For many eye care professionals, patient care is the “easy” part of their day-to-day. The difficult parts involve the business side of providing healthcare, including managing both revenue and spending. Most practices tend to focus on making money, but identifying areas where spending can be reduced is critical for success. Diana Canto-Sims, OD, shared her tips for reducing costs within a practice in an article for Review of Optometric Business.

Move to Digital Where Possible

Dr. Canto-Sims’s first suggestion is to reduce the amount of paper used in the practice. For example, patient recall postcards can add up with printing and postage costs. Moving annual appointment reminders and patient recall to a digital format, either text message or email, can help reduce overall spending. Additionally, updating pre-appointment paperwork to be completed virtually can save both paper and time, allowing patients to complete it before coming to the practice.

Vendor-Sponsored Birthday Lunches

Many offices celebrate staff birthdays and work anniversaries throughout the year, and it’sa great way to help your staff feel recognized and appreciated. However, these kinds of festivities can add up quickly. Dr. Canto-Sims suggests asking different industry reps if they’d like to sponsor a month of birthdays/anniversaries. Then, it’s their prerogative to supply lunch/dessert/gifts/etc. for staff members commemorating something special that month.

Evaluate Your Reoccurring Costs

There are many different products and services that go into running a successful optometric practice. While these reoccurring expenses tend to increase over the years, it’s important to regularly review the pricing. If you have a service/product that seems like it costs too much, you can politely ask if there’s any type of discount the company could offer you, especially if you’ve been using them for a while. This can help you save on those practice necessities, and if they can’t reduce your costs, perhaps it’s time to do some shopping.

Get an Auto-Delivery Service for Nutraceuticals

Eye health and nutrition are intricately connected, so many forward-thinking eye care providers prescribe eye health nutraceuticals for their patients. However, keeping inventory can be expensive, especially if you’re not selling the product fast enough or you don’t have a good place to store it (i.e., dark, temperature-controlled room) and it goes bad.

Choosing a nutritional partner that offers home delivery for patients not only removes the need for inventory, but it also simplifies the prescription process for you, your staff, and your patients. Additionally, it can also help increase patient compliance when it comes to your nutritional prescription.

EyePromise® Auto Refill Program

EyePromise, the #1 eye health and nutrition partner, has developed a system to help reduce the need for inventory. The EyePromise Auto Refill Program (ARP) is the #1 compliance program in the industry and delivers your prescribed EyePromise nutraceuticals directly to your patients’ homes automatically based on when they need them. Other benefits include:

• Savings on every monthly supply
• Free shipping
• Custom e-commerce page created and maintained by EyePromise
• Fast, easy enrollment process
• Earn a signup bonus for each patient enrolled
• Still get credited (and paid) for every order shipped

Learn more about the Auto Refill Program.

It’s easy to focus on the things that earn your practice money, but it’s equally important to review the items that cost your practice money. These suggestions offer a great place to start that evaluation, including a nutritional partner that removes the need for carrying product in-practice. Interested in becoming an EyePromise partner? Sign up for a free consultation!