If Your Capture Rate Is Stuck Near 50%, Listen to This

In this episode, Dr. Steve Vargo sits down with Andrew Bruce, a licensed optician with master-level credentials in both ophthalmic optics and contact lenses, for a practical conversation about what actually keeps patients — and their eyewear purchases — inside the practice.

Steve and Andrew start with a metric that’s quietly slipping in a lot of offices: capture rate. Andrew walks through what moved the needle during his 15 years running an optical in southwest Washington, from stocking the frames your patients are actually asking for to a doctor-optician handoff that transfers authority instead of just walking someone across the room. They dig into how doctors can recommend lenses and enhancements from the exam chair without feeling salesy, and why a prescription filled somewhere else can end up reflecting on the doctor who wrote it.

This conversation goes beyond selling more frames. It’s about treating the eyewear purchase as the finish line of patient care, not an add-on. Andrew shares the strategies that set his optical apart, including choosing variety over depth on a limited frame board, asking patients to walk him through a day in their life, and pulling the price tags off his high-end frames so patients could experience them before judging them.

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