MBA Intelligence

November 30, 2011

Bi-weekly information and advice to manage optometric practices
from the Management & Business Academy™ (MBA)

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Ziegler

Sticky Situations

Dr. Dave Zeigler

A patient says...

“I'm not going to buy a year of contact lenses from you like last year. I sent in that rebate and never got anything from the manufacturer."

What do you do when something happens, and the problem is with a system outside of your control?

Rebates are interesting items. The contact lens manufacturers tell us that only a small percentage of patients ever redeem them. That seems to fly in the face of our perceptions of how cost-conscious patients appear when we talk with them, especially when some of these rebates can be worth $100.

Regardless, rebates help us make the sale of a year's supply of contact lenses by taking the patient out of the market for a year. It saves the office money and time by having to process patient orders less frequently over the year, and it saves the patient money if they actually fulfill the rebate.

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Dr. Dave Ziegler, who lectures and publishes regularly, is a member of the MBA Faculty.

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Super Service Pearls


Listen Before You Respond or Recommend

Most people aren't proficient listeners. In part, that's because we're all naturally more interested in ourselves and what's important to us, than we are in other peoples' problems. So we tune out. Poor listening is also common because our brains can interpret speech far faster than words are spoken. So our brains drift off or start framing a response before the other person is finished speaking.

Service providers hear customers say the same things over and over again during the day. So it's natural for providers to instantly categorize a customer's remarks, fill in the blanks, and leap to conclusions about what a customer is trying to say—without paying full attention to what he or she is really saying.

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New On
MBA-ce.com...

 

MBA Webinar on Benchmarking Can Be
Viewed & Heard

More than 300 optometrists participated in the MBA Webinar “What You Measure Improves” on November 15, and since then many more have accessed the webinar on the MBA web site. This one-hour program includes a half-hour presentation (Power Point and audio) by Mark Wright, OD, FCOVD, of the MBA faculty. Dr. Wright stresses the importance and how-to of benchmarking key metrics in an optometric practice, followed by a half-hour of Q & A from participants.

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"Hiring Top Talent" with Daniel Abramson

Daniel Abramson

Daniel Abramson, who lectures on hiring techniques at the MBA program "Building a World Class Staff," advises practice owners to evaluate job applicants for two different types of skills: technical skills (the "can do"), and soft skills (the "will do").

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How Does Your Practice Compare?

How Does Your Practice Compare?

Few Independent OD Practices Develop Annual Marketing Plans

Just 18 percent of established independent optometric practices develop an annual marketing plan and calendar, and 26 percent of new practices do so. Most practices develop a mission statement, but only about half of those ever make reference to it in staff meetings. While most practices capture patients' email addresses, few use email as a primary communications tool. Most practices have a web site, but only one-third of established practices update their site quarterly or more often. One-third of established practices pre-appoint patients, and 24 percent conduct ongoing patient satisfaction surveys.

 

Market Facts

Market Facts

OD Patient Satisfaction at Upper End of Medical Specialties

Each year, the medical consulting firm Press Ganey interviews more than 2.7 million patients of 25 medical specialties, including optometry, to measure patient satisfaction with their experiences in doctors' offices. Among the patients of the 25 specialties measured, optometric patients rank fifth overall satisfaction. Ophthalmology ranks 15th in overall patient satisfaction among medical specialties.

Patients of optometrists also rate the ease of scheduling appointments with their optometrists fifth among medical specialties. Ophthalmologists rank ninth. OD patients reported an average of 17 minutes waiting time to see the doctor after arriving at the office — best performance among the 25 specialties. Average wait to see an ophthalmologist was 28 minutes — second worst among the specialties.

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Spotlight on...

Best Practices of Contact Lens Management

Best Practices of Spectacle Lens Management

This table shows the typical cost-of-goods savings that can be achieved from stocking soft contact lenses, as well as estimates of the transaction cost savings of dispensing lenses from inventory.

MBA Updates


Carole Burns, OD


Upcoming MBA Seminars:

A full slate of MBA seminars to be held in 2012 will be posted on MBA-ce.com soon. MBA seminars will be held at both Vision Expo East and Vision Expo West, as well as at state and regional meetings.

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Neil

Ask Neil

Dr. Neil Gailmard

A doctor asks...

"Do you recommend incentive bonuses for staff?"

I don't think incentive bonuses are all they're cracked up to be. The bonus amounts paid in most practices are so low that they usually do neither harm nor good. I have found that a practice can certainly achieve very high sales levels and excellent management without bonus programs. It requires a good organizational culture and supervision by an office manager, but staff members can simply take pride in doing their job well.

The problem with bonus programs is that the science behind human motivation is fairly complex, and incentives don't always work as intended. It can be difficult for the typical optometric practice to design and administer the perfect program. Under the best circumstances, the incentive will cause staff to achieve pre-determined goals on a regular basis.

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Dr. Neil Gailmard, who is widely known for his practice management advice, is a member of the MBA faculty.

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MBA Seminars Highlight a Banner Year for MBA


Several recent MBA seminars concluded a busy year in which MBA programs were held all across the United States and Canada. The schedule for MBA events in 2012 will be announced soon and will be listed in MBA-ce.com.

MBA II: Disney Principles of Customer Service

Disney

Thirty optometrists gathered in Orlando, Florida, on November 8-9 to attend "D'Think Your Way to Success: Disney's Approach to Quality Service." This 1.5 day symposium included lectures by Disney Institute personnel on delivering world-class customer service, as well as field trips to Disney theme parks. Dave Ziegler, OD, of the MBA faculty, delivered a lecture that connects the highly acclaimed Disney service principles to an optometric practice. Participants also received teaching modules to pass along these Disney principles to their staff. A PDF version of this is available at MBA-ce.com.

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About the MBA

The Management & Business Academy™ (MBA) is a professional education program, sponsored by Alcon and Essilor, dedicated to assisting independent optometrists to improve business management processes. The MBA conducts live seminars, conducts on-going research to establish national optometric practice performance metrics, publishes MBA Insights (a quarterly practice management journal) and maintains www.mba-ce.com (a premier practice website with building resources).

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Copyright © 2011 Management & Business Academy™ (MBA). All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.