Catch up with Dr. White’s ‘The Dry Eye’

Darrell E. White, MD, writes a monthly column in Ocular Surgery News discussing issues related to dry eye disease.

Catch up with his 2018 articles here:

Follow the money, part 1

To have any chance whatsoever to offer support to meaningful change in how our patients “buy” the medicines and devices we prescribe, it would be useful to understand what the landscape looks like today. Read more.

Follow the money, part 2

Just knowing how much a medicine “costs” makes many patients reluctant to consider treatment, regardless of the eventual true expense they may incur. Mind you, I am an ophthalmologist; I am not prescribing life-saving treatments for hepatitis C at $80,000 a pop. Still, when a patient hears that her treatment for chronic dry eye disease “costs” $450 a month, our conversation veers wildly off track. Read more.

Follow the money, part 3

As it turns out, my high price/deep discount explanation only scratches the surface. Yes, drug companies post an exorbitant list price in order to offer an equally ludicrous discount to the pharmacy benefit manager. That part is correct. However, it does not really work like buying a deeply discounted Polo shirt at Marshalls. Read more.

Your faithful dry eye doc tackles DEWS II

The report contains several useful concepts upon which the more practical suggestions are built. Read more.

Who has dry eye in 2018: an update

It is 2018. Who has dry eye disease today? One-half of all eye care tweets are about dry eye. Tiny organizations and journals that have microscopic readership hashtag dry eye treatments as if they invented them. You could simply declare that everyone who comes to your clinic has dry eye, drop the mic and walk off the stage to a standing ovation. While that is probably not entirely true, it is actually pretty close to reality. Read more.

Trigeminal dysphoria: The ophthalmic highway to hell

Anyone who takes care of patients with dry eye disease has had this experience. A patient comes into the office complaining of severe, life-altering eye pain, and for the life of you there is nothing you can find on his or her exam that explains their pain. Read more.

Follow the money: A possible solution from D.C.?

Do you read financial news? You know, the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily or at least the business section of your local rag? You really should. There is all kinds of stuff in there that is important and affects your everyday practice experience no matter what kind of practice you may have. Read more.

Third annual anti-inflammatory report: What is and what shall be

How about a recap of the year just past? 2018 brought us the Texas court defeat of Allergan’s bid to retain patent protection of the entire Restasis franchise. Not only did this bring an immediate write-off of the value of Restasis by Allergan, it resulted in the Black Thursday purge of roughly half of the ophthalmic sales force built up over the Restasis years. Coupled with an equally dramatic decrease in marketing and the message from Allergan is clear: Generic competition for Restasis-like cyclosporine A treatments for dry eye will drive prices below the level at which previous marketing efforts make economic sense. Read more.

We are all headache doctors

One of my earliest columns on dry eye disease shared the sad news that each and every one of you is a red eye doctor. Yes, even you, esteemed Dr. Retina, are a red eye doctor, at least if you care about the things that your patient cares about. Well, I am back with more important albeit equally sad news about what kind of doctor you all are. I, you, we are all headache doctors. Read more.

Digital vision syndrome: Building a comprehensive care model

Our multi-screen lifestyle is a direct cause of discomfort and dysfunction. Screen time of any type at any age can cause the triple threat of digital vision syndrome symptoms: eye pain, headache and blurred vision. These can be seen in literally any age group. Read more.