Services provided at our office include:
	Comprehensive Eye Examinations		Contact Lens Evaluation
	Optical Dispensing		Accessories
	Laser Vision Correction		Surgery Co-Management
	Eye Infections, Eye Injuries, Dry Eyes		Eye Diseases; Cataracts, Glaucoma, Diabetes
	Low Vision Services		Vision Therapy
	Child Vision and Learning		Sports Vision
	Vision Benefits Plan		Gift Cards

When we do eye exams, we refuse to cut corners. We always schedule ample time so you will never feel rushed. We provide complete eye care for both adults and children. Our comprehensive eye examinations check your eyes inside and out for glaucoma, cataracts and all other eye diseases as well as high blood pressure, diabetes and other systemic diseases. Your visual skills and abilities are carefully evaluated and we pride ourselves on the accuracy of our eyeglass prescriptions. In spite of our track record for highly accurate prescriptions, there are eyes that can be unstable for reasons ranging from medications to illness. In these rare cases, we will gladly re-examine the patient and remake the glasses.

Technology is rapidly changing the eye care industry. We utilize the latest in diagnostic equipment and are committed to keeping up with whatever advances will come next.

Few things affect the quality of your life more than your eyes. Please don't put them at risk! Start off right with an examination at Drs. Spronk, Vander Griend & Radke who provide full-service care in assessing your medical needs and assuring that your eyes are acceptable for contact lenses. They can determine which high quality contact lenses are available to meet your needs and provide proper training to maintain great vision.

It is important to remember that contact lenses are prescription medical devices. Various brands are designed and manufactured differently. The selection of a particular contact lens needs to be based on your vision problems, prescription, eye health, comfort requirements, lifestyle, age and physiological factors like tear flow. We'll discuss the different lens types and brands with you and advise you about the lens choices that are best for your eyes. Because everyone's eyes and vision needs are different, contact lenses are available with varying schedules for removal and replacement. We'll teach you how to properly clean and wear your new contact lenses to maximize vision and minimize potential risks.

At the Eyecare Center we make sure that vision correction not only helps you see better, but also helps you feel better. That's why we offer contact lens evaluations. Contact lenses aren't right for everyone, but they may be right for you. Even if you have astigmatism or need bifocal lenses, we may have a solution. Your evaluation will include:

• A look at your vision history
• An examination of your corneas
• A consultation session with the Doctor, including personal recommendations and options

Our optical laboratory has the latest in equipment to not only fabricate your glasses, but to maintain and repair them should they become broken or damaged. We are able to tint, coat, harden and edge spectacle lenses. We are able to provide you with any frame or lens design available. Our highly qualified optician and staff are able to adjust and fit your glasses to you for extended comfort and vision.

Everyone who wears eyeglasses has different needs. At the Eyecare Center, we feature a variety of accessories for your glasses or contacts.

Choose a cool hard case for your glasses. We have leather cases for a sleek professional look, or cartoon cases for children.

Pick up a contact lens case for disinfecting and storage. We carry cleaning solutions for contacts and eyeglass lenses, cleaning cloths, and lens care kits.

We also offer a sunglass package deal to young sunglass wearers, including a cleaning cloth, hard case, and sunglass cords.

Whatever your eyewear accessory needs, Eyecare Center can help!

Everyone is talking about LASIK. Here is a brief description of the procedure.

A flap is cut in the cornea and then the flap is gently folded back. An Excimer Laser is used to reshape the cornea, much like a contact lens forms a new shape on the cornea, only the laser is permanent. The flap is then put back in place, acting like a natural bandage.

The "Wow!" effect of Lasik is the very rapid recovery of vision and the decreased level of discomfort post-operatively. You hear from people that they did not feel anything, and could see well the very first day. Most people have functional vision in 24-48 hours, although this is true in some cases, it must be noted that each person will heal at a different rate. Vision, although greatly improved immediately after surgery, continues to improve for some weeks, even months.

Everyones eyes are different. Even though you may have had a friend who has had LASIK, it does not mean it is right for you. If you are interested in laser vision correction, we will be happy to guide you in picking the right surgeon, procedure and laser appropriate for you. For many of you who are long-term contact lens wearers my pre-operative input can make the difference between an excellent result and a mediocre one.

Post-operatively we can monitor your eyes, and taper medications to arrive at the best possible result. After all, no one knows your eyes better than your optometrist.

Our office provides pre- and post-operative care for Cataract surgery, Laser surgery, Refractive surgery and Strabismic surgery.

Additionally, we have working arrangements established with other specialized eye care doctors to manage such things are retinal detachments, retinal tears and hemmorhages.

