Practice Management

A national prospective study is being planned to evaluate post-LASIK quality of life outcomes in a clinical setting. The trial is being coordinated by representatives from the FDA, the National Eye Institute (NEI), the American Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgery, and the American Academy of Ophthalmology, and it will be executed in accordance with the rules governing FDA and NEI clinical trials.

Some speculate that the current economic crisis is a result of financial institutions' misplaced optimism and trust in their companies. Ophthalmologists, who run practices, departments, divisions, etc., have to strike the right balance between sharing and recognizing the realities of whatever problems organizations face, and express the confidence that they can be overcome if the right things are done.

Vision Research Center (VRC), an online research site where experts in the ophthalmic community and patients can share their experiences and opinions concerning technology and therapies, has launched, according to a prepared statement.

Alcon Inc. has launched an online educational resource for people who have cataracts, and their caregivers.

Open enrollment for Medicare Part D drug plans began Nov. 15 and will continue through Dec. 31.

In the workplace, employee relations can be improved by giving and receiving positive strokes, having adult-to-adult transactions more often, and getting rid of unproductive competitiveness.

We're to the point that medical care for our children is a discretionary item, less of a priority than digital cable. Blurry vision from a cataract is something that can be dealt with next year or whenever the economy sorts itself out. While it may be impossible to peer into the future, it increasingly appears that accessing medical care may not be the recession-proof priority for Americans that it has been in the past.

Once you get employees to realize that their success or failure ultimately is up to them, the pressure is off you as a manager. The pressure is squarely in the place it needs to be: on the employees. Your only job then becomes augmenting their growth with the tools they need to be the hardest-working technicians you ever will have.

Determining the optimal size for an optical dispensary will allow the practice to obtain the highest return on investment and return on assets. The optimal size can be calculated in one of two ways. The first is to determine the number of dollars each square foot of space can generate. The second method is to calculate the percentage of total practice revenues the dispensary represents. Whichever method is used, remember the general rule for dispensary size: "bigger is better."

Visual merchandising is the art of displaying merchandise to encourage sales. Dispensing ophthalmology practices can create eye-catching displays by following some simple rules. Grouping frames by price point and brand helps to organize options for the customer. Displays can highlight individual brands through repetition, a pyramid design, using odd, rather than even numbers of items, considering the texture of background materials, and more.

At the American Academy of Ophthalmic Executives (AAOE) meeting, Derek A. Preece, MBA, from the BSM Consulting Group, Orem, UT, talked about the importance of understanding exactly what benchmarks are and how to use them effectively during his presentation, "Using benchmarks to improve your practice."

A new incentive is being offered under Medicare for physicians who choose to prescribe electronically, or e-prescribe. At the American Academy of Ophthalmic Executives (AAOE) meeting, a panel of academy representatives and members presented, "Introduction to e-prescribing: Improving the safety and efficiency of medication management."

Ophthalmic practice administrators know that keeping physicians happy is crucial to the practice's overall success. And the best way to do that is by making sure their incomes are continually growing.

Depending on your location, your specialty, and the size of your practice, insurers may actually want to keep you happy, especially if you threaten to walk away from a bad deal. If nothing else, negotiations may reveal that lowball reimbursement for a particular code is nothing more than an inadvertent mistake that most insurers are willing to correct.

Physician groups are adopting tougher collection tactics, largely in response to tough times. What compounds their problem of skimpy third-party reimbursements and rising overhead is having to depend on patients for a bigger portion of their revenue stream-a result of the rising number of uninsured and the growth of high-deductible health plans.

Losing even one patient to another local practice is one too many. To achieve and maintain an edge in the LASIK market, you've got to stay on top of your competitors with research and analysis, and regularly evaluate where you fit in terms of image and consumer perception.

Organized medicine's "victory" resulted in postponing harsh reductions in payments to physicians for Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Updating your Web site-not just once, but frequently-offers an excellent opportunity to boost your practice's business by developing new patient relationships using the Internet.

Ophthalmic practice administrators often find heavy demands on their time and attention and so, like many managers, risk losing sight of what's important in the rest of their lives. But while it isn't possible to avoid the stresses and strains that accompany the job, there are ways administrators can maintain or restore a sense of balance in their lives.

An office manager should be interested in implementing change and improvements within a practice, but that should not be done without an operational assessment.

Reimbursements for ophthalmic practices are steadily declining while costs are going ever higher, leaving practices scrambling as never before to find new sources of revenue and ways of cutting costs. But unless these goals are approached wisely they can lead to stress among both staff and doctor.

Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) is updated regularly, often in response to difficulties reported by practitioners. Practices that fail to keep up with the changes experience negative consequences on revenue and compliance. Staying familiar with changes in CPT can be very useful, and potentially quite rewarding.

Changing demographics in the United States will require ophthalmology practices to adopt strategies to deliver care to large numbers of diabetic and elderly patients. Possible steps could include more effective use of support staff and increasingly efficient practice patterns.

The best practices learn how to hire, train, and retain the best staff, manage patient and staff issues and physician relationships according to Ian Maltzman the administrator for Fromer Eye Centers in New York City. Because Fromer Eye Centers has a very complex organizational structure, including a president, administrator, and a chief operating officer, Maltzman has had to find ways to manage the complex structure.

New administrators at an ophthalmic practice should start by learning every non-medical aspect of the practice, including finances, computer maintenance, patient satisfaction components, and staff requirements and rewards systems.

The typical difficult patient can ruin a perfectly good day at your practice if you let them. By not taking it personally and keeping your cool you can successfully deal with this type of patient without adding stress and frustration for you or the patient.

Practices can increase their efficiency by performing surgery in only one location, having multiple operating rooms (ORs) and an efficient preoperative area available, using anesthesia blocks preoperatively instead of topical anesthesia in the OR, choosing a safe and reliable phaco technique that minimizes surgical time, and hiring well-trained staff members.

It is just as important to create a supportive and friendly atmosphere in a negotiation so that continuous relationships can form, as well as a good reputation. Here are ten Commandments for carrying out a negotiation in the ophthalmology practice.

An ophthalmic practice must create an environment in which employees are engaged with their work and are motivated to perform it well. Such an environment can be achieved by obtaining information about employee strengths, weaknesses, and goals and tying these to the practice goals.

The particulars of partnership agreements often vary depending on the circumstances and culture of a practice, in almost all cases they cover four subjects: practice buy-ins, division of net income, governance issues, and buy-outs. The three elements, which a person is essentially buying, are a practice's tangible assets, accounts receivable, and goodwill.