The Great Contact Lens Dumpster Fire of 2023

[Uilleann]

Well friends - here we are. Wondering how you all are handling the seemingly almost complete loss of product supply/information/accountability from almost all contact manufacturers and brands in 2023? It was a growing issue the last half of 2022, culminating of course in Vist completely shutting down the last half of December, and refusing to ship at all. We won't even mention their shotgun discontinuation of a huge number of skus, forcing refits for large numbers of patients. V is by far the worst, but Alco, B+L, and Cooper aren't much better at all.

Completely unprecedented in my own limited 35 years of experience in the field. And now we're averaging 3 week delivery on "in stock" orders, and 2-3 months on backordered product. Trials in particular are all but non-existant, and reps just give the same non-answer lip service as to what's actually going on, and what they're doing to fix the problem. Never thought I'd live to see such a massive crash and burn, but well as stated before - here we are.

How are all of yinz coping in your respective offices?

[NAICITPO]

I am beyond frustrated with them. The reps keep on saying it is because of Covid affecting the supply chain but that was 3 years ago... It is pretty much a dumpster fire in my office as well. We run out of contact lens trays now regularly because so many orders waiting to come in. We have now been telling contact lens customers to expect 2 weeks at the minimum for trials.

Vistakon is the worst, not only are they having supply issues they also are having warehouse issues. One customer service person said the contacts I was looking for were at the warehouse but they wouldn't be shipped for a week and a half because of how backlogged it is. I really don't know what to do, our doctors have put so many of their patients into Oasys that it would be a major pain to switch them to a new contact brand.

What we have tried to do with some limited success is order contacts from several different sources, whoever has them in stock gets our business. It hasn't really worked for trials but it has worked better for orders.

[drk]

We are JnJ heavy prescribers. We are just not used to the hiccups.

Initially we liberalized giving out trials until a patient's shipment arrived, but it's getting difficult to get trials. They are going to have to wear their glasses.

We have people calling and complaining about the slower shipment times. Mostly because they are un-prepared. We could help by explaining that shipping times may be longer.

The worst cases are the back-orders...no product available for many weeks. That's a big problem with no solution.

I've contemplated sourcing the materials from buying groups etc, instead of going direct, as we normally do, but I doubt that's more than a very short-term solution.

What I'd like to hear is that the manufacturers are prioritizing orders from professional accounts, and that they're not feeding the internet retailers (or wholesale clubs) first.

As to parameter discontinuation and even product discontinuation, some of it was deadweight anyway. But we'll soon see the end of the AirOptix to go with the end of Purevision2. HEMA lenses are probably going to die off, as well.

[Alex Camblor]

We do all our CL orders thru WVA (now called FAIT distribution) and I have not noticed any delays or other issues with our orders. We order all our trials through them as well. Orders take about 1 week to get to us in Hawaii and we mostly order JnJ and B&L lenses. They are pretty good to deal with and they dont charge any admin fees.

[optical24/7]

As a supplier, am I gonna dedicate sales to a 100 dollar order or a 100k order? Just another way to control distribution for efficiency of scale. The driving force of economics will shift to large distributors to be the vastly largest outlets to obtain product… Enriching said large distributors. (Think Amazon).

[drk]

I boo this ^^^^^^

[optical24/7]

Don’t get me started on robotics and AI……

[KrystleClear]

We primarily do Alcon/Ciba and B&L lenses and it feels like everything is always on backorder. Patients calling everyday wondering where their contacts are. All we can tell them is they are on backorder. It's frustrating.

[Uncle Fester]

Prediction---

Wholesale cost of contacts will increase across the board about 20% in the coming months and the supply chain issue will "magically" resolve.

[drk]

Sent this email to my main supplier:

[sales rep], can you complain/ remind anyone higher up that will listen to you and I that [CL company] has an opportunity to outshine your competition by prioritizing the supply of CLs available to professional accounts (like me) and NOT wholesale clubs and online suppliers*?

I can imagine certain CL companies would have a quota that they send to, say, Costco or 1-800 CLs. IF IT EVER GOT OUT that certain CL manufacturers are allocating huge amounts of lenses to their big dollar accounts at the expense of the eye doctors, it would be a huge black eye for that manufacturer.


