Hearing the advice and stories of fellow ODs is helpful when you're nervous about making a big change, looking for inspiration and goal ideas, or even just wanting a peek into other practices. That's why we're addicted to reading and sharing stories of optometrists that are getting creative with their team or leveraging new technology.
Big optometry publications like Review of Optometric Business and Women in Optometry connect their readers with snapshots into the practices of success ODs around the nation. We've picked three articles that we think could be helpful for your practice growth right now before the end of the year.
Advice to Improve Every Area of Your Eyecare Practice
Billing
9 Major Ways Outsourcing Our Billing Was Profitable for My Practice
Dr. Scott Snowberger details the nine ways that his practice benefitted from no longer conducting their billing in-house. His practice was months behind posting EOBs to their system and training new employees was causing them to struggle to catch up. Spoiler: after they outsourced, they were no longer missing deadlines or working late night billing catch-up sessions. With employee turnover being higher now than ever in all industries, you might want to look into Dr. Snowberger's story for guidance.
Software
Technology As A Time-Saver And Revenue-Generator
Many practices are looking for ways to maximize the number of patients they can see even though required sanitation and distancing protocols slows down the patient flow. That's why we found Dr. O'Dell's story to be helpful. She goes over the different efficiencies in an EHR platform that make creating custom exam templates, claim submissions, note taking, and patient education quicker and easier. Not only do these features help shorten exam times and provide the patient with most of the relevant information through their portal, but she also says her patients express how impressed they are.
Patient Experience
3 Ways to Enhance Patient Care with EHR Software
Every OD knows that patients deserve and expect a seamless experience throughout their eye exam. This means from check-in to check-out, there shouldn't be clunky communication between your staff, lags in the workflow, software issues, or paper forms. Dr. Ian Lane goes over several steps you can take in your practice like pulling historical data, creating referral templates, and sending electronic prescriptions that your patients will appreciate greatly. This helps build patient loyalty and improve your patients' access to their data.
If you are looking for more advice, check out our free ebook 2020 Outlook: Advice from
America's Top ODs II
