Babies don’t plan their arrival around their mother’s schedule. Kiranjeet Sran, OD, of Lumos Eyecare in Bridgewater, New Jersey, learned that when her little girl, Ruhi, was born six weeks early in June—two days before Dr. Sran’s delivery of advanced dry eye equipment was due. “I called the team from Lumenis and said I was going to need a little help,” she recalls.
She had planned that the OptiLIGHT intense pulsed light and OptiPLUS radio frequency instruments would arrive before her maternity leave, allowing her time to study manuals and get used to how it works before she went back to work. So she was less stressed than surprised with the timing.
“I have a great team of four part-time associates, and I recently added a new doctor who is eager to work with dry eye patients. That doctor also just had a baby,” Dr. Sran says.
“What was supposed to happen was that I’d have a month to implement the process with the technology in person. But instead, we’re taking this time to look at marketing and process, and we’re waiting until I’m back in the office to oversee the implementation.”
SHORT SEPARATIONS
Following a 15-day NICU stay, the baby came home and is doing well. Although Dr. Sran plans to stay on maternity leave for much of 2024, since mid-September, she started going into the office on Sunday afternoons for a few hours. Now that she has studied the mechanics and sketched out her presentation, she’s eager to see how well these planned systems and conversations go. “I expect a little trial and error in learning how to connect with patients so that they will see the benefits of these amazing treatments,” she says.
She has worked in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval and the research on the technology and the treatments. “The FDA-approval that OptiLIGHT carries was a main factor in me deciding to work with Lumenis. It carries a lot of weight with patients to know this technology has been proven to work in permanently treating dry eyes. It also gives me the confidence that the FDA-cleared OptiPLUS will only amplify the success of its counterpart,” she says.
IN A CORPORATE LOCATION
Dr. Sran’s practice is affiliated with Costco, with one exam lane and one pretesting room that doubles as a contact lens fitting area and reception area. “We use all of the space we have. We have set up some false walls so that we can use the front area for all these purposes. And we schedule 30-minute exam slots to minimize any bottlenecks,” she says.
In addition to adding dry eye services, Dr. Sran has also began offering myopia management services earlier this year. “We’ve added Optos Retinal Imaging Camera and the Topcon Myah Optical Biometer and Topographer.” In fact, she is replicating how she implemented myopia management with her dry eye introductions. “I’m using the same business plan and just changing the script. We’ll do the consultation and I’ll offer a courtesy telehealth visit to explain the procedures,” she says.
DEVELOPING DRY EYE PROTOCOL
Dr. Sran says the corporate location actually offers some benefits for growing specialty focus areas. She can be open seven days a week—any time the store is. And her associates are excited about it. She offers a profit-sharing associate arrangement, so there’s a benefit to everyone to help grow the practice.
“The associates didn’t expect to have this kind of equipment here, but now that they see it is, they are eager to get the training and certification to be able to offer these services. We have a ‘let’s do this’ mentality.” Several of her associates are mothers of young children, and Dr. Sran says that the group works really well together to support each other. “Many employed doctors feel like they don’t have flexibility. I chose the profit-sharing model to enable everyone to feel some ownership.”
“I think it’s going to be more commonplace to not be concerned about the setting when it comes to providing expanded services to patients,” she says. “I’m a believer that there’s a smart solution where we can help the most patients. There’s no reason to be limited by the setting.”
Read how Dr. Sran added myopia management services to her corporate-affiliated practice.
