Denali Creative - A Stubenbordt Company

08/25/2026

A compliance note for every practice and organization hosting optometric CE:

Effective January 1, 2027, ARBO is changing how COPE attendance gets reported — and if you run CE events, this lands on your desk, not your attendees'.

The new rule: attendance records for all COPE Accredited CE must be submitted to OE TRACKER within 30 days of the activity. Whether it's a one-hour lunch-and-learn or your three-day annual meeting, the clock starts the moment the course ends.

In our work with ophthalmic and optometric organizations, we see the same pattern: attendance reconciliation is handled "when someone gets to it." That workflow dies December 31st.

Three things to put in place now:

Name a single owner. "The meeting team" is not accountable — one person is.
Choose your method per format. QR codes via the OE TRACKER app for live meetings; ARBO's Excel upload for webinars and hybrid sessions.
Separate COPE from Non-COPE at the planning stage. They're two different submissions. Sort your agenda now, not after the event.

And here's the angle most providers overlook: reliable credit reporting is marketing. Doctors return to meetings where their CE posts within days — not the ones generating renewal-season panic calls.

We break down the full policy, both submission paths, and the pre-2027 checklist here:
🔗 https://www.thinkdenali.com/cope-attendance-records-policy-2027/

Denali Creative — Healthcare marketing, taken higher.
Planning a 2027 CE event? We build the registration pages and pre-event sequences that make new workflows land smoothly.

The new COPE attendance records policy takes effect January 1, 2027. Providers must submit CE attendance within 30 days — here are both submission options.

07/20/2026

Hiring the right Refractive Surgery Coordinator can be the difference between a practice that grows and one that quietly leaves revenue on the table.

In this new video, I break down the 4 most costly hiring mistakes I see ophthalmology practices make—and, more importantly, how to avoid them.

If you’re an ophthalmologist, administrator, practice manager, or anyone responsible for growing a refractive surgery program, this is one video you don’t want to miss.

🎥 Watch here: https://youtu.be/hYh4JgWho8I?si=MJwbUQL_asIlIl2A

I’d also love to hear from you:
What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced when hiring or managing a refractive coordinator?

If you find the video helpful, I’d really appreciate a 👍 Like, a 💬 Comment, and a 🔔 Subscribe. It helps me continue creating practical content to help practices grow.

Your refractive surgery practice may not have a lead problem—it may...

07/06/2026

Your marketing didn’t fail when the patient clicked the ad.
It failed ten seconds later.

They called your office interested, motivated, and ready to ask about LASIK, cataracts, premium lenses, dry eye treatment, or a consultation — and the entire value of that lead was decided by how your front desk answered the phone.

Every dollar you spend on marketing has one job: make the phone ring.

But what happens next is where most ophthalmology practices quietly lose revenue.

-A rushed greeting.
-A missed opportunity to build trust.
-A caller placed on hold too quickly.
-A team member who answers questions but never guides the patient toward booking.
-A price shopper who could have become a consult, but instead hung up and called the next practice.

That is why phone training may be the highest-ROI, lowest-cost growth move most ophthalmology practices overlook.
Our new guide breaks down exactly how to turn more inbound calls into booked consults, including the greetings, scripts, caller types, and front-desk behaviors that help patients feel confident taking the next step.
Because better marketing gets the phone to ring.
Better phone training turns that ring into revenue.
Read the full guide →
https://www.thinkdenali.com/ophthalmology-phone-training-2026-blog/

07/04/2026

Happy 250th Birthday, USA! 🇺🇸
Today we celebrate 250 years of freedom, courage, innovation, and the American spirit. From sea to shining sea, we’re proud to honor the nation that continues to inspire bold ideas, hard work, and opportunity.
From all of us at Denali Creative, happy Independence Day and happy 250th birthday to the United States of America.
Learn more about us at: https://thinkdenali.com

07/01/2026

We’re excited to announce the launch of our new website: ThinkDenali.com.
But this isn’t just a new look or a refreshed brand presence. We built something we believe the medical-marketing industry has never seen before: the first self-automated SEO & AEO website designed for modern patient search.
Patients are no longer just scrolling through ten blue links. They’re asking AI-powered search engines direct questions and trusting the answers they receive. That means if your practice is not the source those engines cite, you may be invisible at the exact moment patients are making decisions.
Our new website was built to address that shift.
ThinkDenali.com reads the search landscape and rewrites itself every day to stay found — helping LASIK, refractive, cataract, and dental practices compete in the new era of AI-driven search.
We launched this site because medical practices need more than traditional SEO. They need to be discoverable, answerable, and citable across both search engines and AI engines.

Visit out website https://www.thinkdenali.com

Read more on our blog:
https://www.thinkdenali.com/self-automated-seo-aeo-medical-marketing/

Grow your practice with Denali Creative, the premier marketing agency for ophthalmology, elective medical, and dental practices since 2006.

06/13/2026

🎥 Behind the scenes at Hammons Family Dental.

