Why Optique’s Industry Leadership in Optometry Translates to Better Outcomes for You

Ray Croc, the creator of McDonalds said, “The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.”  The standards we set for patient care at Optique are unparalleled.  This has made Optique a national leader in the field of optometry.  And because of our industry-leading reputation and work, we gain access to —and then can offer to our patients—cutting-edge technologies simply not offered by other eye care professionals.

Technologies ONLY Offered at Optique

• Because of research activities, we have access to two new scleral lens designs that are not available ANYWHERE else in Tennessee. These scleral lens designs are proving to be light years ahead of the technology in lenses available today.
• Optique also has access to OCT technology that is not available in any other optometry practice in Nashville, but which can help diagnose retinal conditions earlier. (OCT stands for Optical Coherence Tomography, which is somewhat like ultrasound imaging, except that it uses light instead of sound.) We’re particularly excited about OCT technology, because it allows us to image the flow of blood beneath the retina.  Without this equipment, patients would have to be subjected to injections of dyes through the arteries and veins, which is invasive and risky.  With this new technology, we don’t have to rely on those dyes.  Optique is the ONLY optometry practice in Middle Tennessee to offer this.
• Because we are in an allergy-prone area, and have so many patients who have previously been unable to wear contact lenses due to allergies, we test for and treat environmental allergies. It used to be that you had to schedule an appointment with an allergist and go for painful and costly shots.  Now, we are able to treat allergies with the same effectiveness using a drop under the tongue (called sub-lingual immunotherapy or SLIT therapy).  This has allowed many of our patients to return to comfortable contact lens wear.

Benefits of Being the
Public Face of Cornea and Contact Lenses

We are able to offer all these revolutionary, unavailable-elsewhere technologies because Optique has become a “public face” of cornea and contact lens care.  Taking a leadership role in optometry has spurred referrals from the top ophthalmologists and optometrists in the region.  Our patients come from Middle Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, and sometimes travel as far as California and New York.

When I was faculty at Vanderbilt Eye Institute, I took referrals from one or two cornea specialists.  Now I take them from most of the specialists in the South who want the best care for their patients.  As a result of this, we are constantly seeing patients who have extremely complicated conditions. The ability to address those successfully leads, in turn, to new referrals.  All of this activity means that we have to step up our game.  Our team is the best trained in the field.  Our office manager and lead technician, Randy Teller, who happens to be dual certified as a Certified Ophthalmic Medical Technician (the highest credential in the field) and a Master Optician (also, the highest credential in a parallel field) is responsible for training the rest of our staff.

Equally as important, being an industry leader in eye care also means we are constantly having industry leaders send us new optometric technologies to evaluate.

One result of this is that we now have a new imaging technology that offers a new way to measure the thickness of the cornea. Optique’s new and more-sophisticated equipment can measure the thickness of the cornea but ALSO the top two LEVELS of the cornea. In this way, Optique is able to achieve earlier detection of corneal problems, such as keratoconus, pellucid marginal degeneration, and post-LASIK ectasia.  Again, no one else in Tennessee offers this, and we gained the ability to offer this because of our industry leadership.

Breakthrough Contact Lens Technology

Optique now offers five new designs of scleral lenses that also resulted from our being an industry leader.  Most optometrists fitting scleral lenses offer one.  Using these new lenses, we are able to address a multitude of issues, including:

• Keratoconus
• Dry Eyes
• Ocular Graft-Versus-Host Disease (GVHD)
• Stevens-Johnson Syndrome
• Pellucid Marginal Degeneration (PMD)
• Corneal Scarring
• Corneal Transplants (Penetrating keratoplasty)
• Post-surgical problems, such as post LASIK ectasia and post-radial keratotomy (RK)
• Sjögren's Syndrome

The Ultimate in Scleral Lens Technology,
EyeprintPRO™

Finally, we offer the ultimate in scleral lens technology, EyeprintPRO™. Here’s why this technology and technique is so revolutionary and helpful to you:

Generally, to correct a problem, an optometrists fits trial scleral lenses. This results in a process that—compared to the new process—is more trial-and-error, resulting in multiple office visits. But the new technology allows Optique to take a very precise impression of the surface lens, so we can determine the lens needed by the PRECISE SURFACE OF THE CORNEA AND SCLERA, then create a lens that matches that surface EXACTLY. Only 40 eye care practices in the entire world offer this, and Optique is the #1 prescriber, aside from the founder of the company.

A Profound Sense of
Responsibility to Our Patients

I’d like to stress that many of our patients do not have special or critical conditions.  Many just need expert care and glasses and contact lenses.  Irrespective, ALL our patients benefit from Optique’s industry leadership by receiving products and strategies that have not yet hit the market.

Being a world leader in optometric care also means we place a very high value on ethical treatment of all patients. To us, having this responsibility means we constantly strive to be deeply caring eye care professionals, who take care to demonstrate an unusual respect for all people—most especially our patients.

About Dr. Jeffrey Sonsino

Dr. Sonsino is a diplomate in the Cornea, Contact Lenses, and Refractive Technologies section of the American Academy of Optometry (AAO). He is also immediate-past chairman of the American Optometric Association’s (AOA) Council on Cornea and Contact Lenses, a fellow of the Scleral Lens Education Society, and is on the advisory board of the Gas Permeable Lens Institute (GPLI). In 2017, he was awarded the Practitioner of the Year by the GPLI and the Advocate of the Year by the American Optometric Association.