Our office provides emergency services for eye infections and eye injuries. Please call our office at 712-324-2552 during office hours. State of the art microscopes allow us to examine the front surface of the eye and facial areas around the eye for infection or injury. After assessing the extent of the injury or infection a treatment plan will be formulated and explained to you. Treatment may include medications and supportive care. Follow-up visits to monitor your recovery will be scheduled as needed.

Dry Eyes: Symptoms include scratchy eyes, burning, mild redness and gritty feeling eyes. Oral medications, reading, computer tasks and dry environments may aggravate marginally dry eyes. Dry eyes can be diagnosed by using dyes to observe tear patterns, evaluation of the amount of tears on the front of the eye and from review of your symptoms. Treatment may include artificial tears; eye drops for treating allergies; and/or punctal plugs inserted in the tear drainage canals.

Cataracts: The natural lens in the eye gradually becomes less clear as we get older. When opacities develop in the lens and the lens gets too hazy, vision will be impaired. Our office can diagnose and manage cataract care. When the cataract affects the vision to the extent that you cannot read or see distant objects comfortably, we will recommend cataract surgery. Our office co-manages with cataract specialists that are proven experts in cataract surgery. Cataract surgery can provide you with a bright new world of vision.

Glaucoma: Glaucoma gradually destroys the optic nerve tissue in the back of the eye. The greatest danger of glaucoma stems from the fact that the disease is painless and without obvious symptoms until significant damage has occurred. The most common cause is from pressure being too high inside the eye, but vascular disease and other diseases can also cause glaucoma. We always monitor for glaucoma during routine eye examinations. Tests include checking the pressure of the eye, screening for peripheral vision defects and analyzing the appearance of the optic nerve. If you are diagnosed with glaucoma, we typically prescribe medications that lower the eye pressure. Most forms of glaucoma are successfully treated with eye drops. Laser treatments and eye surgery are secondary treatments that offer alternative ways to treat more advanced glaucoma.

Diabetes: Diabetic patients should have a dilated retinal examination each year. Laser treatments have proven to slow the progression of retinal eye disease for many patients. Diabetes often stimulates the growth of new blood vessels in the back of the eye, which ultimately leak and damage the retina. If this condition is discovered early, laser treatment can destroy these vessels. We have the latest instruments used to detect changes in the back of the eye. If we discover advancing diabetic eye disease that can be treated or needs further evaluation, we will refer you for consultation and further testing to a board certified retinal specialist.

Low vision is a vision condition caused by several eye diseases, including cataracts, macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. Few people today are totally without sight. Most have some sight and suffer from low vision. Low vision can come in many forms, including loss of central vision, loss of side vision, blurred vision, generalized haze, extreme sensitivity to light and night blindness.

Low vision should only be treated by trained optometrists who specialize in low vision. Low vision often requires different therapeutic treatments than other vision conditions. Optometrists who specialize in low vision can examine the patient and recommend treatment which may include therapy and/or low vision devices.

For more information, please ask your doctor.

Though some vision problems can be treated using corrective lenses, many require a different kind of treatment. Vision therapy is a series of activities or exercises prescribed and monitored by an optometrist to treat problems with visual skill and processing. After a comprehensive eye exam, your eye doctor may determine that vision therapy is the best option for treatment. Vision therapy programs are based on the results of standardized tests, and the needs of the patient.

Vision therapy is administered in our office under the guidance of your doctor. Sometimes a number of office visits are required over a period ranging from several weeks to several months. Usually the patient performs several exercises, then the doctor teaches the patient techniques to be practiced at home to reinforce the developing visual skills.

Vision therapy can effectively treat eye movement disorders, inefficient eye teaming, misaligned eyes, poorly developed vision, focusing problems and other visual information processing disorders.

Did you know that 80% of everything a child learns, understands and remembers is acquired through his or her visual system? Vision is very important in the learning process. What's worse is that one in four children have undiagnosed vision problems that affect their learning. Sometimes the problem is misdiagnosed as ADD (attention deficit disorder), ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) or dyslexia.

It is important that children receive comprehensive visual exams starting as early in life as possible. Vision screenings at school are not sufficient as a basis for diagnosing vision problems. A comprehensive exam may find a visual problem missed during screenings, and your eye doctor can recommend treatment.

Your child may suffer from a visual problem if they exhibit any of the following characteristics:

• struggles with reading
• grows tired or frustrated with reading
• can't sit still or stay at a task for any length of time
• reverses words, numbers, or letters
• has difficulty remembering the spelling of words
• frequently loses their place, skips words, or skips lines of text while reading
• has poor reading comprehension
• has shown no improvement from medication or tutoring

"Keep your eye on the ball!" "Focus on the finish line!" "Don't lose sight of the green!" If there's one thing that seems to be a key to success in sports, it's vision. But did you know you can improve your performance by improving some aspects of your vision? It's easy to recognize problems, and even easier to solve them. The following are some aspects of vision which can be the difference between victory and defeat, and some exercises to improve performance.

