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“Our goal is to make safety eyewear more profitable for our independent ECP network,” said Adam Cherry, president of Cherry Optical, an independent wholesale lab located in Green Bay, Wis. Cherry’s safety eyewear programs focus mainly on supporting small to mid-size companies, for example, the automotive or cabinet making shops with five to 500 employees located in its regional service area. Leads for new safety customers come from ECP contacts as well as direct.

“There’s a big demand from industry for safety eyewear programs, but building the provider network hasn’t always been easy because in the past, ECPs were not adequately compensated for dispensing contract safety eyewear,” said Cherry. To build value into the program, Cherry collaborates with its SRx customers and ECP contacts to put together a total safety eyewear package that Cherry Optical oversees, dubbed Safety Optix. This includes contract pricing and billing support, supplying the frames and lens materials required and any authorizations needed so that the company and its employees know the costs involved.

“Working together, we agree on a limit, say $60 a pair, that the company will pay and anything above that is paid for by the employee,” explained Cherry. “If the employee upgrades to a more fashionable frame, wants lightweight titanium, puts AR coating on the lens, or wants a branded progressive lens, then the ECP provider’s profit can grow by $75 to $125 a pair.”

To promote its ECP network, Cherry provides its safety customers with the names of eyecare providers located in their employees’ zip code areas. “We also conduct safety assessments, walk through a company’s facility and evaluate areas of concern for eye safety, and then highlight the types of frames and materials recommended for the environment,” Cherry said. The lab also works with the major safety frame companies to get sample frame kits for its ECP network.