There’s no doubt 2020 was a year like no other. Through it all, you showed resilience and commitment to caring for your patients. Throughout the disruption caused by the pandemic, the critical role Doctors of Optometry (ODs) have as part of a patient’s healthcare team was even more evident as thousands of patients turned to you for their urgent eye care needs in lieu of a hospital emergency room or urgent care clinic and in addition to their comprehensive eye care needs.

While one out of ten Americans get preventive health screenings¹, six out of ten VSP^® members get an eye exam.² ODs have a significant opportunity for early detection of chronic conditions like diabetes through a comprehensive eye exam, creating an easy bridge for patients to recognize eye care as healthcare, establishing you as an integral part of their overall continuum of care.

When you include important patient health-related data on claims, VSP stores and shares that information with you for reference during subsequent visits. Also, when available, we share that information directly with the patient’s health plan in a HIPAA-compliant manner, further integrating you into the patient’s healthcare team, providing added value to those VSP members. Additional tools are available on VSPOnline to help you collaborate care with the patient's primary care physician, bridging eye care to healthcare, elevating the role of optometry in overall health and wellness to produce positive outcomes for patients with chronic conditions.

Including patient conditions on your claims also provides value to VSP Vision Care clients in helping reduce healthcare costs which, in turn, helps VSP win and retain client contracts, bringing more patients into your practice. When you submit patient condition findings, we keep your patients’ data safe. This means we do not sell the information, share it in any way that violates HIPAA or PHI, or use it to market directly to your patients. We do use patient condition information to send reminders to members who have been identified as having diabetes or prediabetes and who have not had an eye exam in 14 months, driving patients back to your practice.

By sharing your patient condition findings on claims for patients with diabetes, diabetic retinopathy, hypertension, and high cholesterol, VSP network doctors have identified 8.5 million VSP Vision Care members as living with a chronic condition – 2.6 million with high cholesterol, 5.4 million with hypertension, and 3.3 million with diabetes and/or diabetic retinopathy.³

Thank you for all you do to care for your patients and connect them into the healthcare ecosystem. To learn more about how you can share your patient condition findings and earn additional revenue for your practice, visit the Submitting Patient Conditions page under Administration on VSPOnline at eyefinity.com.

^{1.    American Journal of Preventive Medicine 2012.
2.    VSP Utilization Data.
3.    Some patients are reported as having more than one condition. This number accounts for total count of members identified with one or more of these conditions since 2005.}

Your patients are at the core of your practice, and it’s crucial they’re able to access the exceptional care you provide. The COVID-19 pandemic immediately impacted practices in many ways, and with limited patient accessibility due to closures, stay-at-home orders, and required protocols, it became more important than ever to drive patients into your practice to get the care they need.

In addition to supplying PPE and resources to support your practice and reassure your patients it’s safe to seek care, VSP doubled down on marketing initiatives to VSP members and consumers to reinforce the importance of getting an eye exam from their VSP network doctor, especially for patients with diabetes and those at risk for prediabetes. In 2020, marketing efforts to VSP members delivered 150 million personalized communications and broader consumer communications focused on diabetes-related content, highlighting the valuable role of Doctors of Optometry, and encouraging patients to schedule an eye exam, resulted in 42 million media impressions.

The VSP^® Vision Care and American Diabetes Association (ADA) joint public health initiative offered even more opportunity to promote the value of a comprehensive eye exam for the early detection, intervention, and prevention of eye disease and vision loss caused by diabetes. Last year, the ADA hosted two virtual community events featuring VSP network doctors discussing the connection between diabetes and eye health, resulting in 98% of attendees indicating their intent to schedule annual eye exams. Plus, in 2020, one million new individuals were reached through ADA social media channels, creating even more opportunity to connect patients with VSP network doctors.

Your access to patients is a top priority and we’ll continue supporting your patient base and drive VSP members into your practice in 2021 and beyond. And we still have more good news from 2020 to share. Stay tuned!

While navigating the impacts of a global pandemic, many of you invested time and focus on education for yourself and your practice, including prioritizing time to attend online webinars to increase your knowledge about diabetes and earn Continuing Education (CE) credits.

In 2020, Premier Academy360^TM offered five CE courses, including “Focus on Diabetes: An Overview for Optometrists,” “Diabetes in 2020 and Beyond,” and “Building Blocks for a Great Optometric Diabetes Practice Parts I, II and III.” You and your staff responded to the offerings by virtually attending a total of 15,463 hours of CE diabetes content.

Plus, you can increase your exposure on the vsp.com Find a Doctor directory by earning an American Diabetes Association (ADA) badge to display on your directory listing. All the diabetes-related education you’ve taken is helping you move towards completion of the Premier Academy360 Diabetes Education Track to earn your ADA badge. Visit badging.premieracademy360.com to learn more about training and eLearning courses available to you and staff and the badges you can earn.

We’re working on our 2021 webinar and CE offerings that continue to offer these resources as effective and actionable education that’s credible, simple, and results-driven, and we will continue to share updates as new courses are available. In the interim, check back later this month as we continue to highlight more successes from 2020.