New year optical-tunities

OK, I'm going to come up with a 2022 goal for the optical. I need ONE and only ONE thing that I can do to serve needs and make MONEY!

Here are some candidates for the ONE thing:

A. More AR for everyone.
B. More computer glasses.
C. Sell top-down for frames (that is, don't begin with "frame allowances" and work up)
D. More sunglasses for everyone.
E. Other?


What do you think would work for me (or you)? I am a moderately higher-end solo private practice that's fully VCP, for all intents and purposes.

Top-down sells, from my time in the car sales game, you always started with the decked out Mercedes and ended with the Yugo, most of the time the Toyota got the sell, lol. We discuss frame allowance after the frame choice. It works well.

Package. Never part out a pair of glasses (or annual supply of contacts). Remember that every high quality lens and frame you dispense are less likely to cause you problems later on. Every annual supply saves you mountains of time dealing with the one boxer CL wearers, and of course minimizes the chance they'll be seeing you for ulcers, CLARE, and GPC. That rarely means going straight to the top, but always design the best that meets the needs of the patient.

At the end of the day, your single biggest choke point is the greedy deep pockets of all the managed care vultures in your practice. If you rely on them to get butts through the door, part of the business model must take in to account the pound of flesh they will ALWAYS take out of your bottom line. Even if every pt gets the best frame and lens for their needs, a pair of suns (plano or Rx), or even an annual supply of the most healthy daily CLs - there is always an upper limit that you will not be able to exceed. Those "altruistic partners" we suffer with make certain of that.

Fire everyone in your office, stop taking insurance and end discounting. Seeing fewer patients means working fewer hours . Enjoy life and make more money!

All good points here. Top down. Lifestyle consultative techniques. All lead to better revenue, even with insurance BS.

One point missed. Do you really know your clientele? Is this the client base that will sustain your model? You can’t sustain a healthy practice without being laser focused on this.

A, B, C. and D are all great. Most people do not have a pair of prescription sunglasses, which is just crazy to me. UV protection is important, and it should be encouraged more during the exam. Patients take what the doctor says to heart and it makes it easier for them to justify the expense when the doctor recommends it. The sale really does start in the exam chair. I used to work with a doctor who would even put "AR recommended" on his scripts. It made selling AR super easy.

I know one thing I wish my doctor would do to help boost our sales - print scripts for everyone who gets a refraction (barring the obvious exceptions like cataract evals, etc). Instead, he prints for patients who had had a significant change or who ask him for a copy of their script. Yeah, the script might be identical to the last one, but that doesn't mean their lenses aren't scratched or crazed, and there has got to be wear and tear on the frame. He means well and I guess wants to save the patient money, but some of them are walking around with ancient frames. If they have a paper script in hand, even knowing it hasn't changed, they are more likely to at least walk in to the optical side of the building and at least browse.

When selling contacts, I tell the patient the price for a year supply and make sure they know that we can ship directly to them for free with a year supply. If they don't want a whole year, they'll ask, but I would rather not give them the out right away. A year supply is better for everyone, and saves staff time in the long run, but I know it's hard, especially with the daily contacts that end up being almost $1000 for a year supply. Always hand out the rebates that the reps bring! It softens the blow when they know they can get some of that $ back.