It's an opportunity to further differentiate and demonstrate that [insert company here] is dedicated to professional eye care.


What do you think?


*(I guess buying group accounts like ABB would be a "tweener"; somewhere between supplying private ODs and the commercial retailers.)

[drk]

Here's our official in-house policy:

CL SHORTAGE POLICY

Since trials are scarce, and wait times exceed our ability to compensate, we are no longer providing trials.

Quote 2-4 weeks for delivery.

Solution to their problem: wear glasses.

Back orders: disaster! We should try to get free trials from the manufacturer to cover their problem.

[Uilleann]

Trials seem to be backordered far more frequently, and longer than revenue boxes.

Hmmmm...the conspiracist in me is colored quite dubious. *shrug*

Vist certainly started the tumble, but it is strange that Alcon and B+L in particular seem to have followed suit quickly enough. The strangest part of it all is the utter lack of communication regarding the actual problem, and only getting vague allusions to "supply chain", or "staffing", or "training" etc.

It's as if multiple companies in a single highly specialized industry all woke up on a random Tuesday, and simply stopped remembering how to be in business.

At all.

In ANY meaningful way.

The mind boggles...

[Uncle Fester]

Trials seem to be backordered far more frequently, and longer than revenue boxes.

Hmmmm...the conspiracist in me is colored quite dubious. *shrug*

Vist certainly started the tumble, but it is strange that Alcon and B+L in particular seem to have followed suit quickly enough. The strangest part of it all is the utter lack of communication regarding the actual problem, and only getting vague allusions to "supply chain", or "staffing", or "training" etc.

It's as if multiple companies in a single highly specialized industry all woke up on a random Tuesday, and simply stopped remembering how to be in business.

At all.

In ANY meaningful way.

The mind boggles...

You mean in a competitive business?

After all, who's gonna stop them?

[juno]

It's that time of year where ORDINARILY I cull all the old CLs and restock the diagnostic trials. We have been able to go a little lighter these past few years, because I brought a large stockpile with me when my other office closed. Now our distributor (ABB) is causing some EXTREME aggravation on my end by giving us mega-hassle about the trial refresh. Their grid order has been gone for >1.5years, so I have to order everything as OD and OS. So re-stocking toric lenses is "fun". I'm not even going crazy with the refills, in an effort to mitigate and contain. But now I'm the bad guy for wanting my doctor to have a gd basic fitting set for some of the most common lenses he prescribes. I'm getting angry right now just thinking about this, gahhh

[iD]

Has anyone's CL rep for any of the major manufacturers been pushy lately to only push their product?

[KrystleClear]

It's that time of year where ORDINARILY I cull all the old CLs and restock the diagnostic trials. We have been able to go a little lighter these past few years, because I brought a large stockpile with me when my other office closed. Now our distributor (ABB) is causing some EXTREME aggravation on my end by giving us mega-hassle about the trial refresh. Their grid order has been gone for >1.5years, so I have to order everything as OD and OS. So re-stocking toric lenses is "fun". I'm not even going crazy with the refills, in an effort to mitigate and contain. But now I'm the bad guy for wanting my doctor to have a gd basic fitting set for some of the most common lenses he prescribes. I'm getting angry right now just thinking about this, gahhh

I recently went through our contact lens room and started ordering replacements for expired lenses. It took *months* to get them in once I ordered them. I was so thankful I didn't pitch the expired ones. And when they did come they were just thrown in a bag with no organization so it took me forever to sort them out and put them away. In fact, I am still in the process of putting them away.

[NAICITPO]

I recently went through our contact lens room and started ordering replacements for expired lenses. It took *months* to get them in once I ordered them. I was so thankful I didn't pitch the expired ones. And when they did come they were just thrown in a bag with no organization so it took me forever to sort them out and put them away. In fact, I am still in the process of putting them away.

Yeah, the same thing happened when I went through and reordered all of our biofinity toric trials. They were all mixed up, so had to separate them all cyl and then axis. One of our front desk people had taken the tray out to make it easier to put the trials in and when they were done they tried to put the tray back into the stand and it fell... was hard not to laugh, but I managed