Aprima Eye Consultants Logo

Dr. Brad Altman, O.D., launched Aprima Eye Consultants in 2014 to provide consulting in eye health. Dr. Altman brings more than three decades of experience with the visual system and diseases of the eye. He offers treatment for keratoconus, glaucoma, dry eyes and is highly skilled with specialty contact lenses for complex corneal or vision issues from irregular corneas or refractive surgery complications. Aprima Eye Consultants is located in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, and proudly serves Mount Juliet, Nashville, and the Middle Tennessee area.

Our Services

Contact Lenses Icon

Medical

Ocular disease doesn’t have to mean reduced quality of life. APRIMA is home of Fellowship-Trained Dr. Brad Altman, offering treatment of many eye conditions.

Learn More
Specialty Lenses Icon

Vision

APRIMA’s team provides primary eye care. Whether a Wellness Exam or Contact Lens Evaluation, we utilize the most up-to-date lens design and technology.

LEARN MORE
Ocular Disease Icon

Specialty Contact Lenses

Our contact lens service specializes in several different types of specialty lenses for different needs.

LEARN MORE
Diabetic Exams Icon

Optical

At APRIMA our goal is to provide quality eyeglasses, sunwear, designer eyewear and protective eyewear that gives you comfortable and sharp vision.

LEARN MORE
Dr. Altman

PEER ACCOLADES

Dr. Altman’s peers have recognized him as the Tennessee Association of Optometric Physicians “Young Optometrist of the Year” (2001) and “Optometrist of the Year” (2009).

LOCAL RECOGNITION

He has been voted “Best of Mount Juliet” six times.

SPECIALIZED EXPERTISE

An accomplished clinician, Dr. Altman is one of this area’s foremost cornea and contact lens optometrists.

Meet Dr. Altman

After graduating from Southern College of Optometry, Dr. Altman completed Fellowship training at the VitreoRetinal Foundation where he specialized in Ocular Disease. His undergraduate work was at Harding University, where he obtained a B.S. degree in General Science.

Dr. Altman is a Fellow of the Scleral Lens Education Society, an organization that teaches contact lens practitioners the science and art of prescribing scleral contact lenses. A member of the American Optometric Association, and a Fellow of the Tennessee Academy of Optometric Physicians, he has authored a chapter in Optometry Clinics, and has presented clinical posters and lectures at international meetings. He is a past speaker and consultant for Blanchard Contact Lens, Inc., a specialty contact lens division of CooperVision. As a member of the International Keratoconus Academy, Dr. Altman has had access to the most current information pertaining to research and development in the field of keratoconus.

Dr. Altman’s APRIMA has served as a beta site for developing new contact lens designs. This has provided patients access to the latest advancements in contact lens technologies even before they are made available to other practices. Dr. Altman was the first optometrist in Tennessee to offer the Onefit Scleral design to individuals with keratoconus.

As Clinical Director for the Tennessee Special Olympics Opening Eyes Program from 2001-2015, Dr. Altman offered eye care and evaluations, and provided safety eyewear for Tennessee athletes.

Serving as adjunct faculty with the University Missouri-St.Louis College of Optometry and University of Pikeville-Kentucky College of Optometry, Dr. Altman facilitates advancement in the field by training 4th year optometry students.

When not “taking care of eyes”, Dr. Altman is “taking care of cattle.” He and his wife Andrea have a working beef cattle farm, Altman Acres, in Lascassas.

I chose the name ‘aprima’ because it comes from the Latin word which means ‘of first importance’ or ‘above all else.’ At Aprima, eye health is of first importance, and when people have a problem with their eyes, I want them to think of this company first. ~ Dr. Altman

“Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.”

~ PSALM 119:18 (NIV)

Important Facts about Eye Health

%

of all Americans

diagnosed with diabetes have some stage of diabetic retinopathy. Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness. Having a dilated eye exam allows Dr. Altman to ensure your eyes are healthy and free of any complications.

million Americans

have glaucoma but only HALF of these people know they have it. There are no symptoms for glaucoma until vision loss has become permanent, so having a yearly dilated eye exam is very important.

%

of people globally

will have myopia by 2050 according to studies. Myopia has shown to increase the risk of sight threatening complications like glaucoma, cataract and retinal detachment, early myopic management intervention is key.

