EyeWorld is the official news magazine of the American Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgery.
Issue link: https://digital.eyeworld.org/i/1529000
86 | EYEWORLD | WINTER 2024 P RACTICE MANAGEMENT by William Rabourn Jr. About the author William Rabourn Jr. Managing Principal Medical Consulting Group Springfield, Missouri clinics provide care. Many of those changes required cutting and consolidating personnel, reassigning or dividing duties, and learning to operate with less support. While that may have been effective during the pandemic, many prac- tices have become accustomed to operating in this manner and adopted it as the new normal. The key question is whether your practice is providing the necessary education and support for those seeking care, especially for elective services such as LASIK and lens replacement. While maximizing efficiency is always a good idea, be sure your clinic hasn't cut too much when it comes to patient services. A good way to gauge this is to test your practice with secret shoppers. Have a few peo- ple you trust from outside the practice call and inquire about several different eyecare services. Find out what answers they receive. Did they feel rushed? Were their questions answered completely in a way that was easily understood? Was the person they spoke with knowledgeable, Avoid missed opportunities by prioritizing patient counseling continued on page 88 T here's no doubt the pandemic caused many changes in the way ophthalmic ASCs and private practices provide care. One of the unfortunate side effects is that many clinics have lost dedicated refractive coordinators, or the ones they have are stretched too thin with other duties. The introduction of lens replacement is offering new options for those over 50 that were previously unavailable. Many practices are miss- ing out on opportunities to provide this type of care because there is no longer a dedicated pro- fessional to counsel and answer questions from potential patients. That means lost revenue. A focus on patient services What can be done to ensure your ASC or prac- tice is making the most of every opportunity? The first thing to consider is how your practice currently handles patient counseling. Is it providing the same type of service as before the pandemic? As mentioned earlier, COVID-19 caused many changes in the way ophthalmic Source: iStock.com/PeopleImages