Sudden Loss of Vision

A reduction of blood flow through one of your carotid arteries may cause temporary vision loss in the eye on the same side. This loss of vision is like a curtain being drawn over the eye and lasts about one or two minutes. Temporary blockages of the arteries are called transient ischemic attacks (TIA). You need to see your ophthalmologist or family physician immediately should you experience such episodes.

The carotid arteries are located in your neck (one on each side) and are the main source of blood supply to the eyes and brain. When this blood flow is reduced or blocked, the eyes and brain do not receive enough oxygen. A complete blockage of the carotid artery can cause a stroke.

Some risk factors for developing carotid artery disease include smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity and family history. If you are diagnosed with carotid artery disease your ophthalmologist and other medical providers will work together as a team to determine the best possible treatment for you.

A comprehensive eye exam with dilation will allow the doctor to examine your eyes for blocked blood vessels. So, make your health a priority by scheduling your eye exam today.

The Importance of Follow-up Exams for LASIK

One day after LASIK, our patients cannot believe they can now see the alarm clock and some feel they can see like they were five years old again. To maintain this vision along with healthy eyes, it is important to come in for follow-up care. These patients will no longer need to come in for their annual eye exam to order new contacts; instead, they will have annual eye exams to follow up on the health of their eyes after having the LASIK procedure.

No matter how great our vision is after LASIK, the health of our eyes will continue to be very important. Not only do you want to be sure to come for the one-day, one-week and one-month follow-ups, but the annual checkups are just as important. LASIK patients who do not schedule or attend their follow-up exams are more likely to have problems that could easily be prevented. Even patients who have 20/20 vision all their lives can sometimes develop treatable diseases such as glaucoma. The post-operative exams are important to make sure that the eye is healing correctly, there are no infections and to measure the visual progress.

Also, it is important, but not a must, that patients do their follow-up appointments with the same doctor that performed their LASIK procedure. However, if a patient prefers to transfer back to their original doctor, Dr. Meyer will provide your post-operative medical records to your doctor upon consent. It is better to keep a watch on a perfect eye than to wait until there is a problem.
Your vision may be excellent after LASIK but we still want to make sure your overall eye health continues.

Reimbursement to Physicians under the Medicare System

When introduced, the Medicare program provided a lifeline of support for tens of millions of seniors who could not otherwise afford what was, at that time, referred to as “major medical” insurance.

Now, almost 50 years later, Medicare has become a tangled web of complex regulations. Absolutely, it is still an extraordinarily wonderful program to help support the health care of seniors. This article is not about the benefits of Medicare; rather, we just wish to showcase one of the pending serious Medicare problems.

The physician reimbursement method within Medicare is broken. For physicians who treat a large number of seniors, as in ophthalmology, Medicare is the low water benchmark for reimbursement. Medicare just barely reimburses doctors enough to pay the cost of running the average private practice.

Physicians are paid for Medicare services using a reimbursement formula called the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate. The simple explanation of this formula is that it is intended to keep Medicare spending flat. So, as the population of seniors expands, new treatments are introduced, and the quantity of services covered continues to grow, the per treatment payment to doctors shrinks.

Congress has attempted to address this formula many times during the past ten or so years. However, Congress has only put in place temporary fee cut suspensions. Some of these suspensions have lasted as long as 18 months, while the current suspension is only 60 days. Physicians have long ago given up any serious hope of attaining cost of living, or inflation based, raises for Medicare services provided. Now, physicians are simply trying to stop payment decreases. Another decrease is scheduled to hit Medicare participating physicians on March 1, 2010. The scheduled amount is the largest in history – almost 23%.

Surveys of physicians by the American Medical Association, Medical Group Management Association, and others, indicate that if the Sustainable Growth Rate formula problem is not fixed rapidly, some doctors will stop participating with Medicare, while others will retire earlier than planned. While this is not the case for the physicians at The Eye Care Institute, we believe that many of our physician colleagues are significantly dismayed by Congressional inaction and will soon stop participating with Medicare.

While considering the complexity of the entirety of health care reform, please remember that federal funding of the Medicare program, and this broken reimbursement formula, is another piece of this complex puzzle.

If you agree than physicians should not be subject to ongoing reimbursement cuts by the Medicare program, please consider contacting your Representatives in Washington.

Your comments about this article are welcome. Please send them to our administrator, Mark Prussian.