First of all, dentists are the only healthcare practitioners who have exclusive selling rights to their products (not to mention pain as a great motivator). Crowns, dentures etc. are not available to the patient on the open market nor can a prescription for those devices be taken in a written form to another dentist’s office to be filled. Patients from an optometrist’s or ophthalmologist’s office have the legal right and wherewithal to take the written prescription to any other qualified dispenser to be filled. Secondly, if the prescribing doctor, through his or her educational qualifications, has deemed that a specific lens is needed because of its performance properties and health benefits then who is Mr. Coon to complain? Let us make no mistake that this is a concern about Mr. Coon's bottom line, not what is best for the patient. And finally, as for Mr. Coon's bottom line, I suggest he have a serious audit of his accounting services. How can a company increase total sales by $24.8 million in the same period as last year and post a net loss of $350,000? How can he complain when the net loss of the third quarter of 2005 decreased $1.65 million from the same time last year? I suggest that the mismanagement of his own profits is his problem to assail, not the private practitioner whose decisions are prompted by proper patient car e.

Carl A. Boeck, OD
Santee, CA