The Official VisionWeb Blog

Although it can be tough to admit, your eyecare practice is a business that needs to be profitable in order to serve more patients. If you're a long-time subscriber of our blog, you've probably got a business plan made already. You've created quarterly and annual sales goals, but the majority of your time as an OD is spent on patient care and diagnosis.

However, there are ways to close sales outside of the dispensary. Upgrading patients' product choices, adding lens coating, and encouraging optional accessories are a few things to mention in the exam lane to the right patient. You should also always be promoting your practice and its services through creating what we call "marketing leads". Let's unpack what we mean by all of this in today's blog.

In the first few years, OD practice owners are focusing on paying off debt, hiring the right people, and building a patient base. After they've established themselves in the community, some owners are looking to grow rapidly. Of course, if you're a multi-OD practice, you're already primed for growth. But how can you grow your small practice with your existing resources?

We were inspired by the story of Westminster Eyecare Associates to find out how a mixture of the right tools and business acumen can get you to your year-end revenue goals. Here are the first few steps to scaling profits without investing a large amount of money or hiring a team of associates.

Taking care of your practice's billing in-house is tough when optometrists don't have a background in insurance claims. Billing takes time and attention to detail that most of your practice staff doesn't have the bandwidth for unless you have a dedicated biller. However, we're aware that finding and fairly compensating an experienced biller is tough and expensive. How about hiring an expert?

We want to examine two options you have if you've decided to trust experts outside of your practice: consultants and outsourced billing. Let's see how they compare.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been on the mind of healthcare professionals in terms of job automation, but what about its impact on patient care? AI helps ODs see more patients, increases efficiency and accuracy, and can improve disease prevention over time.

Most optometry practice roles and responsibilities are too nuanced to be automated, but the parts of the job that can benefit from AI might intrigue ODs and their staff. Also, the presence of AI technology encourages optometrists to innovate their methods.

Let's look at the positive ways AI could affect eyecare.