
Diabetic Screening- UCHA Eye Division
DID YOU KNOW?
-
27 million of all ages (8.2% of the USA Population) have a diagnosis of Diabetes.
-
7 million that have undiagnosed Diabetes.
-
88 million aged 18 years old or older have pre-diabetes.
-
11.5 million or almost 27% of the population 65 y/o and over has Diabetes.
-
One of the major eye diseases that can lead to permanent blindness is known as Diabetic Retinopathy.
-
Diabetic Retinopathy is the most common complication resulting from diabetes.
How do we reach and teach patients?
We make it simple:
-
Discuss it at their physicals and follow ups. This is a question the medical assistants can ask when inquiring about their preventative care. The provider can then reinforce.
-
Discuss importance of retinal eye evaluation by an eye care provider.
-
Work with time constraints by offering telehealth retinal screening. Many will complain they don’t have time or the financial resources to schedule. This will aide with both.
What is a telehealth retinal screening?
-
Requires virtually no paperwork for our established patients.
-
Just come in, sit down and get a picture taken. THAT’S IT!
-
Dr. Vigario will then remotely read the picture and draw up a report.
-
Can be done at patient’s visit with PCP! No dilation needed.
-
Will save many eyes! The goal is early detection!
-
Covered by most insurances Annually for patients that have been diagnosed with Diabetes Mellitus.
Will be offered starting 4/19 at Elizabeth, Rahway and Garwood locations. Providers from other offices can have patient’s schedule for this at any of the three locations.
The ability to utilize this current technology to conduct retinal eye screenings for the early detection, diagnosis, treatment and follow up of Diabetic Retinopathy can help reduce complications leading to the loss of quality of sight or blindness!
Additional eye related conditions that can be detected using this technology include: Glaucoma, Macular Degeneration, Hypertension and other vision threatening conditions.
