locations. Today, our practice has grown to 11 locations, and we have 14 O.D.s.

Simplicity Of Ordering

Many of you know the administrative, accounting, and inventory headaches of ordering for multiple locations. We simplify ordering by making one call to one voice for our contact lens orders.

We have a central inventory in our main office so we can courier lenses to our other locations that day or the next. That primary inventory is re-supplied every day. And our other offices can order directly from the distributor as well.

In fact, patients can re-order lenses from us and have them delivered by mail. That makes our practice competitive with direct-to-consumer mail-order houses and allows us to monitor patient compliance. To accomplish those same dual goals �retain replacement lens business and maintain patient compliance�our distributor offered us a free Website that allows our patients to order replacement lenses online.

In deciding whether a distributor makes sense for you, the bottom line analysis has to go beyond cost savings on a lens. Calculate the time it takes staff to call multiple manufacturers to place orders, plus the bookkeeping, accounting and inventory time required, and then factor all of that into the cost.

A Need For Speed

Let�s face it. Patients want their contact lenses now. That�s why we keep a large inventory of lenses. But few, if any, practices can dispense 100 percent of patient orders out of inventory. However, a full-service distributor can provide a deep and wide inventory. With overnight delivery, we have a good chance of being able to deliver lenses to most patients the next day.

It�s not hard to imagine the number of times such speedy service comes in handy. Countless times, we�ve been able to deliver a lens and earn the ardent praise of the patient for whom things looked quite desperate the day before.

The inventory held by a full-service distributor is crucial. Remember, a distributor�s sole purpose is to distribute lenses. Our offices can call, fax, or order on-line by 5 p.m. for overnight delivery.

Plus, our distributor is very candid and accurate about the availability of a lens. Let�s say you determine a particular lens would be the initial choice for a patient. A call to the distributor will let you know whether that lens is available. If not, it will offer a recommended substitute. That�s a big benefit, as I�d rather select another lens option than put the patient into the frustrating cycle of waiting out shipping delays.

One Report

Information is critical to any business plan. And while contact lens manufacturers are generally quite good at supplying detailed purchasing information, it�s easy to reach information overload if you receive a half dozen of these reports regularly.

The distributor, on the other hand, produces one report which can assimilate the data in any way we request�by manufacturer, lens type, office location or any

other way we see as useful. The monthly reports come in handy whenever we need to make decisions about whether to change product lines, switch from one company to another, evaluate our central inventory or determine where our contact lens profit centers are.

Service is at the heart of the business for a contact lens distributor. In the years we�ve been with Wise Optical, we�ve seen them evolve with us. Our initial needs were better product pricing and good delivery. Now our requirements are more complex�and Wise has shown that it can service a large group practice with multiple needs as professionally as a smaller practice seeking volume pricing.

Service is also at the heart of the business for our practice. Having a distributor with a parallel goal has increased our effectiveness. And we can relax, even while contact lens companies vie for market position. If ordering and delivery are effected when lens companies are merged, we can rest assured that large distributors will be relatively unaffected by the change. That means our supply will remain as reliable as ever. EB

Stephen F. Bolick, O.D., is president and CEO of Eye Care Associates, headquartered in Raleigh, N.C.