Today, the Denali Creative team was in Georgetown filming a full library of AI-optimized, Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) content designed to help patients find trusted answers faster—whether they’re searching on Google, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, or other AI-powered platforms. Hammons Family Dental provides family, cosmetic, implant, sedation dentistry, sleep apnea treatment, and same-day crowns throughout Georgetown and North Austin.

The future of healthcare marketing isn’t just about ranking on search engines. It’s about becoming the trusted source AI platforms reference when patients ask questions.

🎬 Content Strategy
🎤 Doctor-Led Video Interviews
🤖 AI & AEO Optimization
📈 SEO + Local Search Visibility
🦷 Patient Education Content

At Denali Creative, we help healthcare practices create authentic content that builds trust, improves visibility, and drives new patient growth. With more than 20 years of healthcare marketing experience, our team specializes in creating content that connects with patients at every stage of their journey.

05/30/2026

Refractive surgery demand has changed. Refractive marketing should too.

This Market Scope chart tracks U.S. refractive surgery volume by quarter, Q4 2021 through Q4 2025. The peak lands around Q1 2022 at just over 200,000 procedures. By Q4 2025, volume sits under 100,000 — less than half of where it started.

But this isn’t only a volume story. It’s a marketing, technology, and affordability story.

Patients don’t search the way they did five years ago. Google still matters, but the search journey now runs through AI-powered platforms too — Google AI Mode/Gemini, ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, Claude, Grok, and other answer engines.

They’re not just typing “LASIK near me.” They’re asking:

“Am I a better candidate for LASIK or EVO ICL?”
“Is laser vision correction safe if I have dry eyes?”
“What’s the difference between SMILE, PRK, LASIK, and ICL?”
“Who’s the best refractive surgeon near me?”
“How much does LASIK cost per month?”

That last question matters more than ever. With rising costs and tighter budgets, many patients have less discretionary income for elective procedures. They may want LASIK, PRK, EVO ICL, or refractive lens exchange — but the decision often comes down to whether it feels financially possible.

So financing isn’t an administrative detail anymore. It’s a conversion strategy.

Practices that communicate monthly payment options clearly, surface financing early in the journey, and make preapproval easy remove one of the biggest barriers to scheduling. For many patients, the gap between “that sounds expensive” and “I can actually do this” is seeing a realistic monthly payment before they leave your website.

This is why practices need to think beyond traditional SEO — they need AEO: Answer Engine Optimization. AEO means building website content, videos, FAQs, schema, service pages, and expert-driven patient education that AI search engines can understand, summarize, and surface.

And video may be the biggest trust accelerator of all. As search gets more conversational and multimodal, practices with strong surgeon-led video libraries win. Patients want to see the doctor, hear the explanation, and understand safety, candidacy, cost, financing, and recovery before they book.

At Denali Creative, we believe the next phase of refractive marketing belongs to practices that combine:

→ AEO-focused website content
→ Surgeon-led educational video
→ Short-form social video
→ Procedure-specific landing pages
→ AI-ready FAQs and patient education
→ Clear financing messaging
→ Easy preapproval pathways
→ Smarter Google Ads strategy
→ Better lead follow-up and conversion tracking

The refractive market is smaller than it was at its peak. That doesn’t mean the opportunity is gone. It means patients need more education, more trust, and more financial clarity before they say yes.

The practices that modernize first will have the advantage.

ThinkDenali.com

04/21/2026

ChatGPT Images 2.0 just raised the bar.

With one simple prompt:

“Create a very detailed medical illustration of the human eye, fully labeled, including a cross-sectional view and a separate breakout diagram of the cornea with all anatomical layers clearly identified, in a clean, high-end ophthalmology infographic style.”

…it produced this level of detail and clarity.

This is exactly where content creation is heading—faster, more scalable, and surprisingly high quality when you know how to prompt it correctly.

If you're in elective medical marketing (ophthalmology, dental, aesthetics), this isn’t just interesting—it’s a competitive advantage.

We’re breaking this down step-by-step in our upcoming YouTube video on how to use ChatGPT Images 2.0 for your practice.

📺 Drops this Thursday on

04/09/2026

We’re excited to share that Paul M. Stubenbordt of Denali Creative – A Stubenbordt Company has been selected to present at the 2026 ASOA Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.
As video continues to become one of the most important tools in marketing refractive surgery practices, this session will focus on how to create content that is practical, engaging, and effective for today’s patients. Video is no longer just helpful for social media. It plays a major role in patient education, practice branding, trust-building, website engagement, and Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), helping practices communicate more clearly across the platforms where patients are searching for information.
Paul’s session, “The Complete Guide to Filming and Editing Video: Practical Basics for Content Creation, Patient Engagement, and Digital Marketing Success,” will cover real-world strategies for using video to support social media, strengthen digital marketing, educate patients, and help practices stay relevant in a rapidly changing online landscape.
April 10, 2026
2:45–3:45 PM
Walter E. Washington Convention Center
Washington, DC
We’re honored to be part of this year’s program and look forward to connecting with attendees at ASOA 2026.