Specialty Lenses Success Stories

As an expert in the field of contact lenses, Dr. Altman provides advanced treatment with a caring attitude. Whatever your need, whether uncomplicated as disposable soft contact lenses, or as complex as custom treatment for post LASIK complications or Keratoconus, Dr. Altman can help improve the quality of your life by enhancing the quality of your vision. Below are some success stories featuring specialty contact lens treatments.

Outdoorsman at ease with special lenses

An athlete and avid sports fisherman, Art McDonald fought a losing battle for over 50 years when it came to wearing hard contact lenses.

After a few visits for testing and measurements with Dr. Brad Altman at Aprima Eye Care, it’s now clear sailing for McDonald.

Read More

Lenses solve musician’s vision woes

About 10 years ago, professional singer-songwriter Doug Williams realized he was experiencing serious vision problems.

Diagnosed with keratoconus, he was plagued by terrible glare issues from bright stage lights. The condition also affected his nighttime driving.

Read More

New Help and Hope for blemished eye

When Houston Rogers injured his left eye in an industrial accident in 1976, the traumatic experience not only cost him loss of sight in the eye but left it disfigured.

A doctor fitted him with a hard cosmetic lens soon afterwards, but the pain caused Rogers to discontinue wearing it.

Read More
Aprima Eye Consultants - Brad Altman, O.D., FSLS

“I had been wearing hard contact lenses for well over 50 years, and over the years they kept becoming more and more uncomfortable,” said the owner of Crown Ford in Nashville. “I have a nasty case of keratoconus. That means there is a ridge on the surface of your cornea."

“What happens is the contact lens fits over the pupil and iris and sits on top of a ridge, so the discomfort was outrageous. I had to take them out in the middle of the day and was blind as a bat. It was really a problem.”

A number of optometrists told McDonald that hard contacts were never going to fit him properly. Thank goodness, one told him that there was an eye care specialist in Mt. Juliet who specialized in scleral lenses.

“Dr. Altman was on the cutting edge of that kind of eye care, so I went in to see him. Instantly we bonded. He is so thorough. He’s caring. He takes his time. His staff is wonderful, and, boy, I mean it took a while for the measurements and the lenses must be ground for specifications, but from the moment I got them, I have never had a problem with them,” said McDonald.

Dr. Altman reported that McDonald told him one of the most frustrating problems was simply getting the lenses to stay on his eyes.

“He reported losing multiple lenses over the years, and these type of keratoconus lenses are very expensive,” Altman said. “He was very athletic and told me stories of several interrupted basketball games while everyone was on their knees looking for a popped out lens."

"I’ve never had discomfort at all. To me it’s like a miracle." - Art McDonald

“When I first met Art in 2012, one of the things we discussed was his hobby—deep sea fishing. I knew immediately one of his potential challenges—being on a boat in a windy environment with a contact lens on a football-shaped cornea. There’s great potential for that lens being dislodged, or being blown out and lost. Since I fitted him, he has never lost a lens at sea and can comfortably wear them all day.”

“I lost lenses in every manner you can think of, especially when I played basketball in college,” said McDonald. “I’ve lost them overboard while fishing. For the first time in my life I can put them in and forget about them. I don’t even think about my glasses or my contacts anymore, whereas before I was always rubbing my eye."

“My eyesight is much better, and from the moment I put these on I’ve never had discomfort at all. To me it’s like a miracle.”

Aprima Eye Consultants - Brad Altman, O.D., FSLS

“It was all day but worse at night with the contrast of light and darkness,” said Williams, who with his wife Telisha make up the Americana-roots duo Wild Ponies.

“Everything has either a halo or I see two of everything….Looking down at my guitar tuner on the floor, I just see lots of red lights.”

Basically, anything reflective caused distorted vision, even stoplights and lit-up road signs. And that certainly was not good for the Nashville-based duo that hits the road a hundred days a year.

“I went to a bunch of other eye doctors in Virginia and Tennessee and got diagnosed with keratoconus, but they didn’t know how to fit the lenses I would need,” said Williams.

After finding he was not a good candidate for eye surgery, Williams was referred to Dr. Brad Altman at Aprima Consultants in Eye Health in Mt. Juliet.

“After several visits with custom-made designs, we achieved our goal: functional vision, especially while working,” said Altman. “He now is able to wear a specialty lens with success that aids this problem.”

