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$1,200 Revenue Per Patient in a Single-OD Practice & Neurolens’ Rebrand to Newton
00:53:49
Ten Patients. $1.2K Each. How Dr. Evie Lawson Rebuilt the Exam and the Business What if your next growth leap didn’t come from seeing more patients, but from redesigning the visit itself?
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Foreign.
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I'm your host, Eugene Schottzman, and today's episode is one that I think you'll enjoy. My guest today is Dr. Evie Lawson. Her practice is in downtown Seattle and it's anything but ordinary. She has a single doctor office, she's got high rent, and she's figured out how to turn 10 patients a day into an average of $1,200 a patient. How? Well, she talks about it during the episode, but she talks about her tech forward experience that patients actually value like giant TV screens, esthetics, dry eye independent frames, premium lenses. And she gives you a lot of the behind the scenes of how she actually does her work. And she also talks about the decision that she kind of had to make over Covid about dropping vsp, which ended up increasing her profitability, and how she hasn't looked back since. This alone would be worth an episode. But there's also big news this week. Neurolens, a company that most people know of and Evie happens to be one of the top prescribers for, is officially rebranding to Newton and launching a new product called Sequel Lenses. So we cover what this means. We kind of report on Evie's perspective of how SQL differs from therapeutic neurolens that you may already know and report really kind of how she sees what this shift means for her practice and for other private practices. So this conversation, you'll hear Evie's story. You'll also hear the news and kind of her take on this whole rebrand from neurolens to Newton and Newton's next chapter. And before we get into it, just a quick reminder. I do respond if you reach out, if you've got feedback, an idea for a future episode, or just a question, head over to Eugene Shotsman.com or the power Hour website. Drop me a note and if and make sure you're subscribed on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen so that you never miss an episode. And now, here's today's Power Hour. Welcome to the Power hour. I have Dr. Evie Lawson joining me today. Welcome to the show.
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Thank you so much. I'm so honored to be here.
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Well, and it's a really interesting episode because it's not every day that we actually cover the news of literally as it's happening today type of news. So today is a big day for a well known company in the optometric space. Neurolens and Neuralens is changing their name to Newton. And neurolens is also coming out with a whole new lens product that is different than its traditional neural lens product that everybody's, that I think everyone knows it for. And we're going to talk about some of that. But the reason I really wanted to talk to you, Evie, is that you're one of the top prescribing Neurolens practices in the nation. And so obviously you would have some insight as to why, you know, some of these changes are happening. And I think that we'll get to that later in the episode. But just to give the audience a little bit of context, now that we said, okay, these are, this is the news. We've already, we've dropped the news. We'll talk more about it a little bit later. And first though, let's jump into so that the audience has context as to who you are, how you got involved in the first place with neurolens or prescribing neuralens and what it's done for your practice. Let's start there and you tell a little bit of your story.
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Absolutely. Well, I'm honored to be here, Eugene. I've been watching you for years and this is super fun to be, to finally meet you sort of in person. I'm a single doctor practice in downtown Seattle. I've been open for about 14 years. This is the third practice that I started cold and I have also bought a second practice and incorporated into this practice. But in 2020, as everybody knows, Covid was a really, really rough time being downtown location. I lost about 60% of my volume and I was in network with VSP, lots of medical billing. But as everybody can understand, if I lose 60% of my volume being in network with ESP, I was really hurting. I wasn't going to make it through. It was very clear I was going to have to close my doors. So I said, well, if I'm going to go down, I'm going to go down in flames. And in the process of making this decision, I had purchased neurolens. I had a lot of colleagues, some of the smartest optometrists in Canada and the U.S. and they told me I really needed it. I'm in a tech heavy environment. I'm, you know, downtown surrounded by large businesses and bringing on Neurolens. I was super, super successful. Right off the bat, I had a product that no one else around me had. And it was cash pay, which was a huge eye opener that all of a sudden my profitability was skyrocketing because my, because ESP wouldn't cover this lens. So that that big trigger and kind of Red flag, or I guess White flag, made me realize that being out of network with ESP was going to be the only move I could make and survive Covid, given the volume that I had. I did it. I immediately did what?
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You dropped vsp.
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Dropped vsp? Yep.
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Okay, so. And that was just VSP or other.
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I only was vsp. I didn't have any of the others.
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Okay, got it. And what impact did it have on your practice when you did?
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Immediately tripled my profitability. And Eugene, I'll give you numbers if you want. I was number per patient was about $540 per patient. Pre dropping BSP. I went up to $1200 per patient on average.
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Wow.
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I mean, it was. It was crazy. So. And I'm. And I've continued to increase, introducing other technologies, but moving back to Neurolens, you know, I very, very quickly became one of their top providers because my patients were coming in and wanting the best higher end frame lines. I do aesthetics and dry eye treatments and neurolens helped me grow and helped me set myself apart as a private practice.
