Volume 6, Issue 45│December 02, 2022
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Last night, ICO students Karli Clark and Ria Patel hosted the first Student IOA Club event in several years. Students and IOA members met for a night of dinner and networking in Chicago.
Thank you to the following doctors who participated in last night's event:
Toseef Hasan, O.D.
Bob Steinmetz, O.D.
Greg Papas, O.D.
Andrew Morua, O.D.
Lindsey Stull, O.D.
Ryan Edwards, O.D.
Jency Elakkatt, O.D.
Eric Baas, O.D.
Erik Mothersbaugh, O.D.
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In November, several members submitted OpEds to their local newspapers explaining the link between diabetes and eye health and stressing the importance of eye exams. The following article submitted by IOA member Dr. Dennis Brtva was published and highlighted in The Pantagraph.
Be aware of link of vision, diabetes
November is American Diabetes Awareness Month — not considered a month connected with vision. But it should be. Your optometrist is most likely the first medical professional to diagnose diabetes and other unknown underlying health conditions.
Diabetes is a condition that prevents the body from using and storing sugar properly. As a result, excessive amounts of sugar remain in the bloodstream and cause damage to the smallest blood vessels all over the body— including your eyes. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 35 million Americans have diabetes.
Through a high-powered microscope known as a slit lamp, your optometrist can view the structures of your eyes, including optic nerves and blood vessels. Irregularities in the eyes help point to medical conditions like diabetes.
If you have diabetes, you are more likely to develop vision-threatening conditions. Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a leading cause of vision-loss globally. Of an estimated 285 million people with diabetes mellitus worldwide, approximately one third have signs of DR and of these, a further one third of DR is vision-threatening DR, including diabetic macular edema (DME).
Your optometrist can help you stay ahead of conditions that may impact your sight. When the blood vessels in the eyes are affected by diabetes, vision loss and blindness can occur. By having regular dilated eye examinations (at least yearly), you can help protect your vision.
Please call your optometrist immediately if you have any of the following symptoms:
• blurry or wavy vision, frequently changing vision—sometimes from day to day
• dark areas or vision loss
• poor color vision
• spots or dark strings (also called floaters)
• flashes of light
As members of the Illinois Optometric Association, we are devoted to protecting and advancing optometry for the benefit of public health.
Dr. Dennis M. Brtva, Bloomington
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Fox Valley Optometric Society Meeting |
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The Fox Valley Optometric Society held a meeting and CE on November 16 at Cooper's Hawk in Naperville, IL. Thank you to the event sponsors and all who attended! |
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ICO GRADUATE TO STAR ON BRAVO REALITY SHOW |
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What is Aaron Motacek’s job? North Dakota native is all set to find a partner in Bravo’s Love Without Borders
Bravo's Love without Borders is almost here, and fans cannot wait to watch the new series. Love Without Borders will feature five Americans, including Aaron Motacek, who move to another country to find love with an unknown person in an undisclosed location. Relationship expert Arica Angelo has herself made the matches based on "compatibility."
American citizens will get a chance to return to their country or continue to live with their newfound love even after the experiment ends.
Aaron Motacek, 31, is an optometrist and full-stack web developer. Aaron is from Fargo, North Dakota, and comes from a close-knit family, but he will have to leave it all to stay with his partner, Maël Lucas, who is in Paris, France.
Love Without Borders contestant Aaron Motacek founded his own company in 2017
Aaron was the winner of the ND Scholars Scholarship in 2008 and went to the University of North Dakota, where he received his bachelor’s degree in biology. Motacek was also a member of the Phi Beta Kappa sorority. He then went to the Illinois College of Optometry, where he received the GP Contact Lens Clinical Excellence Award and the Presidential Scholarship. Aaron also became the president of the ICO Private Practice Club before graduating in 2020.
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We want to hear your memories of the IOA! In celebration of our 125th anniversary in 2023, the IOA is collecting your stories about the organization.
Please share your thoughts on the importance of IOA membership, favorite memories from IOA, or your thoughts on the history of the IOA.
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IOA/AOA Membership Renewal Update
2023 membership invoices have been mailed out, so members should begin receiving invoices soon! Those on a recurring monthly or quarterly payment do not need to respond as your payment schedule will be automatically renewed.
On September 30, 2022, the IOA Board of Directors voted to keep IOA membership dues at the same rate as 2022. Likewise, the AOA Board of Directors did not issue a dues increase, so IOA/AOA membership fees will remain the same in 2023.
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2023 Dues Contest
Pay membership dues in full by 1/31/2023 and be entered into a drawing to win FREE registration to the 2023 IOA Annual Meeting in Schaumburg, Illinois! This includes your registration for the meeting and all CE testing fees associated with your registration but does not include hotel reservations.
