Practice building and implementation of the LENSAR ALLY system

David Hutton of Ophthalmology Times talks with Taylor Strange, MD, about his time building his practice and implementing the use of the LENSAR ALLY system.

Video Transcript

Editor's note - This transcript has been edited for clarity.

David Hutton:

Hi. I'm David Hutton of Ophthalmology Times. Caribbean Eye was held recently in San José del Cabo, Mexico. Dr. Taylor Strange, offered an insightful presentation on building his practice. Thank you so much for joining us today. Tell us about your presentation.

Taylor Strange, MD:

All right, David, thank you so much. It was an honor to be at Caribbean Eye speaking about my experience with the practice builder of FLACS in my practice, since I introduced that in 2020. So I was able to give a talk and share with fellow colleagues just about how I was able to morph into from a kind of a general ophthalmology practice into a premium practice here in the Dallas, Fort Worth metroplex.

And that story starts back in 2017, when I first hung a shingle, and started networking with optometrists in the community, and building my practice getting it going. And I was about a 12% premium conversion ... 2017 getting closer to 2020 when I opened up my very own surgery center. And in 2020, when I did that, I was allowed to bring in FLACS using the LENSAR system to my practice, because prior to that, the hospital just wouldn't, wouldn't buy it for me, I was on my own.

And so when I built my own, I was free to go full autonomy because it was my own surgical center. And when I did that my premium volume shot up into the 40% right away. And I was able to offer, you know, the most advanced cataract surgery platform on the market, and still is, with the LENSAR system. And it just gave me better outcomes. Toric alignment was awesome, because of the IntelliAxis system. I had perfect arcuate incisions, much better than I could manually. Safer profile, faster, healing less energy needed. All those things really helped me become the premium guy in my market. And my philosophy really is when I see a patient for a cataract [evaluation] is I want to lead with laser. And in doing all that, bring doctors [that] see that and send me more and more and more networked optometrists, you know, working in my network would send. And so now, I mean, I'm up to 75 dedicated optometric practices, just because they feel like I deliver the highest quality of cataract surgery for their patients.

And just in 2023, I was able to do over 3100 cataracts just by myself, which is pretty amazing, I think comparatively to other people. And it's just awesome. So I now have the two allies. I got one femtosecond laser in each of my two ORs. And so that allows me to just really move efficiently safe, and deliver the best outcome for the cataract patient. That's getting the FLACS upgrade to their cataract surgery. And, you know, we're able to really deliver an awesome service for our patients out here

David Hutton:

With these changes, what's your outlook then for 2024?

Taylor Strange, MD:

The outlook for 2024 is, already seeing that in January and now into February, that the volume continues to rise. A mark like 10% over what I was doing last January in February. And so it's a very growing market out here. And so to be able to move with the volume that I'm doing, I'm going to have you know, keep having that great technology that allows us to move efficiently and it's growing.

So there's more locations coming and probably eventually another surgical center down the road. The take home message is for any cataract surgeon out there that really wants to deliver the best outcomes and care for their patient. You really got to look into FLACS, especially the ALLY system. It's the fastest one on the market. It's markerless, it integrates with the diagnostics very, very well. I can't remember the last time I had to set a patient up to mark them. And it's sterile.

That's the big thing, right? So that's the only system that allows me to do FLACS in the operating room and not have to go to a separate room to do it. The other two main platforms are not sterile currently. And so if you want to move fast and efficient and get excellent outcomes, then you really got to look at the ALLY system with LENSAR.