If you want your practice to out-perform your revenue goals from last year, you need to put a plan in place to reach that goal. And in order to bring more revenue into your optometric practice you need to bring more patients through your doors. We've got a list of four ideas to help generate greater patient growth that will boost your profits in 2017.

Make More Money for Your Optometric Practice with These Patient Generating Ideas

Make a 2017 Marketing Plan

Many practices struggle to spend time focusing on marketing efforts for their practice. So make sure that the time you do spend on marketing is worthwhile and driving more patients to your practice. Outlining a marketing strategy at the beginning of the year is a good way to help you envision your goals, and will make it easier to stay on track throughout the year. A few marketing strategies that we think can directly impact your patient growth and revenue are:

• Improving your website for local-search SEO
• Investing time in email marketing
• Sponsoring a community event to grow awareness of your practice
• Hosting a trunk show event
• Using audience targeting on social ads

Refresh Your Frame Boards Regularly

Your optical dispensary is the sales room of your eyecare practice. It needs to stay clean, modern, and up to date with current trends to be an enticing area that your patients want to spend their time in. Think about the stores that you love spending time in. What about them makes you want to be there and spend money? Switching up the look of your frame boards can help you stay timely and call out different seasonal trends.

Even if your frame organization is on par with your patients' buying habits it might be time to make some bigger updates in your dispensary outside of your frame boards. New furniture, lighting, mirrors, or wall decor could help draw more people in to explore your eyewear selection.

Evaluate Your Claim Filing Workflow

Outside of your dispensary insurance claims are another big piece of your revenue pie. If you haven't taken a look at your claim filing reports lately, you might not realize that money is being left on the table from unworked rejections or denials. Taking a look at your outstanding account receivables can get you headed in the right direction of improving your claim filing workflow and reimbursements.

If you're looking at your accounts receivables and are seeing a lot of outstanding unpaid claims, you might want to think about how you can help your biller be more efficient. If you're still running on paper, a clearinghouse could help your biller modernize the workflow and maintain all your claims online, in one portal. Or, if your biller is just overworked and can't quite get to it all a revenue cycle management service can work with you to help close the loop on your claim filing processes.  

Modernize Your Office Technology

These days, more and more patients are looking for modern healthcare providers. The technology you implement in your practice can relay a modern experience and vibe. On top of the latest and greatest in optometry equipment, practice management and EHR systems that help facilitate things like online scheduling, patient portals, doctor-to-patient communication, ePrescribing, tablet-friendly exams, and text message patient notifications can make your practice feel more modern than your competition down the street.

Investing in new technology for your practice can sometimes be a little nerve-wracking, but the payoff of staying modern and on top of the industry will have lasting effects. 

Looking for more ways to boost revenue in your eyecare practice? Download our ebook, 4 Weeks to Bigger Profits in Your Optical Dispensary.