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Call for Courses - 2023 Annual Meeting
The IOA has opened the Call for Courses for the 2023 Annual Meeting in Schaumburg, IL on September 28-October 1. Lecturers are invited to submit their lecture(s) and workshop courses in the online portal at the link below. All courses must be submitted online by December 16, 2022.
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2022 Medicare Fee Schedules
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Report illegal and unsafe contact lens sales to the FDA & FTC
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Check out the newest IOA classifieds here!
Oswego Vision - Our well established west suburban private practice is looking for a full time Optometrist to join our team. (Read more)
At Clarkson Eyecare, our optometrists focus on maintaining the health and development of our patient's eyes - Opportunities at the following offices: Alton, Breese, Edwardsville, Shiloh (Read more)
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EMAIL SERIES PART FOUR:
Sending too many emails is the biggest mistake most practices make. When asked why patients unsubscribed from receiving communications from their physicians or healthcare facilities, most said the biggest reason was too many emails. To ensure patient engagement, be mindful of how many emails you are sending. Statistically, the best time of day to send emails is between 10 and 11 AM on Sunday or Monday.
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Illinois General Assembly Passes Amendments to Safe-T Act Ahead of Jan 1 Implementation
The Belleville News-Democrat reports that on Thursday Illinois lawmakers passed an amendment to the SAFE-T Act which goes into effect on January 1. The amendment “expands the list of crimes for which a judge can order pretrial detention, adds to what a judge can consider when determining if a defendant is a risk of willful flight from prosecution, and standardizes language regarding a defendant’s danger to public safety among several other changes.” The law will “end the existing wealth-based system of pretrial detention in favor of one based on an offender’s level of risk to the public or of fleeing prosecution.” Thursday marked the last day of the 2022 veto session. |
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State of Illinois Awarded $86 Million in CDC Funding to Strengthen Public Health Infrastructure
Funding Will Support Pritzker Administration Efforts to Protect Public Health and Address Disparities in Health Outcomes Across Illinois
CHICAGO – Governor JB Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) announced the State of Illinois has been awarded $86 million in federal funding to strengthen the state’s public health workforce and infrastructure. This first-of-its-kind funding from the CDC will support efforts by IDPH and its local health department partners to promote and protect health and address health disparities in communities throughout Illinois.
“At no point in our state’s history has it been more clear how essential the work of public health professionals is to our collective well-being,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “With the support of President Biden and the CDC, we can now further strengthen this essential arm of state government and give hundreds of Illinoisans an opportunity to further their careers in this crucial and rapidly growing field. This investment in our state will result in more robust supports and better health outcomes for countless people across the state- particularly those on the margins who are most at-risk and in need of public health interventions.”
“The last two-plus years have underscored the critical, life-saving importance of our frontline public health workforce,” said IDPH Director Dr. Sameer Vohra. “We are very grateful to the CDC and the Biden Administration for this major infusion of federal funding that will strengthen efforts already underway at IDPH and with our local public health partners to prioritize health equity and create a more modern, resilient, and efficient public health department.”
The funding from the American Rescue Plan Act will support efforts to recruit, retain, and train the public health workforce, including critical frontline workers such as epidemiologists, contact tracers, laboratory scientists, community health workers, and data analysts. In addition to $86 million over five years in funding to IDPH and local health departments, the CDC announced $28 million for the Chicago Department of Public Health.
IDPH will use the funding to create pipelines into critical public health positions, retain existing employees through efforts to reduce employee burnout, and provide a variety of training opportunities to improve workforce skills. The grant is intended to address urgent and ongoing public health needs in communities that are economically or socially marginalized, in rural communities, and communities with people from racial and ethnic minority groups.
The department plans to make improvements in its fiscal systems and grant-making process, invest in a department-wide quality improvement system, and upgrade its ability to analyze data through an equity lens to aid programmatic decision-making intended to address health disparities. Further, the funding will support IDPH’s modernization of its data system to integrate the latest technologies and approaches to improve public health surveillance.
Stronger public health infrastructure allows state and local agencies to ensure food and water is safe, detect and track diseases, stop outbreaks, provide child and maternal healthcare, and monitor data.
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Words Matter: Update How You Talk to Your Patients
November 28, 2022
Optometry Times Journal, November digital edition 2022, Volume 14, Issue 11
As technology advances and choices grow, you need to personalize patients’ options.
Astute and loyal readers of my quarterly column may have noticed a theme over the years: the need to communicate. We have the ability to take our thoughts and acumen and dispense that knowledge so our patients understand the actions needed to maintain great vision. Simply stated, we must strive to accurately provide our patients with incisive diagnoses and therapies that make sense in the sometimes-senseless environment where we find ourselves.
Technology has a way of taking challenging problems and providing efficient solutions. However, new advancements also require more communication from health care professionals.
