NEW YORK—The end of the calendar year is the time to give thanks, be with friends and family, and spend any remaining employee health benefits. For most optometric practices, this means that you’ll potentially see more patients than you have in a while. As the year winds down, you need to find a balance to focus on your practices’ current needs, past performance and future direction.

3 Optometric Practice Reflections
You Need to Make This December

Present Needs: December is typically a month where optometric practice owners record high patient visits. Unfortunately, with all of the distractions that occur toward the end of the year, your staff may be dealing with a lot of stress and burnout.

A sluggish workflow could throw off your whole patient schedule. And, agitating the situation can make your staff leave during one of your practice’s most profitable times of the year.

The solution is to work with your staff to motivate them to work hard and finish the year strong. With many staff members wanting to take time off around the same time, it is hard to plan what you need to be successful with limited resources. To help everyone win and keep your staff motivated, you can:

  • Cross-train staff so that you always have a backup when people are off.
  • Provide cash bonus incentives for meeting goals.
  • Adjust office hours to a holiday schedule if needed.

    • Past Performances: Leading up to the busy season, your practice needs to evaluate its past performance to identify if it has the capacity to perform efficiently while delivering exceptional patient care and collect on claim reimbursements. If your practice is experiencing inefficient workflows, long AR cycles, and the inability to meet or surpass optical industry benchmarks, find out what is causing these weaknesses and work to correct them in the future.

    Future Direction: Now that you’ve identified your practice’s past performance, and present needs, the last thing you need to investigate is your practice’s future goals. Knowing your practices goals for 2017 and beyond will help you stay focused and make the necessary moves to grow your practice.

    Here are some goals your practice could consider to achieve in 2017:

    • Increasing your optical capture rate.
    • Improving chair costs.
    • Improving workflow with optometry software.
    • Lowering overhead costs.
    • Opening, buying or partnering with an independent practice.

    To explore more about specific goals your practice should focus on, use this eBook to evaluate your practice’s performance on eight important eyecare practice benchmarks.