Scanning incoming frames

[Ory]

Frames typically come to the office in little baggies that have frame info and a barcode. Is there any way to scan these and have the info dumped into your database rather than entering it by hand?

[Jubilee]

Many practice management systems will interact with frames data to be utilize the barcoding system for inventory, and ultimately then pricing management.

Cassandra

I suppose if you want to do something with Excel you can set up a table for that purpose. I suppose part of it is how many times you reorder a frame to see if it is worth while.

[victor]

We paid quite a bit for Compulink when we opened our practice. One of my pet peeves is that even though we subscribe to frames data CDs (monthly), we still have to do appx 2 min. of hand data entry per frame. I would love to get around this. Today, I paid one of my employees to enter frames the whole time she was here. Sometimes, we receive 200 frames in a shipment.

If somebody had a system where you could go to a "receive frames" screen, type in your pricing formula, and start scanning bags, I would drop Compulink like a sack of rotten tomatoes. Of course, the rest of the program would have to be good too.

[icare]

I have such a program. PM Me.

[motelska]

We use maximeyes and the Data CD... and i run into the same problem as you. Not all the frames are in the CD. Just like not all new frames are in the Monthly Frames books. I just use the barcode scanner up front and scan the baggies. That'll populate the Sku number for you. As for the rest of the frame info, it still has to manually be put in. Good luck.

[Uncle Fester]

A patient called yesterday wanting advice on options for perhaps helping her deal with vertigo that over the past couple of years has worsened to the point she is seeing a therapist to help her deal with it. She has been seen by a number of MD's who find no physiological condition that would cause this condition.The therapist has suggested she try changing her trifocals to either bifocals or single vision. One of our OD's spoke to the patient and agreed with me we should try sv distance lenses in an old frame to see if it helps. She is moderately (-4.00 OU) myopic.

For educational purposes I was hoping to start a discussion on some of our experiences and resolutions of patients like this.

[LKahn]

Scanning is easy go to www.waspbarcode.com they sell the scanner guns and software to work with most technology. At most a few hundred bucks. I have done business with these folks. They are great

Frames typically come to the office in little baggies that have frame info and a barcode. Is there any way to scan these and have the info dumped into your database rather than entering it by hand?

[ADO]

Check out Crowell Systems. They are also known as Medformix. They have a strong inventory system that allows you to add inventory just by scanning the bag. It will also calculate your price based on the formulas you put in.

As with all practice management systems bring your check book, credit cards, and your banker. You will need them all.

[Kyle]

For those of you that don't know, Frames Data also offers a monthly frame update in lieu of the quarterly CD. As far as I know you don't get images with this and if I'm correct it comes on a 3.5 floppy (UGH!) but it's possible that this would keep you more up to date, especially with new releases.

If you've got enough hard drive space, you should import an entire collection all at once so you won't have to update your database until you encounter a new frame that isn't listed. The biggest headache here will come if you haven't set up a fee schedule based on wholesale - this is pretty easy to do in MaximEyes and I'm sure other software will have similar capabilties. If you use MaximEyes and DON'T subscribe to the digital Frames Data catalog (cd or floppy), you SHOULD. It may not save you that much time but sales data is much easier to gather and you have less of a chance of clogging your database with duplicate information.

Kyle