As child of the 1970s, I can recall being dropped off at the local mall with $1. I would play in the arcades, get a meal from McDonald’s, and still have money left over for gum. I know, right? Crazy. That said, my options at McDonald’s were limited to burgers, fries, and soda. Moreover, not having to think about my options made life a little simpler. Compare that experience with going to a diner or the Cheesecake Factory and deciding what you want, a daunting task made more difficult by the fear of choosing wrong. (As an aside, the chop house burger is the best thing on the Cheesecake Factory menu; fight me!)
Think of how much time we saved during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown. Most of us woke up and put on the same pair of comfy sweats or athleisure we’d worn the day before. Compare that experience with choosing a television show to watch. My head feels like it is going to explode; I want to watch a new show, but it’s on Paramount+. I have Peacock, and now I need another channel? Honestly, it has made me cherish the past when choices were limited, and we didn’t have to think as much.
Don’t get me wrong; I understand that more choices lead to competition and innovation, providing less expensive and more accessible products to consumers. The explosion of advancement also brings the ability to be creative and personalize options.
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AAOpt 2022: Treating photophobia to empower patients in their everyday life
November 29, 2022
Jacqueline Theis, OD, FAAO, shares highlights from her discussion titled, "Perioperative management of corneal crosslinking," which she presented during the 2022 American Academy of Optometry meeting held in San Diego.
Editor's note: This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Hi, I'm Jacqueline Thies, and I spoke on, "Photophobia: when light hurts from brain injury, migraine and beyond." This lecture is really near and dear to my heart, because in my practice, I see a lot of patients who have photophobia.
I think we all know when we see these patients, and routinely, all of us treat them the same: we just give them sunglasses. And there have been some recent studies that have come out that have shown that actually, for patients with brain injury, giving them sunglasses can exacerbate their photophobia and make it harder for them to have neural adaptation to get better. So even though the patient feels better in the moment, they're not getting better, which is really important if we want to look at long-term treatment options for patients with photophobia.
Oftentimes, you see these patients—and studies have even shown that patients will come into your office complaining of photophobia. And oftentimes, it doesn't get discussed by the practitioner, nor does it get managed by the practitioner, aside from maybe dry eye treatment, and also sunglasses. And the reason that this is important is because if the patient doesn't have dry eye, or they have a type of light sensitivity that doesn't respond to tinted lenses, you're not really helping the patient at all.
So it's really important that we get a differential diagnosis of what's causing the photophobia, and then make sure that we refer to the practitioner who can maybe diagnose the underlying etiology. So for instance, trigeminal neuralgia, or cervicogenic headache, you can send patients to other physicians, and when they solve the underlying cause, then you end up solving the patient's photophobia.
My lecture goes into a lot about the differential diagnosis and different pathophysiologies that are underlying photophobia, particularly in patients with brain injury, because they can have multiple reasons that they're having light sensitivity. And then I go into what exact treatments you can do for these patients, depending on the pathophysiological pathway.
I also talk a lot about blue blockers. So blue light isn't necessarily evil, it has a role. And if we give people blue blockers all day long, we can sometimes exacerbate cognitive fatigue and inattention. So it's important that we don't just unanimously recommend a tint, and then if we are going to recommend a tint because they really do have trouble with blue light frequencies, that we do one that is actually blocking the tint that is more of a notch filter than necessarily a coating that's only reducing blue light by about 30%. If the patient really has a blue light problem, we need to make sure that we're treating it appropriately. And I think this is important.
I think photophobia is something that if you can't tolerate electronic devices, or fluorescent lights, you really can't function in our society as a whole. You can't go outside, you can't go to restaurants, you can't go to the gym and workout. And then if you think about all of us kind of experienced that lifestyle a little bit when we had the epidemic and COVID, we at least had the benefit of being able to be on our devices and connect with people socially through our devices. But in patients who are truly photophobia to electronic devices and fluorescent lights, not only did they not have a social situation outside of their home, but they also have trouble connecting with people in their home as well unless they live with people because they're socially isolated, not being able to use devices.
And that's really where my passion for these patients come from is that it impacts every single quality of life for them, and if we don't appropriately treat it, a lot of these patients become depressed and anxious and end up getting a whole comorbidity list because we're not treating their appropriate symptoms.
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Green-Tinted Eyeglasses May Reduce The Need For Opioids To Manage Severe Pain Says Paul Vision Institute
WILMINGTON, N.C., Nov. 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A recent study showed that wearing special green-tinted eyeglasses reduces pain in patients with fibromyalgia and others who experience chronic pain. This may help decrease the need for opioids to manage severe pain in the three million Americans addicted to opioid pain relievers. "Syntonics, or optometric phototherapy, is the branch of ocular science dealing with the application of selected light frequencies through the eyes," said Edward Paul, O.D., Ph.D., medical director and vision science researcher with Paul Vision Institute in Wilmington, North Carolina. "In recent years, Syntonics has been shown to be effective in the treatment of brain injuries, sleep disorders, PMS, mood and emotional disorders."
