EyeWorld is the official news magazine of the American Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgery.
Issue link: https://digital.eyeworld.org/i/387844
OPHTHALMOLOGY BUSINESS 122 October 2014 by John B. Pinto each year. This is an especially pun- ishing and frustrating era for most medical services, which operate within a largely fixed cost structure. But there is a solution. You can still control your income even in the present environment. Consider a modest solo practice. "Dr. Smith" has $800,000 in collec- tions and $480,000 in expenses, for a 40% profit margin of $320,000, which is just below the average ophthalmologist's income today. Not counting practice management time, Dr. Smith works an average of 36 hours a week, and he takes 6 weeks of vacation and education time off. So he's practicing medicine 46 weeks a year, times 36 hours, which equals a total of 1,656 hours a year. That comes to $193 of net income per hour. Dr. Smith's staff work full time and are available in the office for those 4 hours a week when Dr. Smith is absent. If Dr. Smith spent just an extra 2 hours a week in clin- ic, his overhead would remain essen- tially the same, while his collections would increase $966 per week. That's about a $44,000 annual pay raise. Moreover, his average hourly wage would climb to $208 per hour. As you can see from this, in a world of adverse changes, you still have a lot more control over your take-home pay than you think by working just slightly longer hours, just slightly more intensively, or both. Because of the fixed cost structure of most practices, most of every incremental dollar collected goes straight to the bottom line. There are several ways to accom- plish this. Consider arriving at the clinic a bit earlier. Many surgeons, as their careers drag on, fall into the bad habit of arriving at the office at the last possible moment, 30 minutes or longer after the first patient has been roomed. This conditions staff to move slowly and is especially frustrating for younger working patients who have made an early appointment to allow them to miss the least amount of work. Or consider leaving just a bit later. If you're not a morning per- son, extend clinic hours. You can designate one late day a week, which is a great patient convenience, or add an extra half hour to every clin- ic day. An extra half hour a day adds M ost practices are now in the throes of "the big, slow squeeze." Fees are slowly falling, while staff wages, rents, and equipment leases are slowly rising "Without hard work nothing grows but weeds." –Gordon B. Hinckley "Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did." –Newt Gingrich Are you working as intensely as you can? Model M4 Porous Plate www.ahmedvalve.com 800.832.5327 Visit us at booth #340 Unlike Any Other!