When running a successful business, there are many challenges and obstacles that you’re going to face that lead you to make educated decisions. This has been especially difficult these past few years post pandemic.
The pandemic forced the optical businesses to adapt and face many non-traditional challenges such as labor shortages, economic inflation, and vaccine mandates. Today, we will learn some creative solutions to help drive your business success while maintaining profit and safety.
Staying Successful in Your Eyecare Practice Amidst Uncontrollable Factors
Starting on the Same Page
Over the past year, the need for workers has surged. We’re currently experiencing the “Great Resignation” movement. Meaning, retention rates are low and the labor demand is high. Business are desperate to hire and retain their employees, including the optical field. Practices are having to adjust their strategies and workflows to cross train employees to maintain the success of their practice. Unfortunately, this can over work currently employees and cause exhaustion and extra stress. A solution to consider is to automate as many processes as possible such as outsourcing your billing to an RCM (Revenue Claims Management) team. This can eliminate tedious tasks for your employees, allowing them to have more time to focus on patient care and maximizing your revenue.
Application of Values
Inflation has unfortunately been a result of a domino effect from the labor shortages and other economic challenges. This has caused an increase in many costs of goods. Offices have felt this pressure resulting in change of processes and costs. Increasing service cost is not an option because insurance companies will only reimburse contracted fixed amounts. However, offices can increase other services such as contact lens evaluations and refraction fees, making the out-of-pocket expense higher for customers. Even with increasing certain services offices are still having to adapt and get creative with cost saving processes to maintain revenue. As we mentioned earlier, having to automate as many processes as possible can alleviate the need of personnel and reduce labor expenses.
Vaccine Mandates
Healthcare workers around the US have been mandated to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. This creates a safer environment for eyecare practices and eases the anxiety for not only employees, but patients as well. Fortunately, VisionWeb has Uprise EHR/ PM software which offers a robust, online patient portal. As mentioned in previous blogs, Uprise offers patients the opportunity to update their personal information prior to their visit. By making this check in process shorter it minimizes the exposer of face-to-face contact providing safety to patients and employees.
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