The Cornea & Contact Lens Institute of Minnesota is a practice dedicated to specialty contact lenses. Practice owner Zachary Holland, OD, purchased the clinic in 2020, offering services beyond comprehensive eye care, including contact lenses and specialty contact lenses, dry eye management, myopia control, and clinical research. Each patient is seen as a unique puzzle for which the staff uses all the tools at its disposal to create custom lenses that achieve the best visual results for each of its patients. Whether it’s a simple eye exam or treating a condition that requires in-depth diagnosis, the team at Cornea & Contact Lens Institute of Minnesota provides undivided attention to each of its patients and are dedicated to providing the highest level of eye care.

Megan Lott, OD, of Belle Vue Vision Care says it was her destiny to become an optometrist and share the gift of vision with others. Dr. Lott opened her practice in 2016 with a focus on vision therapy and pediatric vision, but has since grown to do much more, including brain injury rehabilitation and myopia management. She and her associate, Willis Maples, OD, are the only two full-time practicing fellows of College of Optometrists in Vision Development (COVD) in all of Mississippi. With each patient who walks through their doors, they look beyond just their eyes and into their overall health and quality of life.

For Tracy Ho, OD, practice owner of City of Vision Eye Care, being an optometrist means being a powerhouse of resources for patients. Dr. Ho has made it a priority to go above and beyond when it comes to patient education to empower them live their lives to the fullest. But it’s not only the patients at City of Vision who leave feeling empowered, it’s the staff. The practice is committed to giving back to the community through its “City of Vision Cares” campaign, in which the practice regularly donates to a charity of their choice every month. City of Vision is the only clinic in the state of New Mexico to have both a pediatric optometrist and ocular disease optometrist. Services include—but are not limited to—comprehensive eye care, infant eye exams, vision therapy, myopia management, macular degeneration, and treatment of a variety of rare or uncommon eye diseases.

The mission at The Chicago Lighthouse is to serve the blind, low vision, disabled, and veteran communities. As a not-for-profit, the practice is uniquely positioned to provide charitable care in its clinic on a regular basis. Practice owners Kelly Scherer, OD, and Kara Crumbliss, OD, are reminded daily by their patients that life is what you make of it. This sentiment fuels their passion for applying their skillsets to leave an everlasting impact on each of their patients. Committed to providing the highest level of eye care, rehabilitation and social support, the team at The Chicago Lighthouse goes beyond eye care by discussing with patients the challenges they face in receiving equitable access to healthcare, education, and employment. Through these efforts, the practice advocates not only for its patients, but the community at large.

Janet Wilson, OD, owner of Bella Vision, owes much of her practice’s success to her quality team. The staff at Bella Vision prioritizes its patients over everything else, going out of their way to build meaningful connections with everyone who walks through their doors. Providing eye care education to its patients—and those outside of eye care—is one of the biggest ways that Bella Vision contributes to its community. In fact, Dr. Wilson has been known to speak at local schools and colleges, participate in local symposiums, and has even spoken to the state’s athletic trainer’s association on brain injury and its impact on the vision system. Bella Vision offers a wide range of eye care services, but focuses primarily on two specialty areas: vision therapy and dry eye treatment.

The doctors and staff at Hellerstein & Brenner Vision Center P.C. are highly trained beyond routine eye care, specializing in many realms of optometry including ocular disease, specialty contact lenses, pediatric care, binocular vision disorders, vision and learning, vision therapy, and more. Practice owner Lynn Hellerstein, OD, believes that staff is core to the practice. The team shares values that drive the practice’s success, which include putting the team first, striving for personal and professional growth, and doing the right thing—for each other, for the practice, and for their patients. Dr. Hellerstein is an award-winning author who has published four books and several academic works. The doctors at Hellerstein & Brenner Vision Center P.C. are each dedicated to giving back to the community and the profession. Of the five doctors, each has or currently serves as a board member or volunteer for many optometric and non-optometric associations.

For Robert Africano, OD, practice owner of North Carolina Primary Vision Care Associates—a practice within the National Vision Doctor of Optometry Network—it is a personal passion to mentor young optometrists. After completing a teaching residency at Salus University, Dr. Africano decided that participating in optometric education was something he wanted to integrate into his own practice. Today, his practice acts as a training ground for fourth-year optometry students, providing externship opportunities for students from the Illinois College of Optometry, New England College of Optometry, Pacific University, and Salus University. Because the practice in many ways operates as a professional classroom, North Carolina Primary Vision Care Associates prioritizes the integration of innovative new technologies, as well as a focus in clinical and professional development. Currently, the practice is investigating the use of headset visual machines and how they can be used for patient testing. The technologies the team chooses to adopt benefit not only the doctors, students, and staff, but the practice’s patients as well.

Specialty eye care has become a driving force for success at TrueVision Eye Care. Over the years, practice owner Alecia Barnes, OD, has built a strong referral network with local ophthalmologists and optometrists to provide advanced care for keratoconus, post-surgical complications, corneal scarring, and myopia management. In 2019, the practice opened a second location with a focus on pediatric vision care through vision therapy. The TrueVision staff is committed to creating its own educational video content so patients are empowered to learn more about their eye health even after their appointment has ended. With such a strong commitment to pediatric vision development, TrueVision offers a free kids day community event during back-to-school season during which pediatric eye exams are offered all day long.

Robert Clark, MD, owns South Bay Family Eye and believes in “following the science” to deliver quality patient care. His involvement in local and state associations enables him not only to be a better doctor, but to shape the future of the profession. The three specialty areas of focus that distinguish South Bay Family Eye are myopia control, premature infants, and vision therapy, but the practice offers many other services including comprehensive eye exams, contact lens fitting and training, diabetic eye screening, glaucoma screening, and cataract evaluation and treatment. The practice moved into a new facility in summer 2022 that is designed with the patient in mind, featuring modern technologies such as iPad systems, an OCT, virtual reality visual field tester, and other equipment designed to enhance the patient experience. The biggest enhancement since the practice’s move has been its after hour and emergency care services. The practice’s clinicians can be reached at any time, have cloud-based access to all patient records, and can request photos or other telehealth information prior to making a more informed, triage decision.

“Patient centric” is how David Holler, OD, would use to describe his practice, Clarity Vision. Strong patient communication and education are a must. The team at Clarity Vision undergoes a rigorous training process to reinforce the importance of customer service, and to deliver the best care to meet the individual needs of each patient. The team at Clarity Vison is committed to delivering personalized services to each of its patients from the second they walk in the door. In 2019, the group formed “Clarity for Kids,” an initiative that enables each practice location to give back to a local children’s charity of their choice, providing support that goes beyond eye care.