Additional research from the University of Arizona showed green-tinted lenses also helps to reduce pain and headaches in migraine sufferers. The treatment reduced headache days by 70% in patients suffering from episodic migraines and by nearly 60% in those suffering from more frequent, chronic migraines.
Patients in the Duke study who wore the green-tinted lenses used fewer opioids, demonstrating that their pain was adequately controlled. Most patients who wore the green eyeglasses reported feeling better and asked to keep wearing them. The green eyeglasses could provide an easy to use, inexpensive, non-drug option. There are practically zero risks or side effects in wearing green eyeglasses. "If we see 50% of patients benefit from this, then it becomes something worth trying," stated Dr. Paul.
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Optometry Giving Sight Encourages Donations to “Light Up Their Eyes This Holiday Season”
The appeal features stories of how the organization has provided the gift of sight to people around the world.
GOLDEN, CO — To raise awareness of its global impact and encourage fundraising through the end of the year, Optometry Giving Sight (OGS) has kicked off its “Light Up Their Eyes This Holiday Season” campaign. The appeal features stories of how the organization—through the generosity of individual and corporate donors—has provided the gift of sight to people around the world.
Throughout the coming weeks, the campaign will highlight a variety of real-life cases, including those of children in Zambia and Haiti who are better able to learn in school after support from OGS enabled them to be fit with their first pairs of glasses. Another tells the story of a health care professional in India who now incorporates education about primary eye care into her work with her community thanks to OGS-funded training.
“We are so proud of—and grateful for—the progress we’ve made in our mission to end preventable blindness and vision impairment by creating long-term sustainable solutions where they are needed most. But there is always more work to be done, and we can only do it with the help of donors. Every dollar counts,” said Lois Schoenbrun, CAE (Ret.), FAAO, OGS executive director, North America. “We hope that by showcasing the personal stories of those whose lives have been changed as a result of our support, people will be inspired to give during the holidays to this important and worthy cause.”
With the support of the ophthalmic industry, optometrists, patients, and other donors, Optometry Giving Sight funds programs to develop sustainable infrastructure, train local eye care professionals, and deliver desperately needed vision care in underserved communities both at home and around the globe.
Over the last fifteen years, OGS funding has provided basic eye care services to more than 8 million people, assisted with training more than 14,000 eye care personnel, established more than 130 vision centers, and served people in more than 40 countries. In the last two years alone, OGS has provided funding to more than 30 project partners around the world, totaling more than $1.5 million in grants. For more information or to donate, visit here.
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VSP's Giving Tuesday Donation Supports Non-Profit That Expands Access for Marginalized Groups
RANCHO CORDOVA, Calif.—VSP Vision celebrated Giving Tuesday by making a $200,000 donation to the Direct Relief Fund for Health Equity as part of its commitment to increase diversity in optometry while removing barriers to vision care for people in need. The Fund for Health Equity, a California-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that operates globally, was established to increase access to health care and improve health outcomes for marginalized communities by funding organizations working to diversify the health care workforce, eliminate health disparities, and support digital health. Employees can also make a personal donation, and VSP Vision will match it at 200 percent.
VSP Vision chief marketing officer Wendy Hauteman said, “We've seen firsthand the barriers to eyecare experienced by many, especially those in marginalized communities. That's why we partner with VSP network doctors all year long to bring eyecare and eyewear where it's needed most, and we've been proud to partner on initiatives to increase diversity in optometry. Direct Relief shares our commitment to health equity, which is why we’re supporting them in creating positive health outcomes and diversifying the next generation of healthcare providers.”
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Medical Bills Remain Inaccessible for Many Visually Impaired Americans
Lucy Greco (left), a web-accessibility specialist at the University of California, Berkeley, is blind. She reads most of her documents online, but employs Liza Schlosser-Olroyd as an aide to sort through her paper mail every other month, to make sure Greco hasn't missed a bill or other important correspondence.
A Missouri man who is deaf and blind said a medical bill he didn't know existed was sent to debt collections, triggering an 11% rise in his home insurance premiums.
In a different case, from California, an insurer has suspended a blind woman's coverage every year since 2010 after mailing printed "verification of benefits" forms to her home that she cannot read, she said. The problems continued even after she got a lawyer involved.
And still another insurer kept sending a visually impaired Indiana woman bills she said she could not read, even after her complaint to the Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights led to corrective actions.
Across the U.S., health insurers and health care systems are breaking disability rights laws by sending inaccessible medical bills and notices, a KHN investigation has found. The practice hinders the ability of blind Americans to know what they owe, effectively creating a disability tax on their time and finances.
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THANK YOU TO OUR INDUSTRY PARTNERS! |
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