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Adding phakic IOLs to practice can spur growth, surgeon says
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WAILEA, Hawaii — With proper planning, phakic IOLs can be profitably and seamlessly added to any surgeon’s comprehensive refractive surgery practice, according to a speaker here.
David Hardten, MD, spoke about the process of adopting phakic IOLs into one’s practice here at the Hawaiian Eye 2006 meeting. He said phakic IOLs have been a “tremendous growth area” in his practice.
Two phakic IOL models have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The Verisyse IOL is currently available through Advanced Medical Optics in the United States, and the recently approved STAAR Surgical Visian ICL will be available later this year.
Dr. Hardten said the advantages of phakic IOLs include their ability to address higher refractive errors and their easily learned implantation techniques. He said phakic IOLs offer retention of accommodation, removability, excellent visual results and a low risk of complications.
While he acknowledged that phakic IOL implantation is a relatively low-volume procedure, Dr. Hardten said the highly myopic patients who are candidates for this refractive surgical option are “energetic ambassadors.”
“When they are happy, they are really happy. If you come to be known as someone who helps these highly disabled patients in your community, that is really good word of mouth,” he said.
To optimize efficiency when introducing phakic IOLs to a practice, the surgeon must plan training sessions for all technical and support staff, Dr. Hardten said. Documents such as consent forms and postoperative instructions should be prepared in advance, he said.
For cataract or refractive surgeons, phakic IOL procedures can easily be incorporated into the scheduling flow, he said. His clinic schedules these procedures just as they do a cataract removal, and he typically staggers them, with one phakic IOL procedure following every three cataract procedures.
For a surgeon’s first cases, Dr. Hardten recommends choosing young patients with about 12 D of myopia and reasonable expectations.
Dr. Hardten said because of the relatively low procedure volume there is a low yield on marketing this procedure. He said surgeons should let their happy patients be their marketers.
“I have found [the promotion of phakic IOLs] to be very synergistic with an overall refractive surgery marketing plan,” he said.