Why Prisons are an Untapped Source of Income to the Eye Care Industry

Hello! You would think that most people who read the headline would have a gut level reaction and say, "Huh!" "What!" "That's not true!"

But it is true! Let me start from the beginning and try to explain....

First of all, the following is just my opinion and experiences dealing with the Corrections Industry. It might not be the same for another eye care practitioner so I'm just expressing my viewpoint in order to educate and possibly help someone who is looking for a possible income stream that's right for them.

When most people think of prisons, they think "Shawshank Redemption" or "Cool Hand Luke" or some other movie were its depressing and dangerous. And yes, for the most part, its all of that and then some....for the inmates....

But I digress....

As an optometrist working for Corrections Institutions, I have worked in Federal, Private, State and County Corrections for almost a decade.

And yes, it is sometimes tough to examine murderers, bank robbers and child molesters on a day to day basis. As a normal person, it really is... especially when you see them on the news one day and see them face to face literally the next day!

But, I'm also an entrepreneur...I see that you have a special population that's very stable when it comes to numbers.

I see that they have a right to healthcare just like people on the outside. Federal, State and County governments have to pay for all these services the inmates' receive.

I also see that not a lot of business entities are falling over themselves to service this very special group of people so there's little or no competition.

However, they are still people with the same healthcare needs as you and me that the Corrections Institutions have to provide.

Part of that is glasses, contacts, eye exams, cataract operations, retinal surgery, solutions/drops etc.

For those who appreciate numbers, when I was steeped in Corrections as my entire career at the time, I was working 5 days a week at different corrections facilities and seeing 30-50 inmates per day with up to 99% getting 1 pair of glasses.

On the low end, that's seven thousand pairs of glasses per institution a year...

In my state, there are over twenty major correction institutions holding a hundred to seven thousand inmates per facility. Not to mention the county jails holding a few hundred to a few thousand inmates per facility.

So, you're getting a rough idea of how big this can be...

Now you can assume that if the State/Federal/County Corrections facilities pays for glasses, then its' got to be the cheapest thing running and you'd be right.

However, I've personally seen inmates walking around in brand name sunglasses and regular glasses since they or their families have disposable income and purchased glasses from the outside.

There are only a few practices and businesses that handle Corrections solely. A lot of them have their own labs churning out hundreds and thousands of glasses a year.

That's just glasses....

I've literally wrote hundreds of referrals when I was working for prisons for cataract surgeries, diabetic retinopathy management, cornea transplants, oculo-plastics etc.

Keeping the ophthalmologist, retinal specialist, cornea specialist and oculo-plastics surgeons insanely busy.

Eye related Telemedicine would be huge in the Corrections Industry because the most time and expense consuming thing is in moving an inmate from the prison to their outside appointments. There would be a huge outlay in manpower, transportation not to mention security risks in moving inmates to their health related appointments.

From my experience, the growing trend of getting your glasses prescription by using computers, apps or portable auto refractors that could be kept in the prisons would be extremely appealing to Federal and State Corrections not to mention Private Corrections Companies looking to drastically decrease health care costs.

I personally found it very profitable to service these facilities because I invested in state-of-the-art equipment that was portable and was able to see a large amount of inmates using tools such as a portable NCT, auto refactor, slit lamp and phoropter as well as dilating equipment for retinal exams.

I would often be called in to "catch up" a prison's eye appointments because I could do it more efficiently and accurately. This happened quite often since there was never any shortage of inmates to see through out my entire tenure working for these facilities.

So, for all those companies looking to increase their bottom line, you might want to look into your local corrections institutions and see if you can bid for a contract to handle their eye care related needs.

If you have any questions or if I could help you in exploring this possibility for your practice or business, you can contact me and we can talk about it.