We know that you have a lot of processes in your office from scheduling to claim filing to billing to ophthalmic product ordering. But there are a lot of tips and tricks here and there to make the most of these processes and use them to boost efficiency in your office.
That is the point of process, right? To make things more efficient? Right. So we put together a wide variety of quick tips for optical dispensing that will help you become more efficient across the board in your eyecare practice. These tips won't be total game-changers for your office either, just a few tips that won't take long to implement in your office!
5 Optical Dispensing Tips to Become More Efficient in Your Practice
1. Discover Your Inefficiencies
Before you can really take advantage of making your practice more efficient, you need to figure out which tasks are most inefficient. Every practice is different, so figuring out where your inefficiencies lie is important because what works for one office, might not work the same in another.
This is where you come in. Talk to your staff and take inventory of the processes you have in place in your office currently. Ask yourself and your staff a few questions. What is holding the practice back? Which processes waste the most time and resources? What processes are frustrating your staff?
2. Get Rid of Bad Habits
Ordering ophthalmic products is something your practice has to do, so make sure that your habits for this task are good ones. Too many practices are still resorting to old and inefficient ordering methods by placing orders via the phone or fax. In today's day and age the phone and fax are pretty old school, and these methods are more likely to be inaccurate and delayed due to human errors.
With access to the Internet, you can place all of your product orders from one convenient location. A good online ordering service is going to have error-checking features so that you know your orders are correct and will go straight to processing at the lab, skipping over orders placed by the phone or fax that have to be entered manually into the lab's system.
3. File Your Claims with a Clearinghouse
While many of you are probably going online to submit your insurance claims, you can take it one step further by submitting your claims through a clearinghouse. This is going to help you save time from visiting a bunch of different websites, and make your claim management easier.
If you're visiting a bunch of different payer's websites to file your claims you're probably creating accounts at each site, and having to create multiple accounts for different employees in your practice. On top of that the functionality with each of these sites is going to be different and will take time for your staff to learn. But with a clearinghouse you can get access to thousands of payers in one location, check patient eligibility online, track claims, get secondary claims processing, access detailed reports, and free ERA.
4. Don't Duplicate Your Work 
Does your practice use a practice management system? Is it integrated with an ordering solution? Is it compatible for claim uploading through a clearinghouse? We hope so. Because otherwise your staff is probably wasting time re-keying orders and claims.
If you integrate an ordering solution with your practice management system you'll save time because the information that is entered in your practice management system is used to create and submit orders to suppliers right within the system. And if your system is capable of creating a compatible batch file, you'll be able to upload claims directly from your practice management system and submit them through your clearinghouse without worrying about duplicate data entry.
5. Quit Calling Your Suppliers and Payers
Don't stop at just placing your ophthalmic product orders online, and submitting claims through a clearinghouse. There's more functionality! On top of placing orders online, don't forget to check order status online too. Which means you can stop calling the labs to get an update.
Same goes for your clearinghouse solution. You should be able to check claim status online and check patient eligibility without picking up the phone. And we know that calling to check eligibility on just one patient can take up to 3-5 minutes. That's a lot of time you could be saving by checking online!
So that's it! 5 quick tips that can help you boost the efficiency in your practice! Want to check out 5 more tips? Download our eBook!
