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Vision Care Associates

The newest in eye care technology, modern decor, a work space that meets the needs of the technicians working there and an overall layout designed with the customer in mind will be part of Freeman's new and improved Vision Care Associates, which is set to move into a new location next week.

Freeman's eye care center will relocate from its downtown location into a new facility on the North County Road the week of Labor Day. Vision Care will be closed Monday (Labor Day) and will take the following three days to move and settle into its new quarters.

Vision Care is scheduled to reopen Friday, Sept. 11.

The move marks a new era for eye care in Freeman, which began with the establishment of Kaufman Optometrists by LeRoy and Dawn Kaufman in the fall of 1967. Kaufman Optometrists would later become Kaufman Eye Care and then Vision Care Associates, the South Dakota-based facility that purchased the business from the Kaufmans in 2006.

The new facility is located between Freeman Dental Center and Timeless Fitness, which share a building on the north side of the North County Road. It will allow Vision Care to double its space while allowing the eye care center to expand and improve nearly all its services.

"What I get most excited about is patient care and having the space and the equipment to do that to our very best," said Dr. Aaron Feser, Freeman's eye care specialist. "In order to keep doing that, we need to have the right tools."

Vision Care Associates has been providing its customers with top-rate care for years.

Like all 23 of its locations across South Dakota, Vision Care offers a host of services from its Freeman office; they range from basic exams to lens fittings to eyewear repair to medical services like testing blood sugar levels, blood pressure and treating glaucoma.

"The technology we bring into our office is the latest you'll find anywhere for diagnosing and treating glaucoma," he says. "The services we can provide in a community the size of Freeman is something we're very proud of."

Those are services that are about to improve.

Part of the new move includes the latest technology in monitoring macular degeneration, a condition that results in the loss of vision in the center of the visual field and is a major cause of blindness -- particularly for those over the age of 50.

The device that does so is called a Foresee PHP and will allow Vision Care to detect when the macular degeneration begins to change from its minor state (dry) to advanced (wet).

The Foresee PHP-- Feser says Vision Care was the first eye clinic in South Dakota to offer that technology -- makes monitoring macular degeneration far more efficient and comfortable for the patients.

While the Foresee PHP is for a specific demographic, the services available at Vision Care are for everybody.

Feser says on any given day he might conduct a free screening for an infant through the national Infant See program, and the next minute be providing eye care to somebody in their 90s.

"We have an extremely diversified patient base," says Feser, who graduated from Groton High School in 1991 and gained valuable experience working at Eye Surgeons of Indiana and Bennett and Bloom Eye Centers in Louisville, Kent., while a student at Indiana University.

While Vision Care began in Aberdeen in the early 1980s, many of the communities it serves have a smaller population, whether it's Freeman or Gregory, Webster or Eureka. Vision Care has offices as far east as Eagle Butte and south as Plainview, Neb.

"In the last three or four years we've grown quite a bit," says Feser, who notes that Vision Care is the largest eye care provider in the state. "Many of our doctors grew up in smaller towns, and providing care in those types of communities is part of our mission statement."

Today, along with his staff, Feser and Vision Care Associates continue to provide the kind of comprehensive eye care that those living in and around the Freeman community have come to expect.

In fact, they're poised to make it even better starting Sept. 11, when they open in their new facility.

"The health of your eyes comes first," says Feser.

For more about Vision Care, see its in-depth Web site: www.visioncareassociates.net.



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© 2009 Freeman Courier Freeman, South Dakota. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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