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NEW YORK—Today’s MyEyeDr., as an organization, is certainly different in scale and size from its origins 20-plus years ago. As co-founder and the CEO leading its vision and execution for the majority of those years, Sue Downes describes the continuously updated business to VM this way: “We’re bringing independent optometrists together, we’re bringing the medical model together and we have a unified name with a strong operational structure. Because of our elevated position, because of the parameters that we have, the states that we operate in, we can actually lead the industry in elevating eyecare into a medical eyecare space. And create a best in class retail experience as well.”





She continued, “We are at 820 offices today. And we have to leverage the best practices that we’ve learned even while we continue to revamp and build for our future growth. There’s so much new technology and a range of interesting things out there, today’s leading companies have really got to have your work processes and your people, the right talent aligned and that you’re utilizing technology to help serve your teams and patients in the right way for now and for the future.”

For example, she noted, “in the earlier days of MyEyeDr., when the initial goal was to really simplify the managed vision care experience for patients, we used to have routing slips so that when somebody came in we knew exactly what insurance they had, what they were entitled to, and how we and they could get the most out of those benefits.

“Today, though, we have to be several steps ahead of this and employ new tech to help us go that route. We recognize that we have to talk to the patient before they even come in about what insurance they have. We have to make sure that they’re connected to the proper visit, we have to make sure that the staff today has a ‘pre-capture’ understanding of every patient that’s coming in, what are they coming in for? What were issues they had before that we need to address for their eyecare health needs this visit? Did they love certain frames? Did they need to adjust to contact lenses—in other words, how can we customize their visit differently than we did before?”


Customizing Patient Encounters and Educating Associates
Asking these types of questions has implications for the MED teams, executives, managers, doctors and associates. Downes pointed out, “We have to deploy these differently because of the scape and scope of our operations. We definitely think a great deal about our associates. How do they deliver care? How can we make it easier for them to serve our patients?

“Our patients want more today than they wanted 10 years ago, or five years ago. And so we have to make it easier for our associates to understand how to serve them better. Patients are more educated about managed care than they were before. They’re more educated about product, even though many have much to learn about real product distinctions, but this is an opportunity and the development of our people is an important direction for us.”

As a result of changing customer/patient expectations and needs, MyEyeDr., too, is revisiting how the offices view that transition of the patient from doctor in the exam room to the retail side of the office. Downes said, ”What the doctor does in the exam lane translates to you not only seeing better and enjoying your life better. We’ve all had a greater need for glasses, especially during COVID, because we’re looking at each other via monitors or looking at screens so much, our eyes are tired and strained. Our expectation is that we can take your experience from the doctor and we can really extend it to make sure the doctor’s recommendations are matched with what you see in our retail experience.”

She emphasized, “We do think that it’s got to be fun, right? It’s got to be interactive. We also want to show our expertise on helping you truly find the best frame the best lenses that fit you, your budget and your lifestyle and be able to highlight those. We look at a lot of data, too, to help in our planning.

“We have the privilege of buying practices and partnering with them where we ask what types of patients are they catering to and what’s worked best for them? We use analytics and our own experience to understand and work with our vendors, employ heat maps to put together a curated frame selection, we try to go as wide and deep as we possibly can. So I have to comment about all the frame vendors because I think they’ve done a really great job of having a lot of uniqueness, color, shape and design so that we can go forward to understand ethnicity, average household income, and more about particular groups of patients within a market.

“We then put together a curated frame selection, but we really want to be sure we are tailoring a mix for the clientele of each office. We’ve got some offices that are focused on luxury depending on their history and where they’re based, others that we call ‘core’ with some luxury included, and more recently we are seeing interest in other more mainstream products and price points as some private practices in certain markets choose to adjust their mix and we can serve new priorities and price points. At the same time, we’re starting to look at how we can present the best lens choices and options, ways that we can help patients make the best choices for both their frames and their lenses.”


Building an Optometry Organization and Expanding Clinical Expertise
MyEyeDr.’s optometry organization has also been a major focus. Downes asks, “What about the future of medical optometry? We’ve been in business for over 20 years and we’ve gone out and talked actively about the fact that we are your insurance provider, we’re your insurance expert, we know how to help you understand your insurance, and maximize your benefits because vision benefits are very different than health insurance.





“We encourage the patient to understand how they might want to redeem their vision insurance and get the most for it—we’ve measured our reputation here and we’ve done a good job for that. In the past two challenging years, we do note the start of a changing mind shift, and a changing of the consumer to understand: ‘I’m not worried about my deductible, I’m not worried about my co- payment, I actually want to redeem this because I paid for this benefit.’”

Downes said, “But at the same time our health insurance or health visits or medical eye conditions and cases have continued to climb in these past two years. And so we’re not using our traditional vision, we’re using your health, your traditional health insurance for those visits.