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Okay. So. And let's list all of them one more time. So you've got aesthetics.
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Yep.
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Neural lens.
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Yep.
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Dry eye.
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Yep.
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You have higher end frames. So kind of a higher end optical. Was it mostly independent type of stuff?
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All independent? Yeah.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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Independent frame. So independent frame lines on your optical. What else were the kinds of things? Because what I'm kind of picturing is it's a very unique experience in your practice and you're probably not seeing 30 patients a day.
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No. Yeah, I see 10.
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Okay, so you see 10 patients a day, but at, you know, $1,200 average revenue per patient, that's a pretty good day.
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Yeah, it's a really good day.
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Right. For any practice. That's a great.
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Yeah.
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So let's talk about that kind of. That mix of services and we can come back to neuro lens momentarily. But the mix of services, I just actually want to go back to that moment where you dropped vsp.
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Yep.
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You had to let your patients know.
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Yep.
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And I'm sure there are some patients that will would never come back to you as a result. What was the response from your patient base?
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I. I would say that 90% of them, obviously. It's funny you asked me that, Eugene, because at the same time that I, I made that decision, I wrote the letter to vsp. I also read an incredible book called the Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz. And it's essentially how do you make the biggest pumpkin in the patch and you kill the other little pumpkins? You know, we all know this concept of the fact that our, our highest, biggest, best patients only take about 10% of our time, but they produce the 10% of what we make. So when I, when I did that, I lost the patients I wanted to lose. I lost the patients that take all the time, that are not willing to pay cash for their health, that, you know, they didn't want to do anything above and beyond. So it was a. It was a huge natural pumpkin plan. Plan, if you will. I killed all the little ones and I got my big, biggest pumpkins. So those patients that are, that are new to me, they come in expecting to have to pay, but they know they're going to get something very, very different.
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So, like, if I call your practice today.
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Yep.
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And we hear these calls all the time. Right. A patient calls, says, hey, are you, Are you accepting new patients? Yes. Okay, can I schedule an appointment? Oh, by the way, do you guys take my insurance? What's your response?
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We say we can absolutely bill your insurance. We are out of network. We are happy to do. To bill your insurance. And we use anagram. So we just explain to them, we look it up right then and just help them understand that because your insurance limits the product and the services we can provide, then we're going to go ahead and we made the decision to not be in network, and. But we can still bill your insurance for you.
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Okay, got it. So it's not necessarily that your patients are coming in and expecting to not at all have any relationship, just that they. They expect to have a different relationship with.
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Right. Yeah. I mean, we're really clear. We. There's no, you know, we don't want to bait and switch. We don't want to be dishonest. So we're very, very clear that you will pay everything up front. We will submit for you so you don't have to do any of the work. And then you will get that check from VSP or NBN or EyeMed or whichever one they have.
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Right. So just to normalize it, what's an eye exam in your practice and what does it include?
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Eye exam is for the cost, you mean?
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Yeah. What's the cost? And then what does it include? What's kind of.
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I have optos. We run neurolens on everybody. We do my binography on everybody. You know, obviously, auto, refractor topography, and then the refraction, the entrance exams, the health history, the slit lamp exam. I have large screen TVs like really, really big screen TVs mounted on each wall. I pull up their OCT, I pull up their, their neural lens evaluation, their optos evaluation. So I have all of the fun cool things and every year have been able to add more fun cool things. And a huge part of that is going back to neural lens slash. Newton has continually helped me bring new products into the practice. It's a comment that every single one of my patients gives me, like, holy cow, you're always having new things. You always are up on the technology.
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Yeah. And so it's a really tech forward exam. How much time are you spending with each patient?
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So I have a tech, she texts and scribes, she spends about a half an hour and then I spend, I can get through the exam in 15 minutes because she's gathered all the data. But I talk a lot, as you can tell. So I chat up my patients, find out how their life is and if they need that education on the neuro lens or dry eye, then I have that extra time. So we have hour slots.
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Got it. That's great. So, so my take on that is that, okay, so they come in, they have a really unique tech first experience in your practice. Then you come in and you kind of explain what the findings look like using your big tv. Just perfect, right? Like perfect. And now let's talk about the recommendations you're making and also what your treatment acceptance plan looks like for each of those things that we talked about. You know, your neuro lens treatment acceptance plan, your dry eye treatment acceptance plan and everything else. You know, what, what's your capture rate look like in your office?
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Yeah, I mean our capture rate is, because, so starting backwards, our capture rate is, is ridiculous. Again, most of our patients are coming in because they know they're going to do be getting different technologies. So we actually have over 100% capture rate. We, we do lots of multipair multiple pair sales. We are right, you know, on the, we have a storefront. So we have a lot of people who are on vacation, they come in shopping for glasses, shopping for sunglasses. So that's not really fair to compare capture rate. But I would say, you know, the patients who are actually buying glasses or contact lenses from us, I would say is close to 90%. You don't lose a lot of outside prescriptions.
