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MISSION VIEJO, Calif.—Total Vision LLC, a practice management group that was founded in Southern California, has hit a number of milestones in the past 12 months. The firm named a new chief executive officer, Neil Collier, this past spring and also made its initial move into Northern California beginning late last year with the addition of eyecare practices in Los Gatos, San Francisco and the East Bay area.
Total Vision, which is a portfolio company of New York City-based Bregal Partners, operated 35 practice locations as of July 1. It finished 2019 with 32 locations and estimated annual eyecare volume of $34 million, which ranked the group at No. 31 on the annual Vision Monday Top 50 report.
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Prior to the coronavirus outbreak in March, Total Vision had set out an ambitious plan for 2020, and it continues to make progress on achieving its goals.
“Total Vision was looking at several primary objectives in 2020,” said co-founder and chief growth officer Steve Klein, OD. “Our top priorities were, and still are, to partner with strong independent optometrists that are focused on delivering great team member and patient experiences. Another key objective for Total Vision was to recruit and hire a marketing leader. We recently accomplished that goal, and we are hard at work to grow our brand and patient base.” (The company recently named Leslie Polley as director of marketing.)
Added Collier, “We have been working with our practices to enhance our frame assortments, packages, and promotions to ensure we meet all of our patients needs when visiting any of our practices.”
Dr. Klein and his wife, Kim Plattner, OD, operated three practices in San Diego for nearly 30 years with the same Total Vision name and logo. These became the first practices under the Total Vision umbrella.
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Collier, who has more than three decades of operations experience at large-scale, multi-site health care businesses, has successfully driven business growth and has led high-performing field operations and professional service teams, most recently as the chief operating officer of Center for Vein Restoration, a multi-site practice management business based in Virginia.
In terms of adjusting philosophy and strategy, Collier said the primary strategy shift after the pandemic began was to provide a safe and comfortable workplace for the group’s teams and patients. “Providing adequate PPE, changing workflow, adapting scheduling and staffing became the primary objective,” he said. “We also increased the communication to our doctors and team members.”
In terms of both organic and acquisition growth this year, Total Vision expects a return to dealmaking in the second half of the year.
“We are looking forward to providing a safe environment for our team members and patients as we continue to navigate through this pandemic,” Collier said. “We expect to ramp up the number of acquisitions/partnerships in Q3 and Q4. With respect to organic growth, we are focused on meeting every patient’s needs through an increased focus on operational excellence, training, and marketing.”
Added Klein, “It is still unknown how the pandemic will impact the role PE will play in health care however we’re seeing patient demand in our space. … It appears the activity of PE backed groups will move cautiously until there is comfort that the optometry space is back to full speed.”
Collier also noted that he believes that, primarily because of recent positive news regarding potential vaccines, “whatever impact the financial climate has upon deals will be relatively short-lived.”
“We are quite bullish regarding the coming year,” Klein added. “Many patients made the decision to delay their eye exams during the pandemic. However, we’re seeing our patient demand starting to increase.”