The Official VisionWeb Blog

Just about every business is going to receive at least a few negative online reviews. Usually the customer truly had an unfavorable experience, but what about those Yelp reviews that are unfair and portray an inaccurate or exaggerated explanation of the situation? If your business doesn't have a lot of reviews in the first place, one negative review blown out of proportion can hurt your overall rating and may cause hesitation from new patients.

If you notice an offensive or incorrect review, there are steps you can take to try and get help from Yelp to remove reviews that violate their content guidelines. In case your request for removal is denied by Yelp, we have some advice for taking your own stance against these types of reviews.

Optometrists and all eyecare professionals aren't usually equipped with finance and money management skills during their training or education. However, like with any small business, it's essential that independent practice owners and office managers understand where their revenue is coming from, how they can improve their financial standing, and what areas of growth are available to their business.

We wanted to compile all our knowledge on claim management, billing, expenses, financial reports, and anything else you need to know about money in your practice into one, convenient guide. Click through to have your money questions answered.

More than 50% of Americans prefer to shop online according to a study from BigCommerce. With more and more consumers choosing to shop online than in a physical store, it could be difficult to compete against the online retailers selling frames to your patients and undercutting your optical dispensing sales.

Over the past few months, we’ve been keeping a closer eye on the online competition and have realized there are a few things that you can learn from online retailers to make your practice more effective at converting frame sales in your optical dispensing shop.

Many ODs may notice their claims aren’t being reimbursed, and in many cases they don’t have the bandwidth to investigate or they don't know where to start in order to figure out what went wrong. For someone who doesn’t handle the billing process on a daily basis, fixing denials can be a daunting task.

However, if you have defined your processes, it’s just a matter of reviewing each of them to find out where it has broken down. For practices who don’t have a system in place for managing claims, an in-house biller might be the most obvious solution.

We want to examine the processes at a typical office and review the biggest mistakes that could be made at the following stages:

1. The OD Performs the Service
2. The Front Staff Invoices the Patient for the Services
3. A Biller Files the Claim
4. The Clearinghouse Scrubs the Claim
5. The Payer Accepts or Rejects the Claim
6. The Payer Produces an EOB/ERA
7. The Payment is Posted into Your PM System

One of the biggest jobs of being an optician in an eyecare practice is to sell, sell, sell. While it may seem like a straightforward sale since most patients coming into the practice will need to purchase products for their vision, the online competition your practice faces makes closing highly valued frame sales difficult.

While opticians might not necessarily consider themselves as "sales people," there is definitely a big sales component for that role in the practice. Some opticians even earn commission or incorporate sales into their performance goals.

We looked around for some of the most helpful sales tips on the web that we could find to help you think harder about your role as a salesperson, the strategies you use, and how you can increase sales in the optical dispensary.