VISIONOMICS

Through An Owner’s Eye

Managing and tracking the bottom line for peak profitability

Visionomics^® is a series of COPE- and ABO-approved business-building courses at Vision Expo East focusing on strategies for assessing and maximizing practice profitability. In this series, Eyecare Business—the official trade media partner for Visionomics—features some of the program’s speakers. This month, Rebecca Johnson, COT, CPOT, COE, discusses her course “Seeing Your Practice With an Owner’s Eye” (Sunday, March 22, 8:30-9:30 a.m.). Johnson is the executive director of business services for Gateway Professional Network. GPN is focused on creating new tools and strategies to support independent optometry (gatewaypn.com).

Rebecca Johnson, COT, CPOT, COE

What role do you play in the financial success of your practice? You have one, whether you are the O.D., owner, or practice manager. All positions require a focus on the bottom line as well as patient service.

To increase your profitability, you must have a handle on how your numbers stack up against the industry metrics. The best way to determine that is to follow your financial reports. There are some areas you should be looking at to chart your daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly performance.

GROSS REVENUE PER EXAM. Divide your gross receipts by the number of exams you provide in any time frame. Not falling where you want to on the metrics (see sidebar)? Ask yourself: Is your pricing where it should be, or are you short-changing yourself? Are you getting all you can from ancillary testing? Are you maximizing second-pair sales and your insurance benefits?

CAPTURE RATE. Divide the total number of refractions by the number of patients who purchased eyewear in any time frame. Include lenses-only purchases as well as complete pair sales, but keep these two numbers separate. Don’t like your capture rate number? Look at the following areas as places to improve performance.

Staff training. Are you giving them what they need to succeed?

How can the optical hand-off be more effective?

Does your frame selection fit your patient demographic?

MULTIPLE SALES. Multiple-pair sales have an astounding effect on your revenue. But wanting them and getting them are two different things. To improve this figure, start with staff training. Are you giving them scripts and role-playing opportunities so they know what to do? Does your optical hand-off include suggestions for sunwear, computer lenses, etc.? Are you carrying complete collections, or do your frame boards look more like a thrift store?

FRAME INVENTORY. Vital to capture rates and multiple sales is your frame inventory. Analyze your boards and frame sales reports to look for hidden money. Keep the best sellers available, and put together a strategy to clear out the frames with low turnover. Nurturing supportive relationships with frame vendors is key to helping with all of this.

These are just a few of the areas in which measuring performance is vital to increasing your bottom line. Though you may not like it as much as finding solutions for patients’ visual needs, it is just as important to the success of your business.

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