“One thing that we’re noticing is that our business doesn’t start and stop with just routine eyecare or a pair of glasses. We are eye doctors and are seeing that primary care physicians are short staffed, and we’re seeing a pent-up demand where people didn’t go to many offices for primary care during the pandemic. In the exam room and with our doctors, patients are understanding from them that we can help them take care of an eye infection or identify perhaps the beginning of glaucoma or see the start of a cataract or address their suffering from dry eye after staring at computers all day long and not blinking like we should be.

“We know that we are not just retailers, we are health care-plus-optical, we believe strongly that the health care has to come first. MyEyeDr.’s professional team asks, how do we help our patients live a better life? So we are putting forward both messages. We are talking to our patients ‘did you know,’ ‘look out for this’ understand the importance of regular eye exams, what is an eye health exam versus a refraction. We’re still having fun with the product. But it has to start with the health care.”


Advocating All Stakeholders to Expand Education About Eye Health
Downes sees a need for stakeholders across the eyecare field to raise understanding about eye health. “Unfortunately, we are still at a bad place—and many consumers are less educated about their eyecare than they are about their dental care. COVID is changing attitudes. We’ve got to figure out how to get into whether it’s schools, employer groups, health plans, we’ve got to help them understand the importance of an eye health examination.

“And what the difference is between that and a refraction. Right now, we are seeing more and more things online—and sometimes these technologies can be powerful to help people via screening, but we have to be careful here and to make sure it’s not confused that that is an eye exam. And to emphasize the other health conditions that could be going on with a person’s health that are being overlooked.”





When asked about the role of private equity in MyEyeDr.’s expansion, Downes stated, “Listen, of course, I don’t think we’d be as big as we are, and where we are today, without our all of our partners from private equity, right? They brought us different things, whether it was kind of growing up as a company and having some governance or financial and operational infrastructure. Those are internal things.

“But of late, what it’s really helped us with has been consumer awareness trends, tapping into our IT strategy, better understanding what’s happening in health care. We have resources that enable us to examine our future needs and our future growth. Yes, they have deep pockets and a lot of smart people. I think if you embrace it you can bring that intel into your organization—bringing your teams together, creating development opportunities, growing in new markets. We’re able to have the performance that continues the private equity trail of wanting people to be invested with us—because in today’s climate, you have to have strong organic growth, you have to have a strong base.

“But, to me, we’re not just trying to simply hit the next financial hurdle, or have the next partner transaction. We’re also building the industry, we talked about consumer awareness, we’re building digital experiences for our associates and our patients. We’re investing in research and technology within the industry and outside of the industry to help the industry. So we feel we’re growing the category, we’re not just here to make another private equity transaction.

“And, this is where I think the industry and, really the country, needs to hold private equity more responsible, because they do have a lot of power and a lot of money and a lot of Intel, we should help them now to make the health care system better. Having private equity partners only helps us to prepare for the future disruptions and thinking about eyecare delivery differently. When we look at the medical eyecare segment, when we look beyond routine care, we see that our patients’ needs today are different than they were 10 years ago. “

MyEyeDr. today, Downes points out, is still a team of people, probably close to 85 percent, who are in the field, in offices “forward-facing” patients, while another 15 percent are behind the scenes “to support the associate experience and the journey to help deliver care. We’re really in a people business. We’ve got new positions in our company and will have other new ones in the future.

“We’ve got new expertise at the top and throughout. We have professional service specialists, our clinical field directors, a subspecialty of doctors who are passionate about solutions for myopia management, treatment for dry eyes as well as advocate leaders who can support legislative change and help make a difference in the perceptions of the value of eye health.

“We’re excited about the fact that we now have a whole team just involved in strategic initiatives exploration and thinking, examining technologies that have so much new potential.

Downes said, “We will continue to evolve in other areas so we will think about a green field strategy, where we can partner with great doctors and help set them up in their own locations, especially in markets where we are very mature and have a strong market presence. We’ll also continue to invest in other companies outside of optometry offices, whether technical or health care driven. We’re starting to invest in those companies and look at how they can evolve and bring us to a stronger health care position.”

“I’m super-hyper-protective about making sure we do not become too top heavy as a team, and that we’re building and managing our day to day challenges. COVID was hard, no matter how well you did or how many successes you had. We bought 250 offices during COVID and it has still been a challenge. We’re living with inflationary pressures, and a range of new variables out there but we want to focus, too, on what we’re expected to do every day.”

Downes feels that by the end of 2022, MyEyeDr. could be at 950 or even potentially 1,000 locations. “We want to find the right partners but we also want to be sure our current family of 820 is protected and given the resources to do their work and deliver their services to patients. So, for me, personally, culture trumps growth for growth’s sake.”