The time saved when utilizing online optical ordering services isn’t a surprise for most practices. In fact, 84% of eyecare practices are already using an online ordering service. So if you just happen to fall under the 16% of practices that don’t, ‘Houston, we may have a problem.’ Not only do online ordering services for eye doctors keep you from pulling your hair out because you just can’t get through to the lab when you think you might have faxed in an order wrong, but online services also give you the comfort of fewer rejected orders and the ability to quickly track them without making a call.
What is even more surprising, is that 75% of practices that are still using the ancient fax machine believe that using online services will boost eyecare practice efficiency! And they still haven’t made the switch? That’s faxed up!
When you think about your practice's individual optical ordering process when using the fax machine, it may go a little like this:
- Staff writes up an order using the prescription given by OD
- Send the order via fax (hopefully the information is correct, and the lab can make the order)
- Order sits in a bin with other faxed orders waiting to be entered (hopefully the lab can read the fax)
- Order is entered into the labs system and then trayed and goes into processing
- If you want to know the status, you have to call....
- Then you receive the order (1 week later)
There are obviously variations of this process, depending on your specific practice, but just compare the above to the following, which is online ordering:
- Log in to VisionWeb.com and follow the steps to enter your orders
- Get immediate notification of any errors before hitting send
- Hit Send (You'll see an immediate order confirmation)
- The order goes directly into the Lab's system for processing, jumping ahead of the faxes
- Get order status online, without picking up the phone
- Receive order (3-4 days)
Online spectacle lens ordering gives you error-checking, it gives you all of your suppliers in one location, it gives you order status, and your orders jump ahead of those that are faxed. The result? Faster turn around time for your patients!
In order to put this into perspective let’s do a little math; we all love math right? This is all hypothetical, but if you’re using the fax, I’m positive these calculations relate to you a bit:
Submitting an order via fax:
- 5 minutes * 20 orders
- 100 minutes / day
- 500 minutes / business week
- 18 days / year
Sending an online order, at the most, will take half the time. That is even considering checking over the order to make sure it’s correct. It’s as simple as clicking submit. No rewriting the orders and no busy signal from the fax. Just to be fair, we will cut the time in half. You’ve saved 9 days already by submitting your orders directly to your connected supplier online.
Tracking orders via fax:
- 4 minutes * 5 orders
- 20 minutes / day
- 100 minutes / business week
- 3.6 days / year
With online tracking you don't have to call the lab directly and can track an order in 1 minute tops, saving a total of 2.7 days / year. Imagine closing your practice for 3 random, extra days per year; how many customers would get upset and prance on over to a different eyecare practice? That's what can happen if you keep faxing your orders!
Just the business processes alone, will approximately save 11.7 days a year; that’s over two business weeks! Imagine what you can do in that amount of time. The possibilities are endless when you nix the fax and make the leap to online ordering!
And it’s almost scary the amount of extra days you keep patients waiting when you submit orders via fax. Online optical orders make it to your practice up to 3 days earlier! And because faxed orders are prone to error, that number could even go up an extra day, and that’s when you have your patients saying, ‘What the fax?’