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B
And now this is where I think it's really interesting because you again, you are a single provider, single door practice, but you're one of the top, top prescribers of neurolens in the country which clearly communicates to people that, you know, there's a need possibly unless you serve a really, a really niche part of the population. But I want to hear your pitch to the patient. I, you know, if I'm a new patient in your chair and I just went through all of this stuff and you know, I'm a candidate for something like neurolens, what do you say to me?
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Well, so the first thing I'm going to talk about is first of all, your eyes look really healthy. You know, and we've, I have new technologies that are allowing me to evaluate in more depth very, very quickly and easily, with more repeatability and reliability how your eyes are working together. You know, we've done a great job in our industry of making sure that eyes are healthy and normal, making sure that they can see in their 2020. And we've kind of ignored, unless they're very symptomatic or it's their first eye exam or there's a big reason why we need to move into binocular vision more, we've ignored it. But to have that kind of screening device right in front of me, especially for those patients who sit all day in front of a computer screen and have multiple headaches, this is for many patients, has been a life changing lens. So when I'm able to really weed out those patients and, and say, hey, your symptoms are a result of this, check out this little diagram here. This is how your eyes work, this is how I'd like them to work. And this is why we need to do a specialized lens for you. And when explaining that the prism really does help reduce tons of the fatigue, even patients who are not overly symptomatic, if they do have a high exophoria or I'll just advise them and say, hey, someday this might be a really valid lens for you.
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B
And when you explain the lens, what are the top questions that patients are asking?
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I don't, I mean, I guess I don't get a lot of questions. A lot of people will ask, you know, the price point. And I don't typically check price. I just tell them that it is a really expensive lens. So most customizable lens that we have on the market. So price is always, well, not always, but a lot of times front and center of the conversation.
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B
But I, I like how you put it because you're saying it's going to be expensive, fine, but it's kind of like you're, you're making it pretty obvious that like, okay, that's going to be the top reason you don't take care of your health, then you're probably, you know, then you probably shouldn't be in my chair. It's almost like in that matter of fact way. But my, my impression is that the way that you're approaching it is you're saying, look, price shouldn't be the consideration, it should be your, it should be what this lens can do for you.
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Yeah, it's, you know, and the whole process of. Because I have been a very prominent prescriber for neurolens for a long time. I do get asked questions by Newton, by the, by the team, by the company themselves. And so being in on the, you know, I was in the beta pilot program with their new lens that's coming out and I couldn't talk about it. I didn't even know the name there was, I didn't know what it was all about. All I knew was that it was a lens that could help people who were not symptomatic. It was basically an anti fatigue. Again I learned as I went and what it really solidified for me as I was testing it out, moving my patients into their new SQL lens and understanding the difference between Neuro Lens and SQL. It helped me solidify in my brain that NeuroLens is a therapeutic lens. It helps symptoms, it's, you know, it's a guaranteed symptom relief. Whereas other lenses on the market, they're going to help you see clearly and with sequel they're certainly going to reduce some of that fatigue from screen use. But neuro lens is a very, very special lens.
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B
Yeah. And you know, I think, I guess I'm curious, for the traditional neuro lens, what percentage of your patients were candidates?
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Uh, I mean probably a good, I, I think I was doing about 50% neuro lens.
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Well, hold on. So let's, before we talk about acceptance rates, let's talk about, you know, so if you see, yeah, I'm going to just say let you see 10 a day. So okay, that's 200amonth. So out of those for every hundred patients that you see, how many are neuro lens candidates?
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You know a 90 if they sit in front of a computer screen. I mean they're not all symptomatic. But before Sequel Newton's new lens, I didn't have an alternative that did what Neuralens does. So that's where the struggle was that I was recommending neuro lens to almost every single patient. They spend 12 hours on a device and they're tired at the end of the day. And you know, there's, there's those, there's those ESO patients, there's those patients with extraordinarily high ACA ratios that they really are not neurolens candidates. In fact, they hate them. I have an employee who's one and we've tried everything and she hates the neuro lens, she hates the new SQL lens. But she's a ESO patient, which makes sense. It's the sciences. It just does not work for her. So there's those 10% patients who are Convergence Access and or ESO. They are absolutely not neurolens candidates. But it's really rare when I don't have a patient who isn't a neuro lens candidate or pre sequel who wasn't a neuroends candidate.
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B
Okay, so now this is important. So you have, you believe that if they're basically spending time in front of a computer, then they could benefit from something like neural lens or the new SQL lens, which we'll cover in a minute. But the, the, your belief is that nine out of ten patients are a good candidate. And of the nine patients that you present Neurolens pre sequel that you present Neurolens to, what is your acceptance rate?
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About 50%.
