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Staff Mix: Part 2

Protect your ROI with these three staffing strategies

DAVID MILLS, O.D., M.B.A.

A cornerstone of any financial analysis is the measurement of the ROI. Because practices will allocate approximately 18% of gross revenues for non-O.D. staff, it is critical to protect this portion of your business.

In Part 2 of this series, I address a few strategies for proper staff management and training to help ensure a positive ROI.

1 Regular meetings

Regularly scheduled staff meetings provide the perfect vehicle for reviewing office policies and procedures as well as education. All employees should have at least a working knowledge of the tasks and responsibilities of other staff members to greatly reduce the “silo effect” (lack of communication and cross-departmental support).

Topics for educational presentations should be general in nature with the expressed goal of presenting strategies that not only educate but also increase office efficiencies (e.g., streamlining the patient check-in process). Industry vendors provide high-quality education at little or no expense.

2 Specialized staff training

In offices that have specialized staff and paraoptometric assistants, specialized training is required. Traditionally, this occurs via in-office training or during optometric educational meetings. Attendance at these meetings has the additional benefit of group dynamic learning.

Recognizing the need for highly trained technical staff, a number of industry vendors now provide web-based educational programing at little or no cost. The investment cost to your practice is minimal compared with the increased profits generated from greater patient care efficiencies.

3 Outsourcing staff functions

Patient recalls, visit reminders and other notifications via phone are time consuming and inefficient. For practices that have incorporated EHR, the addition of a patient management system (PMS) should be investigated. Not only are these systems efficient, they also can perform other tasks, such has helping manage your social media presence.

For a recent dental appointment, I received three e-mail and two text message reminders. The last text message was received one hour prior to my appointment. This was perhaps annoying to me, but very effective in reducing the number of no-shows. At the very least, if I had responded to the first reminder that I had a schedule conflict, it would have given staff sufficient time to fill the appointment slot. Outsourcing these functions allows your staff additional time to complete other tasks, such as managing accounts receivables that are financially more rewarding.

Depending on your patient volume and the extra services you add, these programs can be a bit pricey. But the cost is usually more than covered by the reduction of no-show appointments. For example, assume your PMS expense is $1,000/month and the average revenue generated for each patient is $250. If by using a PMS three appointment slots per week were now filled that otherwise would have been no-shows, the increase in revenue would be $3,000/month. Your ROI for the product would be 200%! Contact your EHR vendor to learn which practice management software solutions will work seamlessly with you current system.

Smart allocations

Staffing expenses are rising, and the demands on them are increasing. Proper allocations for effective training and management help offset the expense by increasing your net revenue. OM

DR. MILLS PRACTICES AT OCEAN STATE EYE CARE IN WARWICK, R.I., AND HOLDS A M.B.A. FROM PROVIDENCE COLLEGE. E-MAIL HIM AT MILLSD@NECO.EDU, OR SEND COMMENTS TO OPTOMETRICMANAGEMENT@GMAIL.COM.