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.
3 Free Ways to Increase Eyecare Practice Revenue
Separate Revenue Tracking
Measure the money coming from your exams separately from your optical department and insurance reports. These businesses work differently, so metric tracking and optimization should be conducted separately.
The revenue trends from exams speak more about the demographics, medical needs, and insurance providers of your patients. Having a good grasp on what your patient base can afford and what products they have a need for his absolutely essential to any practice. Meanwhile, optical revenue is influenced by purchasing trends, patient budgets, sales effectiveness, and pricing. Your dispensary can be affected by external factors such as seasonality, general consumer holidays, and trends that might not affect your exams.
In-House Analysis
We also believe it's necessary for OD owners to be hands-on in performance tracking so that they have complete transparency into the success of the business. That's where software like EDGEPro comes in handy, rather than hiring a business consultant or financial advisor.
Like Westminster Eyecare Associates, create profit & loss statements comparing cost of goods sold to revenue over a short period of time for both your optical and exam lane. This analysis will show you which products are generating the largest volume of sales, revenue, or profit. You might be surprised to find that different products may dominate these categories.
Get Creative
Sometimes you have to tweak not just quantitative variables (price of lenses, exam duration, etc) but qualitative variables too. Train your staff on their sales techniques, give them competitive optical goals to meet, and show them the reasoning behind your price changes and optimization. Getting your staff onboard with these changes will benefit their bottom line, too. Your entire staff working toward the same goals is invaluable to earning more.
However, you don't need to start with a large team, just the right tools. Dr. Castleberry discusses how his EHR and practice management software drove his practice's revenue growth in this video. Uprise EHR and PM integrates with EDGEPro's expert reporting to give Dr. Castleberry secure insight into patient trends, accounts receivables, and more in one platform.
Want to see your practice's progress? Use our ebook to analyze more than just revenue.