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Okay, perfect. So this is, you know, and I think that's, I cover things like this on the show because I think people tell me all the time like, well, you know, it's super, this thing, whether it's dry eye or myopia or whatever, it's a super subspecialty. Only 2% of my patients, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, well, no, it's actually possible to do it differently. And so I like talking to people who are exceeding in that particular area. Now I am also curious because you mentioned a few other things. Dry eye, for example, what's your treatment acceptance rate for dry eye and what do you do for dry eye?
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A
Well, so here's the thing. The data shows that about 90% of our patients have dry eye. Honestly, I don't think I do a good enough job at diagnosing and treating it. I don't diagnose and treat 90% of my patients with dry eye. Right. I would say that I diagnose and treat and I have become, I'm sure Everybody here knows Dr. Perryman. Dr. Laura Perriman has kind of been my mentor and she refers quite a few patients to me as well for neurolens evaluations, but also if they need to get seen earlier. So, you know, in understanding and learning with her as I've grown in my dry eye practice, then it's something that when patients come in that are very symptomatic, my acceptance rate on that and on a dry eye treatment for IPL and radio frequency is probably about 90% when they're symptomatic.
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B
Got it.
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A
It's probably about 50% when they're non symptomatic.
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B
Well, and you say you do a My biography for everybody, so do you review that? My biography and what. And when you say, when you talk about candidates for dry eye, if they're not symptomatic, you're not necessarily focusing on the. My biography might be focusing on something else.
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A
Right. Yeah. So, I mean, again, my big screen TVs do it all. They show the picture to the patient. I scroll from the OCT to the OPTOs to the. My binography to the neuro lens. I've done everything right there. If there's something in my world that I'm like, oh, you know, you've got a huge retinal bleed. We got to talk about that. We dive into that part of it. If there's half the meibomian glands are atrophied or missing, I jump way into that. Right. I mean, it's what the patient is really needing and after. And sometimes it ends up taking a lot more time.
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B
So your treatment plan. So, so your acceptance for a treatment plan when you present it for dry eye is what said.
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I mean, 90%.
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Okay, got it.
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Yeah.
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B
And so that's really, really interesting. And I mean, I think you loosely mentioned aesthetics. Is that a big focus for you? Is that just a consequence of having an ipl?
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Yeah, that's. I mean, I very quickly realized I'm way outside of my wheelhouse. I mean, what do I say to patients? I can help you with that. You should fix that. I mean, that's. That's. I don't know how to approach aesthetics. I'm just. I can't do that. So I hired a master esthetician full time almost immediately. Who? That's her job. That's. That's what she does. And she does a brilliant job. We brought in microneedling and chemical peels and all sorts of other aesthetics that. She's in charge. She does that part.
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B
Oh, okay. This is. I mean, that could be a whole different episode. I'm just gonna zoom in on that for. For five minutes. Okay, so you brought in an esthetician. Does that esthetician do injectables as well and that kind of stuff?
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No.
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Okay, so just so you said microneedling.
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We do prp. She's a phlebotomist. She's a master esthetician. So we do PRP eye drops. We do PRP microneedling. Yeah. And again, she's driven. This I was excited about.
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B
Do you market the service separately?
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I mean. Yes, sort of. We have an aesthetics web or Instagram page and a huge part of the aesthetics on our website.
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B
Got it. So do people come in primarily for the aesthetics in some cases, or do people. Okay, how often does that happen?
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I mean, that's tourists. Again, we're on First Ave. We are. You can see half of our practice in the windows is a big eyes on you spa and day spa and med spa. And so patients come in for brow laminations and eyelash lifts and tints and facials and that kind of thing quite frequently.
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B
Got it. And so that would be the tourist traffic and that sort of thing. Okay, got it. Now, when you talk to your. When you first decided to go into aesthetics and you talk to your patients or you, I don't know, whatever, you sent the email to the patients now offering this service, like, what's the response? Like, and how do you, how do you kind of move patients along from one side of the practice to the other? Or is it all just one practice? It's like you're buying your glasses and then by, while you're waiting, you also get this.
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A
It. It depends on the situation for sure. But I don't know, Eugene, if you've ever known anybody or had anybody in your life who has chronic dry eye and are symptomatic, but it's miserable. It's miserable. So when I have symptomatic patients, they'll spend anything on their eyes. They put drops in five, six, seven times a day. They can't go outside because their eyes just, they. Their tear film evaporates so quickly. It's gritty, it's irritating. So the first thing we did is all of our dry eye patients who, you know, previous to the. To IPL and rf, I'd wanted to just beat my head against a wall or hide in the corner because I didn't have really good treatments to help with their symptoms. And so we just sent a letter out to all of our dry eye patients. They came in immediately. They did it, they signed up. You know, we've been seeing them doing maintenance since then. And so, I mean, it's. Again, it's technology that drives my practice. It's technology that I use and I can I offer it to patient I don't know what's in their pocketbook. I don't need to know. I offer it to them and they make that decision.
