When it comes to running a practice, it can feel like Practice Management and Patient Care are often at odds. They can seem like they require different executions, sometimes totally opposite. However, Laurie Sorrenson, OD, FAAO, shared her thoughts in a recent presentation with EyePromise® Scientific Advisory Board member Mick Kling, OD, called “the Business of Optometry." This lecture, which was referred to in an article for Review of Optometric Business, focused on merging these two concepts to build a loyal patient base through “The Effortless Experience.”

What’s “The Effortless Experience”?

Dr. Sorrenson recommends this book by Matthew Dixon, Nick Toman, and Rick DeLisi because it reviews a study that indicates most customer interactions lead to dissatisfaction vs. loyalty. This highlights the importance of creating a seamless patient journey throughout the practice, limiting any pain points or areas of friction and promoting “a business that’s easy to do business with.”

However, it’s important to note that the “WOW” experience can be expensive to create and, sometimes, still creates tension throughout the patient experience. Dr. Sorrenson recommends reviewing your practice flow and evaluating where to implement the following actions.

Eliminate

Review the typical patient journey with a critical eye. What absolutely needs to be there? What can be removed? Are you asking redundant questions? Could your pre-appointment paperwork be completed prior to their arrival? Use this time to truly understand where your current process can be paired down. Asking staff members for suggestions can also help identify areas for improvement.

Simplify

Have you heard of the phrase “analysis paralysis”? It’s a term used when a person has too many options and it causes them to feel overwhelmed and unable to make a decision. You can help patients from feeling like this by reducing the number of frame, lens, and contact options in your showroom. You can also help by “prescribing” vs. “recommending.” Patients look to you for your expertise, so making a firm prescription can help relieve analysis paralysis.

Automate

Automation makes life easier for both your patients and your staff. Look for places that could be improved with automation, like appointment reminders, patient follow-up, review requests, or glasses/contact lens arrivals.

Elevate

After streamlining your day-to-day operations, you can look for ways to elevate the overall patient experience. A good way to do this is by delegating tasks to staff members, freeing up your time to create a more personalized visit with the patient. This also helps staff members feel empowered, creating a more invested and focused team. Having a team that’s focused on the same goals as you can help create a better patient journey.

Offer Personalized Nutrition

Offering eye health nutraceuticals can help elevate and differentiate your practice. However, when it comes to prescribing nutritional intervention, it’s critical to personalize the recommendation to the patient’s needs and lifestyle. EyePromise® offers the most comprehensive line of ocular nutraceuticals covering a range of needs, including macular support, occasional dry eye, support for patients with blood sugar control issues, screen time, and visual performance. This variety allows you to prescribe the EyePromise product that best fits your patients’ needs, creating a more personal and elevated experience.

EyePromise also offers the Auto Refill Program (ARP), a subscription program that automates the fulfillment of the nutraceutical prescription. This program can help create a seamless experience in a few different ways.

1. Personalized Practice Checkout — You get a personalized e-commerce page created by EyePromise to enroll patients into the ARP. This site gets set up on your front desk or checkout computer, so it’s an easy addition to the checkout process, which takes about 3 minutes.
2. Automatic Shipments — The ARP doesn’t require any in-practice inventory. You prescribe a product, the patient gets enrolled, and EyePromise takes care of the rest. We ship the patient's product to whatever address they prefer, and automatic shipments are sent every 3 months, arriving just when the patient is about to run out.
3. Automated Education — EyePromise also continues to educate patients on nutrition specific for eye health as well as their EyePromise prescription. These automatic emails are sent the moment after patients are enrolled in the ARP and continue over the course of their first shipment (3 months).
4. Hands-Off Support — EyePromise handles shipping, handling, returns, and even questions from this point on. Our world-class Customer Support team is live Monday-Friday, 8am to 5pm central time to answer calls, emails, and chats. But you and your team also have access to this expert team, as well as a local EyePromise Regional Account Manager to help implement the program in your practice without a hitch.

Learn more about partnering with EyePromise through the new Zea Performance System.

Balancing practice management and patient care can be one of the most difficult yet important exercises in eye care, but these 4 steps can help get you on the right path.