Dynamic visual acuity is your ability to see objects when they are moving fast. This is important in sports like hockey, racquetball and tennis. To improve dynamic visual acuity, cut out letters, stick them to a record turntable and try to identify the letters at different speeds.

Visual concentration is your ability to ignore distractions happening around you. Your eyes naturally react to movement in the field of vision from spectators, other participants or the playing environment. To improve your visual concentration, have a friend stand nearby and wave their hands erratically while you practice.

Eye tracking is following an object with your eyes without much head motion. It is important with any sport that involves a fast-moving ball. Good eye tracking will improve balance and reaction time. You can improve your eye tracking by watching the flight of a ball while keeping a book balanced on your head.

Eye-hand-body coordination is how your muscles and limbs react to the information gathered by your eyes. It affects timing and body control. To improve your eye-hand-body coordination, jump up and down on an old mattress while a friend tosses you a tennis ball from a variety of angles. Catch the ball and toss it back.

Visual memory is the ability to process and remember a fast moving, complex picture of people and things. It is very important in basketball, hockey and soccer, where the game quickly moves up the field. Visual memory helps you know where your teammates and opponents are positioned. To improve visual memory, look at a magazine page for a second, then turn the page. Try to reconstruct the images you just saw. When you’ve mastered the exercise, allow 5 seconds between seeing the image and reconstructing it.

Peripheral vision is the ability to see what is not directly in front of you, out of the corner of your eye. This allows you to see your teammate to your left or right while focusing on the goal in front of you. To make your peripheral vision more useful, try watching television with your head turned to one side or the other.

Visual reaction time is what allows a batter to hit the ball, or a tennis player to return a serve. It is the speed with which your brain interprets and reacts. To improve your visual reaction time, stand with your back to a friend. Have them toss a ball to you and yell, "Now!" When you hear the yell, turn around and try to catch the ball. By repeating this exercise, you can teach your brain to react more quickly.

Focus flexibility allows a quarterback to quickly focus on his receivers even though they are at varying distances. To improve focus flexibility, post a magazine page on a wall about 15 feet away at eye level in front of you. Hold a similar page in your hand out in front of you, so that it is slightly to one side of your view of the page on the wall. Focus on an object or words on the page on the wall. Then quickly switch focus to the page in your hand. By switching focus back and forth, you will improve your focus flexibility.

Depth perception lets you judge distance. This is especially important in basketball, golf and other sports involving distance to the goal. To improve depth perception, have a friend point a straw at you, parallel to the ground, with the straw about two feet away from you. Practice quickly inserting a toothpick into the straw.

By improving aspects of your vision, you can improve your performance, no matter what sport you're involved in.

We accept the following Insurance Plans:

• VSP
• Eyemed
• Medicare
• Iowa Medicaid
• Wellmark (BlueCross)(Hawkl)
• Midlands Choice
• Tricare

The Vision Service Plan (VSP) - In most cases, VSP will fully cover your eye health and vision exam. In some cases there may be a co-pay on the part of each patient. The co-pay must be paid at the time of service. The eyewear component of the Vision Service Plan contributes or subsidizes the purchase of your eyewear. Each specific Vision Service Plan subsidizes eyewear purchases at different levels. The Vision Service Plan is not an entitlement plan and patients are free to choose any frame or lens option recommended by their doctor. Our professional optical staff will be happy to determine if any out-of-pocket costs will be incurred by the patient..

MEDICARE

Our practice fully participates in the Medicare program. We accept assignment of benefits on behalf of each eligible patient. The eye health examination is a fully covered service under the Medicare program. However, as mandated by Federal law, the refraction part of the vision section of your exam is a non-covered service. Each Medicare patient will be charged for the refraction. This charge must be paid for at the time of service during your visit. Unless, immediately following cataract surgery, there is no longer an eyewear benefit under the Medicare program. The purchase of frames, lenses, lens options and coatings is the responsibility of each Medicare patient.

Hopefully, this information will give you a better idea of the vision benefit you are using today. Our insurance coordinator is available to answer any questions. Due to the large number of different Vision Insurance Benefit Programs, it is impossible to know the specific details and reimbursement policies of each. If our doctors do not participate in your Vision Benefit Program, we will be happy to provide you all the necessary forms and documentation for you to submit to the carrier for reimbursement.

Thank you for your understanding and patience.

Gift Cards are available for eye health examinations, glasses, contacts, etc. Stop in today and share the gift of healthy vision.