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B
So when you make. And actually, I've heard some really smart practice owners kind of talk about the fact that their role is to provide the treatment options to patients, not necessarily to be their financial advisor. So I totally, you know, I'm hearing that echo from you and I, and it, and it's, it's always refreshing to hear someone talk about giving patients solutions without worrying so much about how the patients are going to pay for it. Because in all reality, it's not really, it's oftentimes the lack of confidence that prevents the patient from buying something that they actually need or getting a treatment that's actually gonna really help them. It's the lack of confidence on the provider side, not necessarily the budgetary constraint that the patient has to do that. It might be the perceived budgetary constraint in our heads because we feel guilty about presenting a 15 or $2,500 treatment option to a patient. But it's, you know, the patient can tell if you're not so confident about, about that.
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A
Absolutely. Yeah. And I've had, you know, college kids who they, they're really, really struggling with dry eye. They're just spending all, you know, 18 hours in front of devices. And when, I mean, they will figure out a way, they'll just, they'll figure out a way to fit it into their budget. We also, when I have patients who are struggling with that kind of, I can tell that the cost is a huge thing. We just offer them a payment plan. Like, would this be easier for you? Rather than doing this, can we split it up for you? And that's totally valid. I'm okay with that. I'm here about, I mean, obviously I have to run a business and I want to run a smart business and a profitable business, but I'm really here to help my patients do better in their world, give them a different experience.
- [28:23]
B
Totally get that. And I think, and I guess I'm curious, like, role of financing. Like, is financing a big thing for patients? When you're talking about hired, higher dollar procedures? Like, is it important to have a financing program? Or do you think that in general it's just, you know, they put it on their credit card and then they just deal with it?
- [28:43]
A
Yeah, that's typically how we work it. We do have, like, our credit card processing technology is pretty cool that we can put in automatic withdrawal from their credit card or automatic payment, and we can Set that up on a certain day and say, okay, we'll split it up into three payments. So we. We just do it in house here. It's. I don't charge a fee or anything for it.
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B
Got it.
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A
But it's very small percent.
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B
And when you were talking earlier about the $1,200, does that $1,200 revenue per patient, is that include your aesthetic stuff or is that a separate sort of.
- [29:16]
A
That's separate, yeah. When we include the aesthetic stuff, then we're looking at more like 1600.
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B
Got it. Okay. Wow. Okay, so I want to take a quick break, and when we come back from the break, I want to talk more about this whole neural lens announcement because we kind of teased it for the audience 20 minutes ago, and I think it's worth going back to and your experience with it. So we'll be right back on the Power Hour.
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A
Okay, sounds great.
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B
All right, we're back in the power hour. Dr. Evie Lawson, thank you so much for all the insight. You've already shared about running kind of this high, high value per patient, high revenue per patient, and then also kind of technology forward, practice. I want to go back to something, you know, a lot more than me about, which is what neurolens is doing and how neurolens is evolving as a company. So what I know is that they're changing their name today from Neuralens to Newton and that they're announcing a new lens, and it's called Sequel. That's all I know. I think maybe you can jump in and fill in the gaps.
- [30:25]
A
Well, Eugene, I'm so excited. I mean, obviously, you know, that I'm very technology heavy in my practice, technology forward. It's very important for me to continue to be on the cutting edge for my patients, you know, when I can make my patients their lives better or when I can make a. It can make me a better doctor, either more efficient or better at diagnosing. I will jump on board immediately. And one of the confusing things that has been in my world is, you know, talking about Neuralens, the company, the device, the lens itself. So I think that this was a very, very wise decision for Neurolens to move to Newton. Newton is now the company, and it. I think it's brilliant because if you think about it, Sir Isaac Newton, you know, they're all. He's always. He's always getting new things. And so this is what Neurolens is all about. They are always about innovation, always about bringing out new products. They are very, very private practice. Heavy and forward and supportive and their goal is to bring out cutting edge technologies to make patients lives better and change lives. So Nerlens, the device bringing out the new headsets with was a huge thing. So excited about those. I mean the amount of patients that have in downtown Seattle that have never put on a headset and now they get to do it for the first time in their optometry office, their mind is blown. It's so cool. And then they, but they, you know the neuro lens is very much a therapeutic lens and it's not for everybody. And many times in prescribing neural lens I'm like God, am I asking a patient not to waste their money but to spend this extra amount on these lenses and it may just not do as much as I want it to. So you know all of our other anti fatigue lenses that we've had on the market has been about accommodation, relaxing accommodation, giving a plus boost for that accommodation and it's not addressed at all any convergence. So you know we're almost making the, we're creating more of a problem in many patients, cases, you know, if they're quite exo or the ACA ratio is, is, is low, we put A plus power in front of them and you know it's going to create more eye strain and fatigue. So I've been waiting for somebody to bring out a new lens that can be any patient that walks in the door that we do a relaxed lens that addresses accommodation and hyperconvergence. And of course Neurolens did it. I was so excited to hear that this was going to be a product that was going to potentially be released. I got to be in the kind of the front end of it really testing it out. I'm in a very unique position where I because I'm cash pay, I just changed every single patient who was not Neurolens candidate into SQL. So we are now all Newton lenses prescribed in our office. Go ahead.
