Consider this scenario: Your dispensary offers a large selection of frames, and you offer patients a variety of lens options. Patients are impressed because they like the way you care for them and the materials you can offer to them.

You can maintain this good impression because these factors are in your control. But, once your patients order glasses from your dispensary and you send the orders to an outside lab, you cannot be certain of the quality of the finished product. Maintaining your good impression is now outside your control.

How do you ease your concerns about a potential job-gone-bad and disappointed patient? An in-office finishing lab can help quell your uneasiness, and it can offer several advantages to both your patients and your practice. Below, your colleagues discuss these advantages.

Quality Control
Putting total faith in an outside lab leaves a practice vulnerable to quality control problems, says optometrist Neil Gailmard, a practice management consultant in Sarasota, Fla. Low-quality eyeglasses, in turn, can lead to disappointed patients, he says.

You can prevent this scenario by making eyeglasses in your office. Having an in-office finishing lab allows us to monitor our quality of work, says optometrist Steven Reto, of West Chester, Pa. We require multiple checks to ensure that the final product meets the necessary requirements for outstanding quality, he says.

Specifically, Dr. Reto says, both the lab and retail opticians perform these checks before dispensing eyeglasses. By contrast, multiple quality checks cannot be guaranteed in an outside lab.

One caveat: In-office finishing labs produce quality products if you control the quality, says optometrist Peter Shaw-McMinn, of Southern California. That depends, in part, on who does the work. If you hire new lab personnel, the quality of glasses produced may be poorer while they are learning, he says.

Be sure you understand how to do the lab work yourself. If your lab optician is absent or leaves the practice, you may have to do the work, Dr. Shaw-McMinn says.

Convenience
In-office finishing labs can allow patients to receive their glasses the same day they order them. This convenience can give your practice an advantage over practices that cannot provide this service. If O.D.s want to prevent eyeglass sales from walking out the door and generate repeat business and referrals, they must compete on issues such as convenience, speed and service, Dr. Gailmard says.

Being able to dispense a pair of glasses the same day will also prevent patients from wanting to shop around in anticipation of a better deal elsewhere, Dr. Reto adds.

Patients may appreciate the convenience of an in-office finishing
lab for different reasons. Those who have busy lives will appreciate not having to wait long for their glasses. The main convenience in-office finishing labs offer is that jobs can be completed while the patient waits, Dr. Shaw-McMinn says. In some cases, the waiting time can be as little as 10 minutes.

In-office finishing labs also offer patients convenience when they really need it. This may include the need to have glasses available in the event of breakage or loss, or if a contact lens wearer has an infection and needs to wear glasses the same day, Dr. Reto says.

In-office finishing labs should include a good stock of uncut lenses so patients can get the type of lenses they want within a day, he adds.

A practices reputation often depends on the finished eyeglass product that it dispenses to a patient. Your professional service led to the lens prescription, and your total quality is judged by that product, Dr. Gailmard says.

Eyeglasses are simply too important to depend on others to fabricate, he says. By starting a finishing lab in your office, you can guarantee that patients receive quality eyeglasses. And, says Dr. Shaw-McMinn, you can compete with retail establishments on convenience and price.