ELearning Classes for Your Practice Staff: Supporting Patients with or at Risk for Diabetes

As American Diabetes Month comes to a close, it’s important to keep the dialogue going with patients and educating them on the connection between diabetes, eye health, and overall health. And with only 57% of optometrists discussing prediabetes with their patients—and that’s only if the patient brings it up or if the diagnosis is on their chart¹—there’s tremendous opportunity for your practice to further the conversation.

Ensure your entire practice is engaged. In addition to the tools we’ve shared to support you, we have resources for your team to support your patients living with or at risk for diabetes. Premier Academy360^TM offers the Focus On Diabetes eLearning courses for office staff. This four-part series consists of brief, 15-minute courses that were developed especially for the optometry clinic team by the American Diabetes Association.

Through this series, your staff will learn:

• The basics of diabetes, what puts a person at risk for it, and how it can affect eye health.
• What prediabetes is and how someone can keep it from progressing to diabetes.
• What diabetes-related eye conditions are and how they are treated, how regular eye exams affect optometric care, and how best to support patients who have diabetes.
• How successful diabetes management requires empowered patients, a team approach to care, and how best to support patients with diabetes.

In addition to leveraging this diabetes education, remember to have your practice staff indicate if your patients have diabetes or prediabetes when submitting a VSP claim. In doing so, we’ll send reminders to those patients if they haven’t had an eye exam in 14 months and refer them back to your practice. Plus, there’s opportunity to earn additional revenue for your practice. You and your team can learn more on VSPOnline at eyefinity.com, under Administration and then Submitting Patient Conditions.

For more information on additional tools you and your staff can leverage during American Diabetes Month and beyond, visit vspeyeonhealth.com.

^{1  Pre-diabetes and HbA1c Awareness and Benefits Survey February, 2020.}