Program Description
This program presents students with an additional opportunity for a “hands on” fitting experience, while allowing them to serve the underprivileged. CooperVision® will provide a one-year supply of contact lenses to selected patients in need, upon completion of the fitting process at the school’s clinic or satellite clinics. Established in 2007, Adopt-A-Patient® promotes a positive contact lens fitting experience for optometry students during their clinical contact lens internship.
Benefits of the Program
- Make a difference:
Serve your local community by fitting a patient who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford contact lenses. - Gain experience fitting patients:
Receive an additional opportunity to fit a patient with contact lenses during your clinical contact lens internship.
How the Program Works
Optometry students are encouraged to “adopt” a deserving patient from their community into the program, fit them with CooperVision soft contact lenses, and provide appropriate follow-up care during their clinical contact lens internship.
Each student is allocated one complimentary annual supply of soft contact lenses from CooperVision® that they can provide to a deserving low-income patient in their community. CooperVision imposes no patient eligibility requirements; the school is responsible for determining patient eligibility.
Exam fees, fitting fees and follow-up care will be determined by each school. Many schools utilize a sliding scale for clinic fees, which may assist in determining program eligibility.
Who Is Eligible?
The primary beneficiaries of this program are typically younger patients who would greatly benefit from contact lens wear, but would otherwise be denied the opportunity because of their family’s income level.
CooperVision will leave recruitment criteria up to the discretion of the clinic director at each school. All CooperVision products are included in this program including MiSight® 1 day contact lenses – the first and only FDA approved* soft contact lenses to slow the progression of myopia in children age 8-12 at the initiation of treatment.†1 Each school is allocated up to 12 MiSight® annual supplies per given calendar year.
Program participants are generally third- and fourth-year optometry students.
Application Process
VSP has partnered with CooperVision to provide financial assistance for the clinic fees for patients selected for this program. The contact person at VSP for the Adopt-A-Patient® program is Vernon De La Cruz.
Lenses can be ordered by sending an e-mail to coopervisionorders@coopervision.com with the subject line ‘AAP-[school name].’ It is important to order all Adopt-A-Patient® lenses through coopervisionorders@coopervision.com in order to avoid being invoiced for the lenses.
Program dates
The program is open year-round and each student is allowed to select one patient during their third and fourth year of optometry school.
Contact Us
Email: professionalaffairs@coopervision.com
VSP contact name
Ron Kemper Email: ron.kemper@vsp.com
Stephanie Ganiban Email: stephanie.ganiban@vsp.com
*Indications: MiSight® 1 day (omafilcon A) soft (hydrophilic) contact lenses for daily wear are indicated for the correction of myopic ametropia and for slowing the progression of myopia in children with non-diseased eyes, who at the initiation of treatment are 8-12 years of age and have a refraction of -0.75 to -4.00 diopters (spherical equivalent) with ≤ 0.75 diopters of astigmatism. The lens is to be discarded after each removal.
†Compared to a single vision 1 day lens over a 3 year period.
References:
1. Chamberlain P, et al. A 3-year randomized clinical trial of MiSight® lenses for myopia control. Optom Vis Sci. 2019; 96(8):556-567.
