Winning with Ease: Practice Manager Shares Victory Accomplished through Simplicity

It's not common, but some victories come easy. Office Manager Charla Thrash explains how the simplicity of Unity Via Progressive Lenses have streamlined new hire training while ensuring exceptional patient satisfaction at Freestone Optometric Center in Rialto, California. 

I guess you could say I’m old school. I require a lot. I expect a lot of myself and I expect a lot from our opticians as well. When they’re dispensing, it’s really important to me that there are no hiccups. It doesn’t matter who a patient comes in and works with, it’s essential that the same exceptional quality experience is delivered.

I have 20 years of history with many of our patients. These are patients that I worked with over and over again. I have to trust that whoever’s working with them now is going to be able to deliver the same experience at the same ridiculously high standard that I set for myself. I’ve spent most of my adult life in this office. There’s a lot on the line for me. So, if I have a product that makes it simple for our opticians to succeed with, I can breathe easier. And that’s exactly what Unity Via Progressives do—makes it easy for them to be successful.

If I have a product that makes it simple for our opticians to succeed with, I can breathe easier. And that’s exactly what Unity Via Progressives do"

​That’s no small feat because you don’t always hire opticians that come from an optical background or education. You don’t always hire the same level of experience. Sometimes you hire people because they have great personal skills with patients. Even when you’re talking about new staff that has experience and has come from other practices or recently graduated from school, it’s hard to onboard them.

The Unity Via product has been very easy for our new opticians to move into and understand. They don’t have to worry about needing15 different instruments to take the measurements.  With basic instruction and simple measurements they can be on their way to delivering a great experience.

Unity Via is so much more forgiving. It allows you to provide a really great experience, even if your measurement isn’t 100% spot on in the beginning." 

And Unity Via is so much more forgiving. It allows you to provide a really great experience, even if your measurement isn’t 100% spot on in the beginning. Even if the seg height is a teeny bit high or a teeny bit low, it doesn’t result in a bad experience for the patient—​I guess because of the technology.

​It’s obviously our goal to make sure everything is always as accurate as possible, but patients have different ways they sit, stand, do different tasks, which are different from their position when we’re measuring them in the practice. The Unity Via fitting technology accommodates really well for that.

And the streamlined good, better, best portfolio makes a huge difference!

When you have a very simple portfolio, you’re able to simply say, “Pick A because of this, pick B because of this, and pick C because of that.” 

The product we used previously in our office had to have 17 or 18 different designs that were apparently all in the same category, that all seemed to do and say the same thing. Why have 17 different options? 

As an optician, you have to be able to stay streamlined. You have so much to think about. You’re talking with your patient, you’re building relationships, you’re looking at the insurances they have, you’re making sure you’re good on time. Successfully managing all of that is a lot easier to do when you’re not trying to remember the difference between 17 different lens choices.

​It’s great to know that I can just hand over the reins and they can perform at a high level. Even if they haven’t digested all the aspects of the technology yet. They're able to do A, do B, and get the results that we want to see. And I see it in the success for the patients and the practice.

​It’s great to know that I can just hand over the reins and they can perform at a high level." 

My standards are way too high—unreasonably high—even for myself, so I expect nothing but the best experience for the patient. Unity Via gives me the confidence that my demanding standards are being met by each of our opticians, whether they’ve been with us a month or five years.

When you’re in private practice, it’s all about the relationship with the patient. You have to be able to focus on that. And you have to be able to provide them an excellent quality product to go along with that experience. With Unity Via, it’s been very easy to do that.

Having been in the industry as long as I have, I understand opticians may be apprehensive about going into a new progressive lens. It’s hard. It’s scary to move away from something you’re comfortable with. But, when you see the results and hear the amazingly positive feedback from patients, it instantly wipes away any of that anxiety.

We used to have a lot more redos before Unity Via. Progressives. Now,  non-adapts aren't even a thing for us anymore. And who wants redos? Once a patient has that bad experience, even one time, they lose their confidence in you.

Unity Via Progressives have matched my demanding standards, delivering on all the key points a premium progressive needs to have, while simplifying and expediting training in a way I never would have thought possible.

We used to have a lot more redos before Unity Via. Progressives. Now,  non-adapts aren't even a thing for us anymore."