- [33:40]
B
So you don't prescribe any other lenses. It just, it's all either only in.
- [33:44]
A
Control or only convergence access or yeah, ESO patients. Those are the only patients, we put them in standard lenses.
- [33:53]
B
Got it. Okay. All right, so keep going. So now, so what's the response been like from your patients?
- [33:59]
A
So excited. I mean the people who I didn't know would and now I'm thinking oh my gosh, should I have put them in neuro lens to begin with? Would that be more. But it's the easiest progressive lens that I've ever had to dispense it is fantastic for kids. They've reported just less eye strain when reading and when studying for school.
- [34:20]
B
School.
- [34:22]
A
It's very, very easily adaptable. Patients who are neuro lens candidates are symptomatic, don't do well in sequel. They do much, much better. I tried, I've tried all the things I've made, all the mistakes. I, you know, I like to tell my staff and my patients I want to science that. So, yeah, so we really, like, tested out all the different things. And it's very clear in my head. I know this is going to sound very complicated to a lot of people. I know a lot of my colleagues have been kind of almost overthinking it, but Neurolens is a therapeutic lens that is there for symptoms and highly symptomatic patients. And SQL is a awesome lens for patients who spend a lot of time in front of their devices, which is all of us and are not as symptomatic. It's a very standard, straightforward. You don't need the NeuroLens device to do the measurement. Again, talking, going back to those tourists who come in with outside prescriptions or they. We've prescribed the Sequel to them as well. We've put them in that lens and patients have been so excited.
- [35:37]
B
So it, what, what's the language patients use to describe their improvement in this particular lens?
- [35:44]
A
I don't feel like I need to close my eyes at the end of the day. I feel really relaxed. It's kind of like putting on slippers.
- [35:53]
B
Ah, interesting. Yeah. And when you, when you're trying to explain to someone why they qualify for this new lens, are you using a screener ahead of time as well? Are you kind of saying, hey, your X number, you know, you got neck pain or whatever? The Neurolense screener looks, looks at beyond the, beyond the actual diagnosis.
- [36:19]
A
So all of my patients that we do glasses for, again, we do neuro lens on every patient. So, you know, the new portal in with the neurolensk will automatically put them in as a sequel patient or as a Neurolens patient for their recommendation of lenses based on their symptoms. With the sequel recommendation, I can go in and say, you're just really, really lucky, despite the fact that you're. As human beings, we didn't evolve to sit in front of a computer screen all day long and we were really not intended to do that. So we get tired. You're not super symptomatic. That's fantastic. But, hey, there's this new lens that I think is awesome. And it's right up your alley and this will be great for you.
- [37:04]
B
Got it. So what in you're basically saying, look, because you have the Neurolens diagnostic device, you're able to pop them into a portal and then the diagnostic and then that portal tells you right or left. You know, essentially choice A, choice B for this patient. And what's the, what's the best solution?
- [37:26]
A
Yeah, got it.
- [37:28]
B
Other just kind of from this lens standpoint, I think we've covered it, but any other insights into this whole transition from neural lens to Newton? Is there anything that you're familiar with on the roadmap? Is there anything that you think this means for the optometric profession and then also for the market that's available to serve our patients?
- [37:53]
A
Yes. So a couple of things. Honestly, one of the big things is going back to the financials of this conversation sequel is one of those lenses that is different than any other lens we have on the market. That's for patients that are less symptomatic but want to be proactive about the impact of their screens and of their devices. It is another cash pay option. The price point is just like a Shamir intelligence progressive lens or you know, an ISEN or you know, any of our anti fatigue lenses, but it's doing it better. And this is really something that again, my colleagues who are in network with the insurance plans and the managed care plans, they're super excited about being able to become less dependent on those managed care plans because of this lens. I mean again, for me, as a cash pay, it really doesn't make a big difference. We're bragging about it because again, it's leading cutting edge technology. But it's not really changing my, my bottom line, if you will. It's not changing my profitability. But for those patients or for those doctors who are under managed care programs, this could be huge. That they don't necessarily have to move out of network. I mean if you look at it from, you know, the numbers and the quantity of patients that you get just from the insurance companies, from vsp, it's an am amazing advertising campaign for you. Right. So there's argument to be had that staying in network but having a lens like this could be next to becoming a cash pay practice. So that's huge. I think that people really need to understand what the profitability to their practice could be. The second thing is, you know, again, Neurolens and I don't know all of it, but Newton as a company is moving forward in bringing advancements That I think are going to just change our industry. And one of those things from a practice management perspective is what comes along with SQL is something that's called the Performance Hub. And the Performance Hub is one of the most fun staff training, interactive AI technologies I've ever done in my entire life. It is hysterical. It is so much fun. Little Lindsay, who's in the VR headset, she comes to life in this interactive staff training and teaches about the neural ends. Well, not quite the neuro lens, but soon, but the sequel. So that patients, so that our employees know how to talk about it, they understand how to do it. It's super interactive. It's ridiculous. So from a staff training perspective, my office manager, she was like, when are they going to do this for everything? I want to be able to put a new employee behind this performance Hub and teach them how to answer the phone and teach them how to do optos and teach them how to do all this stuff. So I know that's coming on the pipeline. I may have just ruined all of Newton's secrets, but boy, is it cool from a practice management standpoint.
