- Announcement of New Clinic Services
- We are excited to announce that AOC will now be the home of our specialty Dry Eye Services. AOC has procured advanced diagnostic instrumentation including tear osmolarity testing, meibography, and meibomian gland expression evaluators, in addition to the use of validated symptom surveys and anterior segment analysis. The service also has expanded its dry eye treatments to include ocular lubrication, topical and oral pharmaceutical therapy, lid hygiene, home eyelid heat therapy, punctal plugs, autologous serum, amniotic membrane therapy, and Lipiflow. With the new instrumentation and advanced training of all AOC attendings, the AOC Dry Eye Services will provide comprehensive diagnostic and management solutions to meet the needs of all ocular surface disease patients. Please refer your patients in need of dry eye services to AOC for a dry eye assessment by calling Patient Services at 614-292-2020.
- We are equally excited to announce that Ohio State Optometry will be the home of the Bioptic Design and Fitting Service under the direction of service chief, Dr. Greg Hopkins. In the past, we have only taken care of low vision patients’ bioptic driving assessments while the bioptic design and fitting occurred outside the college. The design and fittings will now take place within the college clinics so that Ohio State Optometry will be The comprehensive center to manage all the optical needs of central Ohio bioptic drivers. For the remainder of this academic year, this service will operate on Wednesday afternoons in shared space with the Low Vision Service. All appointments for bioptic driving assessments or fittings should be scheduled through Patient Services at 614-292-2020.
- Diabetic Eye Exam Benefit Through VSP
- It’s no surprise that an appointment for a diabetic eye exam is one of the top referrals to our clinic from a family practitioner. We all know that a diabetic eye exam is really just a comprehensive eye examination that includes a report back to the family practitioner regarding the patient ocular health status. But did you know that most forms of VSP, including the benefits of all Ohio State faculty and staff, provide additional coverage for a “diabetic eye exam?” In the case of VSP patients, the initial exam would be billed as a comprehensive eye exam as always, and the diabetic eye exam is performed as a problem focused DFE within three to six months after the comprehensive exam. For Ohio State employees, this diabetic-specific visit has a $20 co-pay without any other co-insurance or deductible that needs to be met like a medical plan.
- New Chair of Ophthalmology and Visual Science
- Sayoko (Sy) Moroi, MD, PhD, has been named Ohio State’s new chair of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science. Dr. Moroi comes to Ohio State from the University of Michigan, where she is the Jerome Jacobson Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, director of the Division of Glaucoma and director of the Glaucoma Fellowship. She will join the Ohio State team in January 2020. A nationally recognized academic clinician and physician-scientist, Dr. Moroi focuses on precision medicine, an individualized approach toward prevention and treatment of glaucoma.
- Computer upgrades are coming!
- Under the direction of Alex Vu, the IT department will orchestrate a complete overhaul of our clinic IT infrastructure. Starting this month, every computer within the clinic will be upgraded. The principal change is that every workstation will now be a PC instead of a terminal. The major advantage of this upgrade is that IT will be able to segregate all Compulink-related processes from other computing processes such as internet browsing, e-mail, etc. that can slow down Compulink. Thanks in advance for your patience and understanding as we embark on making these improvements. Additional information will be forthcoming regarding timelines and instructions for the upgrade of your specific work area.
- Clearwave Update
- We have been utilizing Clearwave for three months now at our main campus and Upper Arlington clinics. The average check-in time is three minutes for first-time kiosk users and one and a half minutes for returning patients who have previously used the kiosk. Patient Services and the billing office have been collaborating and working through the changes to the overall workflow process. This has resulted in improvements in verifying patient insurance, collecting updated patient demographic information, appointment check-in, and decreased patient wait times. Clearwave also has a dashboard feature that indicates scheduled and arrived patients. We are currently beta testing the use of the Clearwave dashboard in clinic consult rooms to determine if this would be a useful method of communication for patient arrival. More information will be forthcoming.
