Advice needed on how to service patients faster in optical

[idoctor]

We currently only have one optician in our optical shop. He services roughly 7-10 jobs/day. He also has to input all the VSP data, interface with frame reps, manage and order all the frames. In short, he has to take care of all the tasks associated with the optical shop. He does not do any billing at all other than VSP. He is very conscientious and spends a lot of time with each patient. I would guess that he averages half an hour or more per patient (although I've seen him spend as much as an hour or more). He tends to bring out multiple frames for them, watch them trying everything on (with advice and comments), exhaustively explains all the options and goes through the finances of their purchase. The only problem is that he is unable to get through his patient load. Patients are left waiting for long periods of time, VSP billing goes unbilled, frames languish for a long time before being marked and placed etc. In short, he appears unable to not have the time to run the optical shop. Unfortunately, our optical shop appears to be busy enough for one optician but I don't think that it's busy enough for two. This is part of the advice that I'm seeking. I was hoping to gather tips for him that allow him to streamline his process and cut down on the amount of time that he spends with every patient. He is a good optician and I don't him stressed out or unhappy; but I think he may need help in managing his time. All advice would be appreciated.

[Judy Canty]

He doesn't need help with time management....he needs help via an assistant. He's running a dispensary, not a factory.

[DragonLensmanWV]

Hire someone to do just the billing to free him up to do his job better. Even a part-timer for billing would help.

[Uilleann]

Hire.

[Striderswife]

He doesn't need help with time management....he needs help via an assistant. He's running a dispensary, not a factory.

I agree. I'm in the same boat in my office, plus I edge lenses in-house. I have some backup from the technicians, but they have their own jobs and are frequently already with a patient and can't leave to come help me.

I don't see my docs justifying another full-time optician, but I'd love it if they'd hire someone to work under me, but have the ability to be pulled away for other office duties when he/she wasn't with a patient (front desk, for example). Every time we hire someone new, it's a technician position, then they cross-train to do other jobs around the office. We have plenty of techs, but that is their priority, not Optical.

So there's my suggestion for you. Hire an optician, but cross-train to help out elsewhere. But make sure that Optical is the priority for that individual.

[idoctor]

Well, obviously I know that hiring another assistant would help. In fact, hiring 2,3 or 4 more would also help. What my question is getting at is the issue of benchmarks. Should a sole optician be able to process 7-10 jobs per day or is this too much? Obviously, the only time that can be salvaged here is the time spent with the patients. Is it normal to spend half an hour to an hour with patients? Or is 5-10 minutes the norm? For example, I've been seeing 30 patients a day for the past 15 years. I have a colleague who is unable to crunch through more than 10 in the same time period because she gets bogged down. The overall quality is care is the same but the output is very different. Is this what's going on in the optical shop or is it truly too much for a sole optician to handle the volume I've just described?

[DragonLensmanWV]

IMHO 5-10 minutes per customer is not enough time to acquire info from the customer, find, fit and measure frames and lenses.And to do billing on top? Kudos to your guy for surviving so long.

[bob_f_aboc]

I think 30 minutes per patient is completely acceptable. It sounds like your optician is very thorough and makes the patients feel comfortable with their purchases.

I have two questions for you:
Is this optician making money for your office? and Would you be OK with your optical sales dropping by 30-40% so your optician can rush through to keep up?

My recommendation would be to hire a part time person to handle the billing and frames, or allow your current optician to stay late each night to finish all of the clerical work and be happy paying the overtime.

[John@OWDC]

idoctor:

There is no one on this Earth that can answer this without watching the optician in action for a few days!

Anyone who provides an "answer" has not really given it any thought at all... and anyone asking the question has not given it much thought either...

Patients?
Computer system?
Optician skills?
Sales good or bad?
Store layout?
Triage protocol?
Staff support?

[Judy Canty]

Actually, my first thought was that the MD probably has an army of staff engaged in assisting him to do his job, but has given little thouht to what it really takes to run a competitive dispensary. The fact that patients are willing to wait for attention from the Optician says volumes about their perception of his skills and personal attention. The Optician needs clerical help to free his time to do his job...perhaps a small army of one.

The fact that the MD is looking here for FREE advice speaks volumes as well.

[Jonathan Becker]

idoctor:

There is no one on this Earth that can answer this without watching the optician in action for a few days!

I agree many factors go into this and only a supervisor could really diagnose any shortcuts he might use to save time. I can tell you that each patient will take up as much time as they need, I've had patients take hours of my time or minutes. It also depends on what kind of store you want to have. When working in a corporate environment they really stressed me to not spend time with patients and my average was probably 10-15 minutes. Now I'm at a private practice and I spend as much time with the patient as necessary about 25-35 minutes on average. I do find that my patients now are much happier not only because they feel they aren't being pushed out the door, but their understanding of what they're getting and the quality of what they get is better when i take more time with one patient.

[tdj]

30 minutes per patient is, IMO, not a whole lot of time. I work at a CHAIN, am usually working by myself, and I normally will spend a MINIMUM of 30 minutes per spectacle purchasing patient. And yeah, it DOES take time away from deserving patients when I have to answer the phone, etc. on top of it, confirm next day appointments, etc, and yes, some non-immediate things (like CL trial orders, insurance, etc) will be left for the next day if I am busy enough. We don't have enough volume to justify another person if we don't have an OD in, but if we do, we have a nearly 100% capture rate and need another person. We are all trained and so we will take alternating patients and answer the phone and do the clerical things while the other person is with their pt.

In your case I would hire a part timer, say a college student 4 hours a day 3 days a week to do the clerical duties only. That way you don't have to pay another optician salary, your patients receive the same excellent level of care, and you're out say 8 bucks an hour for 12 hours a week. NOT a bad trade-off.

[chip anderson]

Another example of where Opticians should be independent and able to hire thier own help.
Have you tried asking your optician what needs to be done?

Chip

[finefocus]

You cannot benchmark everything, particularly the amount of time the customer will take to decide everything. It isn't your Optician who determines this.

Maybe you could try the cattle-call school of retail, where DIY reigns. Pick your frame (hope it fits!), choose the lens parameters from a wall-sized menu, step up for 10 seconds of measurements, and out the door; kinda like the on-line model.

Otherwise, make it possible for your Optician to work with more than one customer at a time. Another table for deciding between those last 2 or 3 frames while the first table has an adjustment or delivery, or another frame selection. My own productivity would be most enhanced by a phone person; walking away from a nearly completed transaction to answer a phone means a loss of momentum, another excuse for stalling by the customer.

By the way, in my practice we have 4 MD's. Two are good at answering patient questions and imparting confidence. Two are good at getting them out of the exam room PDQ, which means that I spend a fair amount of time explaining basic things about vision, surgery, medical diagnoses. I shouldn't be explaining what a cataract is, or what to expect after extraction/IOL, or what 20/50 means, or that elevated pressure and glaucoma aren't necessarily the same thing. Is that why you can whip out so many patients, because you give them the rush and let someone else's benchmarks suffer?

[Happylady]

I agree, you need to talk to your optician and see what he thinks he needs. A second table if there isn't one is a great idea. Sometimes when a person is taking a lot of time I will excuse myself while they are looking and do a dispense or adjustment. He might need to learn to do this, it's okay to leave for a little while.

Really, 5-10 minutes is not a lot of time to sell and fit glasses. Sometimes I can sell and fit a pair of glasses in 10 or 15 minutes from start to finish, but sometimes I take an hour or even more.

Does he answer the phones? Does he have to check the patients out on the computer after the fitting is done?

If you hire someone to help him part time consider a real optician. That way you have coverage for vacations and sick days.