- [41:05]
B
And you're saying, what's different about it from other remote learning systems? Tell me more about it.
- [41:12]
A
So it's AI you're talking to Lindsey. Lindsay, it's this again. It's totally interactive. There's several different parts to it. One is just understanding and learning. You go through and you watch videos. They teach you the science behind it. And then you go in and you text. And so you're having a scenario of a patient who walks in the door and then you're going to just type out what your response would be. And then they have feedback and you get graded and it is. Okay, so you used this many filler words. You went way too into deal detail on this. And yes, that was partially accurate, but you could do it better this way. It's very positive. It's sounding negative when I'm saying it like this, but it is a very positive reinforcement that points out where you could do better. And then you go in and you talk to AI. And so now Lindsay is actually talking to you. You're verbally saying it out loud. It's reinforcing from learning it videos. Then you type it out, then you're actually talking to it. It's fantastic. It's lovely.
- [42:21]
B
As a person who is obviously very passionate about AI practical applications of AI and optometry, I definitely am. I am excited about that one because I think the way that we train teams absolutely needs to change over time. And the reality is that, you know, we're always, I think we're stuck in a one to many, like from school, we're taught the whole one to many type of training where you sit in a classroom and it's the same content for the person in the front of the room and the person in the back of the room. And you know, and then we've just gotten better at, okay, we're going to record that person and we're going to give that content to all 20,000 people who need to know this information. Right. And what's cool is that you're saying, and I think where education should be going in general is, okay, provide the information, but use that as a small piece of it. And then the experiential component of actually communicating with an AI that can, you know, essentially personalize the conversation, make that one on one, make that experiential, make that fun.
- [43:31]
A
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, this is, this is just, again, I don't know where this road is leading, but I can, I can imagine, you know, if, if Newton is going in an AI route and they're, I mean, from what I can see, I've done a lot of research myself over the last few months. Newton's doing it best. You know, there's not AI that is really utilizing the understanding of AI in a way that is useful to our practices. I mean, yeah, sure, there's a lot of like, you know, looking at, looking at our octs from A to B over the years and giving us the analyzation, but that's not true AI. So this is something that is, I think, going to really impact our practice and the management of our practice. I mean, imagine if you can, as a practice owner, set a new employee in front of a, a computer for a day and they come out knowing a lot of what they need to know. I mean that's, that's just, it's going to change our world. I'm so excited about it. And again, Newton is about changing patient lives. But I think that they are really understanding there's a huge need, like you said, Eugene, there's a huge need of doing education differently.
- [44:50]
B
Yeah, Evie, I, I think. Fantastic. And I think you've, you've covered our announcement better than, or the news, so to speak, better than I could have even imagined. When I asked you to participate in this episode, the, the thought I wanted to end with for today would be I. You mentioned a lot of mistakes and you're obviously running a super, super successful practice and there are elements to your practice. And you've brought this up that, you know, you have the benefit of a really great location. You also have the cost of a really great location. I imagine your rent is probably higher than the, than the rest of the industry, probably per square foot. But, you know, there's this, that, there's this journey that you've been on, which is different than many of your colleagues. And I want you to talk a little bit about maybe the top three mistakes that you've made along the way that you wish you could tell people about or that you wish you could have learned from before you made them.
