Eyeworld

71 OPHTHALMOLOGY BUSINESS January 2018 digital.ophthalmologybusiness.org 2. Get input from your closest op- tometric colleagues. Take them to lunch or dinner, and lead off with, "You know we've always been grateful for your support of our practice. Through the years we've taken care of hundreds of patients together. We wish we were as close to everyone in town as we are to you. With our expanded facilities and new partner on board, we finally have the capacity to accept more patients. We're making it a core goal this year to reconnect with old friends like you and to make new friends to work with. I'd appreciate your help brain- storming with me on how we can do that." 3. Inventory the optometrists in your community. Start a database showing name, age, location, contact information, practice type, any subspecialty interests, and their current level of referral support. Write down everything you know—family stats, hobbies, practice aspirations. 4. Develop specific, written goals, which might read, "We current- ly receive an average of 23 new optometric referrals per month, or 15% of our new patients. We would like this to increase to 45 or more OD referrals per month within 1 year." 5. Decide who in your practice "owns" outreach and optometric referral development. The logical choices are individual MD owners and associates, an optometrist who helps with peer to peer out- reach, beyond their clinical duties, the practice administrator, or a dedicated marketing staffer. 6. Put continuing education at the center of your support for optom- etrists in your community. This can take many different forms, depending on your goals and your comfort level. The most asser- tive surgeons host one or more continuing education events each year. These may include hours of accredited didactic lecturing and wet labs, guest speakers, and be supported by vendors. Less ambitious surgeons may find it more comfortable to educate on a smaller scale. This can include small group or one-on-one meals to discuss a recent interesting case, staff "lunch and learns," or inviting optometrists in to observe clinic or surgery. 7. Augment your in-person educa- tion with some form of regular, non-self serving bulletin. This can be sending out a monthly emailed or snail-mailed interesting case, highlighting how you and a local optometrist shared the care of a patient, a blog post on your web- site, or blast emails abstracting clinical pearls. 8. Outreach to OD offices—like the detailing work performed by drug companies—is a central feature of most serious outreach programs. Though time consuming, there is no better way to jumpstart new optometric relationships or rekin- dle relations that have gone cold. An increasing number of practices are using professional sales staff. These staff are often highly paid and held to the same level of professionalism and productivity that industry applies. More likely in your own practice, it will be left to each surgeon to pursue his or her own relationships in the community. Formal time each week should be set aside for this, and contact reports should be filed centrally so that every pro- vider and manager in the prac- tice knows what's up with every optometrist in town. Ideally, in a multi-surgeon practice, the opto- metric community will be divided up fairly so that every doctor has his or her own OD cohort to orbit. 9. Make sure your outreach is multi-lateral, which is to say that not only do you or your outreach representative call on selected ODs, but your administrator develops a relationship with the office manager of important opto- metric clinics. Your billing staff is on friendly terms with the billing staff of optometric practices you work closely with, and so on. 10. Be scrupulous in returning patients to their referring optom- etrist. Have a system in place to flag referred patients prominently, assuring that patients are only provided care they were referred in for, then sent back to their primary eyecare provider. Some- times patients will refuse to return to their referring optometrist. In such cases, it's appropriate for the MD or a senior staff member to reach out directly to the referring OD and explain the situation. 11. Make sure that returning pa- tients have a good report on your practice. Upon discharge, make an extra effort to please the patient and plant the seed for a positive report. This can be as simple as the discharging ophthalmologist saying, "I'm so glad we were able to help with your lid surgery. We have the highest respect for your optometrist Dr. Jones, and when- ever she sends us patients they're treated like VIPs in our office. If there is anything else I can do for you today, please let me know. It would mean a lot to me if you would tell Dr. Jones how much we've enjoyed sharing you as a patient." 12. Ongoing optometrist satisfaction monitoring is essential. Don't as- sume that an optometrist's steady referral is a signal that all is well. Conduct regular phone, in-per- son, or written surveys to learn what you could do more of, less of, or differently. Apply such ef- forts in a manner proportionate to each OD practice's level of support to your practice. High-referring ODs should be orbited especially closely. When you discover you're guilty of a service error or per- ceived slight, rush to recover and return to the referring practice's good graces. EW Mr. Pinto is president of J. Pinto & Associates Inc., an ophthalmic practice management consulting firm in San Diego. His latest ASCRS•ASOA book, Simple: The Inner Game of Ophthalmic Practice Success, is now available at www.asoa.org. He can be contacted at pintoinc@ aol.com or 619-223-2233. Ms. Wohl is president of C. Wohl & Associates Inc., a practice management con- sulting firm. She earned her Masters of Health Services Administration degree at George Wash- ington University and has 30 years of hospital and physician practice management expertise. She can be contacted at czwohl@gmail.com or 609-410-2932. About the authors " Whether your relationships involve formal comanagement of a referred patient's surgical care or the complete transfer of care from optometrist to ophthalmologist, getting on well with your optometrist colleagues is a critical feature of most thriving practices. "

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