"I'm really grateful I can see." - Musician Doug Williams

Williams was pleased with the results.

“Now I can see my guitar tuner, subtitles on TV, road signs. We do a lot of driving, so that’s very important.

“I’m really grateful I can see. Dr. Altman had to work really hard. It wasn’t an easy case,” said Williams.

Altman added, “Doug still deals with some of these problems; however, these custom lenses I’ve designed for him make the world less blurry and vision is better when performing in a dark environment with bright lights. I think we hit a home run.”

Aprima Eye Consultants - Brad Altman, O.D., FSLS

Early this fall, optometrist Brad A. Altman, knowing of the blemished eye, suggested Rogers come by his Aprima Consultants in Eye Health office in Mt. Juliet for consultation as he believed he might be able to help.

“I thought there might be a solution I could offer so I asked him to come see me,” said Dr. Altman. “I asked if anyone had helped in the past, and he said, ‘Yes, years ago somebody made me a hard prosthetic, but it was uncomfortable, and I couldn’t wear it.’”

Rogers, who lives in Lebanon, was 19 years old and working as a mechanic at Texas Boot when a belt broke on a piece of equipment and hit him in the eye.

“Being a hemophiliac was what ultimately led to my blindness in that eye. When I was younger, I knew I bled more than other people. I didn’t know I was a hemophiliac until the eye hemorrhaged. I didn’t have enough clotting factors and that’s why I lost it,” he recalled.

A Nashville optometrist made Rogers a hard prosthetic, but he says, “I never could wear it. My eyes teared up so much. I wore it about a month, but it was too painful so I put it away.”

After Dr. Altman examined the eye, he knew immediately that he could put Rogers at ease with a soft prosthetic lens.

“In my mind I thought it really could be a challenge to match the color of his good iris because it was in the greenish-brown tone, and light irises can be hard to match,” said Altman.

Not to worry.

“It looks exactly like my other eye. It looks natural,” Rogers said of the prosthetic.

"Things like this...really bring a smile to my face." - Dr. Brad Altman

As for how his eye feels, Rogers said, “Before, it was real dry. I didn’t realize I blinked so much because my eye was dry. Brad got me to putting drops in before he gave me the prosthetic. It felt better and was not so irritated. Then he put the contact in, and now it feels great, more normal. I don’t have to blink so much.”

“Matching the diameter, pupil and color was relatively straightforward,” Dr. Altman said of the process of creating the soft lens, which took four weeks from start to finish.

Margie Morgan, a friend of Rogers, saw him the first evening he wore the soft lens.

“He had it on for the first time and he was so excited. He said, ‘I used to kind of hold my head down, but now I can hold my head up and look straight at everybody.’ He made me know how pleased and how blessed he felt that Dr. Altman had talked to him about this possibility.”

Said Rogers, “I feel more self-confident and am not as self-conscious as I was.”

“All the education expense and all the time invested in training and my fellowship, it’s things like this that really bring a smile to my face and makes it all worthwhile,” said Dr. Altman.

“There can be many reasons one’s eye may appear different than the other, including an injury, like Mr. Rogers. I’d just like patients and their doctors to know that there are options available, and Aprima offers these custom prosthetics and aesthetic services for ocular trauma as well as for misshaped pupils and even those who suffer from albinism or severe light sensitivity.”

Aprima Eye Consultants - Brad Altman, O.D., FSLS
Please wait while the policy is loaded. If it does not load, please click here.

Aprima Eye Consultants - Brad Altman, O.D., FSLS

You have the right to receive a “Good Faith Estimate” explaining how much your medical care will cost.
Under the law, healthcare providers need to give patients who don’t have insurance or who are not using insurance an estimate of the bill for medical items and services.

You have the right to receive a Good Faith Estimate for the total expected cost of any non-emergency items or services. This includes related costs like medical tests, prescription drugs, equipment and hospital fees.

Make sure your healthcare provider gives you a Good Faith Estimate in writing at least one business day before your medical service or item. You can also ask your healthcare provider, and any other provider you choose, for a Good Faith Estimate before you schedule an item or service.

If you receive a bill that is at least $400 more than your Good Faith Estimate, you can dispute the bill.

Make sure to save a copy or picture of your Good Faith Estimate

For questions or more information about your right to a Good Faith Estimate, visit www.cms.gov/nosurprises, or call 1-800-985-3059.