- [45:57]
A
Yeah, Eugene, you know, it's a tough thing. I have so many, like I really do. And looking back at my, you know, 30 year old self, what would I tell her? I mean, every single mistake I've learned and I do it better, and it's helped me become a much better doctor. And I'd love to help people avoid it. But one of the really big things is trying to visualize, like, dream as big as you possibly can and then taking baby steps into that. Right? And then like making a plan. And it doesn't have to be like your end goal, doesn't have to be the end goal that you had when you were 30. But, you know, what do you want your schedule to look like? What's the style of environment that you want to be in? Bring yourself to the equation. Who are you as a human being and how do you want to translate that into helping your patients and being an optometrist if it's very medical, I mean, you're never going to be happy in an environment like mine if it's. I feel like, you know, when we're young, we make the mistakes of, well, this is good enough. Oh, I need to do it this way because this is what I've been taught and really exploring, you know, what do you see your life being as an optometrist and what's the big impact that you want to make on your patients? And for me, I want them to have an experience when they walk in the door that it's different. They feel accepted. They can tell me absolutely anything. It doesn't matter who they are, what they look like, they're loved because they're walking in my door. And that's, that's, you know, I, everything I do creates that experience. Whereas before it was, well, this is how optometry is done. This is how we do things. And stepping outside of that box and understanding that it can be very different.
- [47:51]
B
Yeah, it's interesting because I was thinking to myself, if I were trying to either start a practice or buy a practice or be in a particular scenario where I have decision making capacity in a practice, maybe you're right, like take pause and rather than do what everyone says you should do or do what you think you're supposed to do, like go check out a couple practices that run a little bit differently. Right. And I, I've had the, I'm honestly, I'm really blessed. I had the experience to hang out with some of our clients inside of their practices and really be able to see what it's, what the difference is between a high volume, high transaction practice that still is a super high performer in their category versus a much more relaxed like high VIP feeling practice versus a high medical practice, versus a high dry eye practice and even some that are just like literally aesthetics practices with, with optometry on the side almost. And that there's just so many different types of things that people can be passionate about. And I, and I think the, the whatever, whoever has the quote, which is that if you really love what you do, you don't really feel like, you know, you, you don't work a day in your life, then it sounds to me like the, the advice you would give your earlier self is really understand what the heck it is that you want and don't limit yourself to thinking that you have to do it a certain way or you won't be successful.
- [49:26]
A
And also embracing change. Right. You know it's gonna change. You have to change. You're not going to, you know, you're not going to be able to continue to practice optometry the same way for the rest of your career. It's just not possible. Technology is changing too fast. Patients expectations are changing too fast. You, you can't continue to do it the same way. So embracing it, learning it, don't be afraid of it and then run with it like make it your own. And I think that's some of the biggest advice I could say is see if you can, you know, dream as big as possible and then start with baby steps as you go. And don't put it on yourself that you have to do it all at once.
- [50:12]
B
Yeah. And I think your point about change is actually really well taken because we talk about this all the time, is that, you know, it's not just technology, it's also the way that your patient is responsive to the technology. You know, I bet that there's a lot of people who come into your practice and pay a premium because you give them an experience that's so technology focused that they say, okay, I equate this with quality, and I am willing to pay extra for this because technology now equals thoroughness, now equals quality. And, you know, and technology is changing so quickly. The definition of technology could be, you know, 100 different things and 100 different practices, but embracing that and saying, okay, and we're going to show it off to the patients. We're going to show our patients how we're changing. Not just change and, you know, kind of do it behind the scenes, but literally show our patients how we're making the. Making the experience better for them or making our insights better. I mean, I think there's a lot of that. There's a lot of benefit to looking kind of outside of the standard that everyone feels like they have to follow. And looking at the, okay, what's the. What's next and new on the horizon and how can I quickly adopt it? Because if I can adopt it, I can use that to my advantage to showcase, you know, from both a marketing patient experience and also just a perception of, like, I guess, personal happiness. I. You can leverage all of those changes.
- [51:44]
A
Yep, absolutely. Well, and, you know, I mean, we. It's. It's a lot of your team, right, and your leadership in your team. Because the team, anytime you bring something new to the practice, I mean, anytime I go to any content education class, I go to a wisdom sharing group, I go, you know, even just visiting the team in Dallas, the Newton team, I come back and I'm so excited about new things and new, you know, new people and learning from other doctors and other. How do they do systems different? And that's what I get really excited about when somebody does something different that's like, oh, tell me more. Like, I want to understand how you do it different so that I can incorporate that. And my team just laughs every time I come home, I'm like, hey, guys, guess what I learned. Hey, guess what this is. Hey, let's do this. You know, I have surrounded myself with a team that is also on board with changes. They understand it's so important. You know, you get. You bring it back to a team and bringing back three, four, five different things, they just go. But when you have a team that you've cultivated that entire environment of we can do this, we can do hard things, we can do change. This is, you know, now I'm quoting Brene Brown, all of a sudden, we can do hard things. Life is hard. But we got this.
- [53:06]
B
Well, and, you know, the bigger the practice is, the more systems you need to be able to accommodate that for practice for people. But that's probably a completely different conversation. Evie, it has been awesome having you on the show. I think showcasing different types of practices is what this show is all about. And showcasing success in non standard ways. Love what you're doing. Thank you for helping with the big announcement today and congratulations on all your success.
- [53:35]
A
Thank you so much. Thanks Eugene. It was a pleasure.