Practice Management

3 Books That Changed How I Care for Patients & Helped Me Generate $200,000 Last Year

By Vittorio Mena, OD, MS

RecSpecs by Liberty Sports glasses on display in the window of Dr. Mena’s practice. He says the book, “See To Play: The Eyes of Elite Athletes,” by Michael A. Peters, OD, provided great guidance in helping to build a sports vision niche that generated at least $200,000 last year.

April 6, 2022

The books we read can have a huge impact on our thinking about how to serve patients and run our practices. Here are a few books that were transformative for me, including the specific lessons I took away from each book.

“How To Communicate Effectively With Anyone, Anywhere”
by Raul Sanchez & Dan Bullock
Practicing in Northern New Jersey, about 15 minutes from New York City, I see a diverse, global patient population everyday in the office. This diversity of patients requires well-honed communication skills. Operating in a diverse community with wide-ranging needs also requires that I communicate effectively with those outside my practice to generate referrals to my practice. I also found that with such a demanding patient base, it is important for me to learn from other optometrists through networking and the sharing of information.

Two chapters in this book greatly helped me, one on the power of meaningful networking and relationship-building, and the other on connecting with the world: negotiation in the age of collaboration.

This Is What I Learned/Was Reinforced for Me: The only way to build a functional business is with people. People coming through the doors is what creates a business. You could be the best clinician, but if you do not have good bedside manor, or do not know how to build a relationship, that patient may not come back next year.

In a private practice setting like mine, and many of yours, how the doctor conducts themselves, along with the quality of care and services provided, will lead to a patient returning yearly and referring friends and family, or that patient deciding they would prefer another doctor.

Networking creates new opportunities. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics and Yale University, “70 percent of all jobs are found through networking.” By attending major conferences such as Optometry’s Meeting, Academy of Optometry, COVD, NORA, Vision Expo, Vision By Design, International Sports Vision Association, Global Specialty Lens Symposium and SECO, and others, you get to encounter brilliant minds, share ideas and learn about new products on the market.

Collaborating is the heart of business. Applying the communication, networking and collaboration concepts presented in this book can help differentiate your practice from a competitor a few blocks away. Not every practitioner is able to effectively communicate to patients that they are appreciated.

After reading this book, I became more conscious of maintaining eye contact versus talking while my back is turned. Sustained eye contact builds credibility and rapport with patients. I try to remember that they did not have to come through my door in the first place. After the exam I thank them for choosing my practice because when a patient feels appreciated they leave happier.

Patients often tell me I am more friendly, and converse more with them during the eye exam, than their previous eye doctor. This moves many to return the following year–and refer others.

The great thing is giving your patients your undivided attention, being a good listener and responding in a thoughtful manner, doesn’t cost additional money, and delivers profound results.

“The Great Game of Business: The Only Sensible Way To Run A Company”
by Jack Stack, Stephen Baker and Bo Burlingham
This book emphasizes the value of having an open-book management system. The authors contend that to run a business successfully, everyone on the team has to be fully engaged and driving toward a common goal. Stack says it’s important that every employee understand the role of each individual in the organization, and how each person can either accelerate success or cause failure in the business.

This Is What I Learned/Was Reinforced for Me: The book dives into the importance of employees understanding the profit margins of their employer and where the money for their salary comes from. Once employees have this understanding, they understand their purpose in the organization, and how that purpose contributes directly to the business’s profitability. In an eyecare practice that means, for instance, ensuring there are as few glasses remakes as possible.

Stack also shows how you can encourage employee understanding of the practice by turning it into a game. You can do this by having each employee track a practice metric, with employees competing against each other to see who can increase their metric the most.

In my practice, we emphasize the importance of each employee smiling more and lending a hand more often to co-workers without having to be asked–how, in other words, each has an important role to play on the practice team to ensure every patient leaves our office with their expectations exceeded.

“See To Play: The Eyes of Elite Athletes”
By Michael A. Peters, OD
This book highlights the important role played by vision in athletics. Coaches typically know which athlete on their team is the fastest, strongest, jumps the highest or is most intelligent. However, coaches usually don’t know how well an athlete is seeing, and does not have a way of comparing how each player sees relative to how their teammates and competitors see.

This Is What I Learned/Was Reinforced for Me: Comprehensive eye exams give both the athletes and the coach a sense of how well each athlete is seeing. An OD can then provide products and services to improve vision and sports performance. I launched a sports vision practice to provide for these needs.

The author explains that we can condition our eyes with exercises such as eye-hand and eye-body coordination, peripheral awareness, contrast sensitivity, speed of focus, color vision, among other exercises.

The difference between an athlete and an elite athlete is that slight edge they have over their opponent. In sports it is all about split second decision-making. When the eyes and the brain are aligned, and are able to react as quickly as possible, a win can suddenly become possible. An athlete with subpar vision will often be hindered from reaching the next level in their sport.

In addition to sports vision services, the book reinforced the importance for me of services like neuro-rehabilitation that help athletes recover from injuries such as a concussions.

All athletes, regardless of age or level, have room to improve. Honing each visual skill set will get them not only performing well on the playing field, but in the classroom too.

Sports vision also is a strong practice-builder. Discussions with patients about sports-related activities, including ballet, gymnastics, hiking and other sports you might overlook, lead to deeper conversations about eye health and visual needs. Fulfilling those additional needs can help protect patients’ eye health, improve their vision on and off the sports arena, and, ultimately, give them a better quality of life.

The practice has benefited greatly in profitability from our sports vision services. With the use of contact lenses, sunglasses and nutraceutical supplementation especially for sports, this niche within our practice generated at least $200,000 last year.

Vittorio Mena OD, MS, is the sports vision director with Optical Academy. To contact him:menavitt@gmail.com

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