Insights From Our Editors

Market Opportunity: Prescribe Personalized PALs

July 27, 2016

Offering personalized progressives could set you apart from your competitors, findings from Jobson Optical Research’s 2016 Premium Lenses MarketPulse study suggest. Retailers said that 38 percent of their progressive lens sales are personalized, on average. One quarter (25 percent) of the progressive lenses with personalized designs include actual vertex, tilt and wrap measurements. Just under half (46 percent) use the manufacturer’s or lab’s default measurements.

Click HERE to purchase Jobson Optical Research’s 2016 Premium Lenses MarketPulse study.

According to Jobson Optical Research’s 2016 Premium Lenses MarketPulse study, retailers stated that 25 percent of their lens sales were progressive lenses with personalized designs. That raises the obvious question of how much of your lens sales are progressive lenses with personalized designs? More than 25 percent or less than 25 percent?

We think the future of our profession is specialty lenses and specialty services since everything else eventually can be purchased from the internet or from a kiosk. (Throw in a 3-D printer and you get instant delivery.)

One of the key functions of a chief executive officer of a practice is to have a three-year plan for the practice. Let’s consider a few areas that should be included in your three-year plan.

What is your three-year plan …
1) … for moving your practice toward delivering more specialty lenses and specialty services?
2) … to improve the fiscal health of your practice?
3) … to improve the culture of your practice?
4) … to not be excluded from the Affordable Care Act?

You cannot compete with the big box stores on discounts. Simply stated, your pockets are not deep enough to be able to compete in this way effectively. You need to compete on a different level. Specialty products and specialty services are the best way for you to compete effectively against retail and other independents near your practice.

With shrinking margins from third parties at the same time that more and more of your patients are covered by some type of third-party care it becomes even more important for you to make sure your practice is fiscally healthy. What is your three-year plan to increase the net income of your practice? Increasing your net income is a function of managing both your top line (i.e.: gross revenue) and your practice expenses.

The culture of a practice is evident to patients almost immediately. Here’s a helpful article for you to read: 10 Dead Simple Ways to Improve Company Culture. How many of these 10 ways does your practice effectively utilize? Any of them you could do better?

1) Embrace transparency.
2) Recognize and reward valuable contributions.
3) Cultivate strong co-worker relationships.
4) Embrace and inspire employee autonomy.
5) Practice flexibility.
6) Communicate purpose and passion.
7) Promote a team atmosphere.
8) Give and solicit regular feedback.
9) Stay true to your core values.
10) Give culture-building the effort it deserves.

The Affordable Care Act is 1,990 pages long, and its timeline goes until 2020. Here are a few concepts you need to know. In order to participate in delivering medical eyecare under the ACA, at the very least, you need to be at the highest level of Meaningful Use, HIPAA-compliant, and currently coding PQRS. If you do not have a plan to be there within the next couple of years, then you need to plan for your practice to lose its ability to deliver medical eyecare services.

As the chief executive officer of the practice, your job is to make sure the practice is healthy and has a bright future. Positioning your practice to deliver specialty lenses and specialty care is essential. Making sure the practice is fiscally healthy is essential. Making sure the practice culture is appropriate is essential. And making sure the practice is not excluded from the ACA is essential. Each of these areas are equally essential. Ignore any of them and both patient care and the practice will suffer.

References

10 Dead Simple Ways to Improve Company Culture
Obamacare Facts

To Top
Subscribe Today for Free...
And join more than 35,000 optometric colleagues who have made Review of Optometric Business their daily business advisor.