BREAK DOWN THE NUMBERS FOR MANAGED VISION CARE PLANS

MANAGED CARE vision plans (MVCP) comprise 50% to 60% of my corporate practice. Many corporate settings, such as Luxottica and Visionworks, own their own managed care companies, Eyemed and Davis Vision, respectively. It is stated within a corporate optometrist’s contract to accept these plans, usually at a favorable rate.

Opportunities abound to see more patients and generate income with MVCPs if you are able to evaluate business metrics and schedule effectively. Among the pros to MVCPs is access to many policy holders. Often, plan websites recommend providers in the area and enable scheduling appointments.

Here are ways to navigate MVCP obstacles and generate more revenue and net profit while serving your patients.

1 CALCULATE YOUR CHAIR COST

Chair cost provides you with an estimate of expenses per exam, which you may then compare to reimbursement fees to gauge profitability.

Chair Cost = Costs/Number of patient encounters.

The national average for chair cost is about $99. If I want to decrease chair cost, to increase profitability, I manipulate either of these variables: “fixed costs” or “revenue-generating exams.”

2 EVALUATE FIXED COSTS

Rent varies with each corporate setting and brand. The range can be as little as $100 a month to a percentage of gross (based on state laws). But, rent is negotiable! Don’t miss an opportunity to change this fixed cost to increase net profit. Use your practice metrics as a negotiating tool. For example, you may want to illustrate your profitability specific to the MVCP to negotiate a lower rent.

3 ANALYZE NUMBER OF EXAMS

Seeing more patients per hour will help increase revenue. To evaluate, first identify, on average, how many patient encounters you have per hour. Then, take your average revenue per encounter and subtract from it your chair costs. Multiply this number by the number of encounters per hour to find your profit per hour. The result should be a positive number. If it is “0” or a negative number, consider increasing the number of patient encounters per hour. In your office, this could mean cross-training employees so that patients may be pretested more efficiently. (For more tips, see April’s “Manage Your Schedule.”)

4 PRACTICE MEDICAL EYE CARE

Invest in equipment for your practice to provide quality care for your patients that requires billing medically. Educate patients on what their MVCPs cover vs. their medical insurance plans. In addition, explain to them why you are billing medical or why a follow-up visit, such as for glaucoma testing or dry eye disease, will be needed. Set the expectation in your practice, so you, not the patient, dictate the office policies on insurance.

BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE

Many opportunities exist for growth within your practice. Understand how to approach MVCPs from a business perspective to help determine effective practice management. OM

DR. SAMPALIS, is the owner of Sampalis Eyecare in Warwick R.I. and affiliated with Sears Optical. Dr Sampalis is a practice management consultant, the founder of Corporate Optometry on Facebook and founder of corporateoptometrycareers.com and corporateoptometry.com . She can be reached at msampalis@hotmail.com.