Every eyecare practice faces its own set of unique challenges. Being able to recognize and overcome your practice challenges is what will help take your practice from good to great. In a recent eBook, we sat down and interviewed a handful of ODs to curate advice from practices that have been through it all. And today, we want to share with you what we learned from Dr. John McCormick and his team on overcoming practice challenges to make your office more successful.

How to Recognize and Resolve Common Practice Challenges

What challenges make your job as an optometrist harder than it needs to be?

For me and my office, it's always been the insurance side of the business and keeping up with government regulations. The complexities of the insurance industry make it hard to keep up, and in healthcare heavy government regulations can be intimidating.

What strategies have you implemented to minimize the impact of these challenges?

Finding efficient ways to manage both of these aspects keeps me sane! For my insurance challenges, I've outsourced vision and medical claims and billing to a third-party revenue cycle management service. They file my claims, do the posting when my money comes in, resubmit denials, advise me of miscoding, and follow up on slow pays. Even after I've gone home for the day, my claims are still be worked on each night. I've found that it is more cost effective for me to outsource the service than to have it done by employees in my office. They do a better job, and I don't have to worry about staff turnover and training if I lose my insurance person.

For all things regulatory, IRS to OSHA, I have hired a financial bookkeeper who is great at keeping my finances straight, money in the bank, bills paid, and books up to date. But to keep my day to day moving forward and managing employees I rely on a great general manager - that's something you need in-house! 

Want more practice-building advice straight from the experts? Download the full eBook, 12 Insider Secrets from Amercia's Top ODs.